Speaking Engagements

Report Back: A Wise & Discerning Heart Conference

Michelle Lesley

Ready to schedule your 2027 women’s event? I’d love to come share with the ladies of your church or organization.
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Amy Spreeman and I had such a wonderful time teaching and fellowshipping with the ladies of Green Bay, Wisconsin and the surrounding area at the A Wise and Discerning women’s conference hosted by Bethel Baptist Church.

If I have to be up before dawn to catch a flight,
I’m grateful for the blessing of seeing the sunrise from the sky.

Random, but I saw this in the Appleton airport, and I thought it was funny.

Since this conference was so close to Amy’s house, I stayed with her, and we made a long weekend of it. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to spend some time with my precious sister and friend (not to mention her awesome husband, Bob, who was so kind to welcome me into their home).

The day after I arrived, Amy showed me around Appleton and Seymour, Wisconsin. First we checked out the History Museum at the Castle, which houses exhibits on prehistoric Wisconsin (aka: evolution and dinosaurs), the history of the Appleton, and Harry Houdini, one of Appleton’s most famous residents.

When Amy told me Harry Houdini was from Appleton, I’ll be honest — I nerded out a little. When I was in about the third or fourth grade, one of my favorite books was a biography of the iconic magician and escape artist. I even wrote a book report on it. I probably drove Amy crazy telling her facts I could still recall about his life, death, and amazing escapes.

(For instance: Many people think Harry Houdini died during a failed underwater escape, but this is actually not true. Houdini had to build up his abdominal muscles to perform his escapes. You could say he had the original “abs of steel”! He frequently challenged fans to punch him in the stomach as hard as they could. One day, a man asked if he could take Houdini up on this challenge. Houdini agreed, but before he had a chance to tighten his abs to take the hit, the man punched him. Houdini’s appendix burst, and he died of sepsis shortly after.

Are y’all amazed that I still know this, or what?😀)

Something I didn’t know that impressed me about Houdini is that he had a passion for exposing spiritists of the early 20th century who preyed on the grief-stricken. Many had lost family and friends in World War I, the Spanish Flu epidemic, and other tragedies, and (sinfully) wanted to contact their loved ones who had “crossed over”. It seems, at that time, there was a medium or psychic around every corner just waiting to separate the vulnerable from their money. Houdini made it his mission to put a stop to this. He even helped the government convict some of them of fraud.

  • Photo courtesy of History Museum at the Castle
  • Feeding a Christian to the lions😀
  • This full body straitjacket -not the white, waist length type used today- is what Houdini used in his escapes.

We walked through the prehistoric Wisconsin exhibit audibly (well, if anyone else had been in there, anyway) correcting the placards touting evolution, and stopping briefly to play with the sand box contour map, where we stuck all the dinosaurs’ heads in the sand – which we felt struck an ironic and symbolic blow for biblical Creation.😂

The history of Appleton captured my interest as well, particularly a small COVID exhibit. It was almost spooky to think back on that recent period of world history and see it put in its proper place — behind glass in a museum — to remind us never to return to those dark days.

  • The relief map is actually a light image projected onto a sandbox. The contours change as you move the sand around.
  • Anyone who believes the fairytale of evolution, like these dinosaurs, has his head in the sand. God created the world just like He tells us in Genesis 1-2.
  • Harry Houdini (center) isn’t the only famous Appletonian. There’s also (clockwise from bottom right corner): Edna Ferber, Willem Dafoe, Greta Van Susteren, Cory Chisel, Joseph McCarthy, and Rocky Bleier.

To round out our little tour, we drove by (it was raining) the “Hamburger Charlie” monument. Did you know the hamburger was invented by Charles Nagreen in Seymour, Wisconsin?

In 1855, 15 year old Charlie wanted to sell his homemade meatballs at the fair. But, as you might imagine, it’s kind of hard to eat meatballs while you’re walking around at the fair. So Charlie came up with a great idea. He mashed his meatballs flat (so I guess he invented the smashburger, too!), put them between two slices of bread, and the hamburger was born!

The “Charlie Grill” (across the street from the monument) where the world’s largest hamburger was grilled at Seymour’s annual Burger Fest in 2001.

Friday and Saturday, we were warmly welcomed by the gracious and kind ladies and pastors of the lovely Bethel Baptist Church.

The ladies found beautiful and handy gift bags waiting for them upon their arrival.

(Sorry, but we do not have conference
video/audio available to share for this event.)

Friday night, Amy and I taught our first tandem session, Foundations of Discernment. We have to be grounded in the Word of God and faithful to the Bride of Christ if we’re to have any hope of being discerning.

We started each session with a lovely time of worship in song.

Many thanks to our delightful hostess and emcee, Brenda!

Saturday, we kicked things off with our second tandem session, What the Bible Teaches About Discernment. Discernment is based on and governed by Scripture, so it’s important that we understand exactly what Scripture teaches about discernment.

Amy’s solo session, Discerning 7 Lies Christians Believe, was next because we not only need to be well versed in Scripture, we also need to learn how the world and false teachers are twisting Scripture so we can avoid being deceived and warn others not to be deceived.

Lunch time! The ladies feasted on delicious chicken salad croissants at their charmingly dressed tables.

Lunch was also a great time to visit the book table and mingle. Our hosts and some of the attendees had some very thoughtful gifts for us.

After lunch was my solo session, Discernment 101. We looked at several tell-tale signs that someone is a false teacher and discussed practical ways to vet teachers and their materials.

We finished the day out with a whirlwind Q&A session, helping the ladies apply what they had learned, and supplying information we hadn’t been able to cover in our teaching sessions.

Pictures with the ladies is always a fun time!

We had a phenomenal weekend with a wonderful bunch of ladies! Thanks so much to Pastor Keith and his wife Nancy, who worked so hard for over a year putting this conference together, making it an event that focused on sound doctrine for the good of the ladies of their church as well as the many other attendees. And thank you to the other pastors, ladies and men who helped and made us feel so loved and taken care of.

After the conference was over, Amy and I enjoyed just hanging out at her house and around town for a couple of days. She showed me her chickens and her incredible garden, and even made an apple cobbler from apples she picked while we were walking the grounds. We had the joy of worshiping together Sunday morning, and watched the Packers game Sunday night.

  • These are some of the chickens you’ve heard Amy talk about on the podcast.
  • The delicious apples Amy picked and made into a cobbler.
  • In honor of Amy’s husband, Bob, we had to watch.
  • Amy is demented and likes pickles with peanut butter. She not only canned these pickles herself (and they were AWESOME), she also made this peanut butter (equally awesome!). She wanted me to try it, and I did, because that’s how much I love and trust her. It was gross.

All too soon, it was Monday, and time for me to go home. It was such an incredible time of worship and fellowship I hated for it to end.

If your church or organization is ever in need of a speaker for a women’s event, I’d love to come share with your ladies as well. Click here for more information, or to find an upcoming event near you!

Photo Credits

All photos by Michelle Lesley, Amy Spreeman, and other conference attendees.

Politics

The Election Collection

Michelle Lesley

Election day is once again upon us. As Christians we trust in God’s sovereignty to remove and establish kings and other governmental leaders, and we know that everyone in every position of authority is only there because God put him or her in that position.

So why vote, if God is just going to establish whichever leaders He’s going to establish anyway?

First, because God works through means. God works through our votes to put rulers in place just like He works through our faithfulness to share the gospel to save people, just like He works through our prayers to carry out His will in whatever situation we’re praying about. We do the good work of voting in alignment with God’s Word, and we trust God to carry out His perfect will in establishing our leaders.

Second, somewhat similarly to the way God has blessed us with the opportunity to cooperate with Him in His plan for saving people by our action of sharing the gospel, God has blessed us with the opportunity to cooperate with Him in His plan for our government by our action of voting. When God gives us the blessing of participating in His plans, why would we turn down that opportunity?

Third, voting is an opportunity for sanctification. In order to be informed and godly voters, we have to understand what the issues are and what God’s Word has to say about them. Studying and applying God’s Word to real life issues in order to steward our vote in a godly way is a sanctification “homework assignment,” that helps us grow in our knowledge of the Word and our obedience to Christ.

Fourth, the freedom to vote is a privilege many of our forefathers fought and died for. We honor their legacy and sacrifice by voting.

Fifth, when Christians vote in alignment with God’s Word, it is a testimony to the candidates and to our fellow citizens. We proclaim to them what the Bible says, that Christians support what the Bible says, and that they need to submit to what the Bible says.

So, how do we become biblically informed voters who vote in alignment with Scripture? I’ve gathered all of my resources on voting, elections, and political issues below to help you out! (Be sure to check out the show notes of the podcast episodes linked below for even more resources!)

General Principles of Christian Voting

The Mailbag: How Should Christians Vote?

A patriotic Gospel? Putting politics in perspective

Election 2020 – How Can Christians Vote Biblically?

Elections and the Freedom to Choose

Christian Women and Voting

The Mailbag: Potpourri
(Vote with my liberal husband?…)

Should Women Vote?

Voting for Non-Christians

The Mormon Moment:
Can Christians Biblically Vote for a Mormon?

Seven Thoughts on Voting for
the Lesser of Two Evils

Praying for Our Elected Leaders

First of all, then, I exhort that petitions and prayers, requests and thanksgivings, be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.
1 Timothy 2:1-4

A Prayer for the President

7 Ways to Pray During the Trump Administration

Encouragement

Encouragement for Election Day

John MacArthur at the
2016 Western Conservative Summit

Holidays (Other), Movies, Reformation Day

Movie Time: Heroes of the Reformation

Michelle Lesley

Reformation Day is Saturday, October 31.

Saturday is Reformation Day! Here are some great movies to show at your Reformation Day party or church fellowship. Or, just snuggle up on the couch and enjoy!

Get in the spirit with the wonderful Ligonier documentary, Luther: The Life and Legacy of the German Reformer.

Next up, here’s 1953’s Martin Luther.

And for the young, and young at heart, check out the stories of these Reformers from The Torchlighters: Heroes of the Faith. (Watch the whole Torchlighters series here!)

The William Tyndale Story

The Martin Luther Story

Speaking Engagements

Upcoming Events: Ladies, You’re Invited!

Michelle Lesley

Looking for a super, doctrinally sound women’s event to attend? Let me tell you about my final event for 2026.

Can’t make it? I go where I’m invited! There’s still plenty of time (and plenty of space available on my calendar) to plan an event for 2027! Find out how your church or organization can set up an event at my Speaking Engagements page. I’ve even got lots of tips, tricks, and helpful hints for you on everything from budgeting to promoting your event!

Canada

I’m so excited to be speaking at my first event in Canada! Ladies, bundle up and come join me November 6-7 at The Beauty of Holiness women’s conference at Westminster Chapel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This event is open to women in the surrounding areas, but registration is required. Get all the details and find out how to register at the conference website.

Conference sessions include:

Heroines of Holiness

Practical Holiness

Hooked on a Feeling

Q&A

We are working on adding more events to my calendar, and we’d love to add yours! Click on over to my Speaking Engagements page for all the info. And if you’d like for both Amy Spreeman and me to speak, click here!

Never planned an event, and you’re a little nervous about all the details? No need to reinvent the wheel! Grab some great ideas from previous events I’ve spoken at. And check out my article Women’s Events on a Shoestring Budget and Other Practical Tips for all the “how to’s”!

To keep an eye out for an event near you,
or to schedule me for your own event, check out my
calendar of events and booking information on my
Speaking Engagements page.

Hope to see you soon!

Holidays (Other), Mailbag

The Mailbag: Halloween vs. Yoga?

Michelle Lesley

Originally published November 1, 2021

I read your article Should Christians Participate in Halloween? and I am hoping to get a point cleared up in my head. I don’t want to be legalistic, and hope not to come across that way. I am just very confused about it. I agree with you on every other theological point. But I don’t see this as [adiaphora] in the same way I don’t see practicing yoga as [adiaphora]. I asked you this same question last year and did not get a reply. Maybe I asked in an offensive way. Honestly want clarity on this issue. How is partaking in any way with a pagan practice any different than practicing yoga? Thanks in advance.

This is a really great question. I appreciate how you’re thinking this through and wanting to be biblically consistent. I want to be biblically consistent, too, so let’s dig into this:

I asked you this same question last year and did not get a reply. Maybe I asked in an offensive way.

Let me quickly address this point of policy first. Although I don’t respond to people who come after me in an angry, argumentative, attacking way, that isn’t the only reason I don’t respond to emails, messages, comments, etc. In fact, it’s not even the main reason, because that’s a very small percentage of the correspondence I receive. So it’s very unlikely that’s the reason I didn’t respond to your question. (I apologize, but I don’t remember receiving the question.)

The main reason I don’t respond to most of the correspondence I receive is that I simply don’t have time. If you’d like a longer explanation about that, click here.

How is partaking in any way with a pagan practice any different than practicing yoga?

It isn’t. “Partaking in a pagan practice” is the reason yoga is unbiblical.

But that’s not what my Halloween article said nor what it was about. I know you actually read the article, and I really appreciate that, but a lot of people either didn’t read the article and only responded (vehemently) to the title of it, or they skipped, missed, or didn’t understand these very clear statements in the opening paragraphs:

…Halloween activities available to you that do not violate scriptural principles or your conscience or cause you to become a stumbling block to someone weaker in the faith…

Please understand that when I say [should Christians participate in?] “Halloween-related activities,” I am including things like handing out candy and tracts to your neighborhood trick-or-treaters, participating in your church’s trunk or treat {assuming no sin is being committed and the gospel is being shared}, etc.

The article in no way suggests that it’s OK for Christians to take part in paganism or sin. It just doesn’t. In fact, the Scriptures I quote in the article as well as my commentary on them, and all of the additional resources at the end of the article explicitly say that Christians are not to take part in those kinds of things.

But sharing the gospel with the children who come to your door, the acquaintances you talk with in your yard, the neighbors your kids trick-or-treat from, or the families who drop by your church’s candy-fest because it’s safe and non-scary is not, in any conceivable way, sinful, demonic, unChristian, celebrating Satan, or any of the other epithets that come my way every year when I run that article. And it certainly isn’t participating in paganism. How could sharing the gospel in any circumstance be demonic or any of those other things? It’s blasphemous to say such a thing.

Dear sister who sent in the question, I know you didn’t mean it that way, but please indulge me a tangent for a moment: I think some of the others who commented on the article didn’t think things through enough to realize this is what they were inadvertently saying with their broad brush remarks – that sharing the gospel in the midst of evil is itself evil.

Do we not remember that Jesus was a guest in the homes of prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners – as evil an environment to the “Christians” of His day as Halloween is to Christians today? Do we not remember it was the Pharisees who rebuked Him for doing so and for (supposedly) defiling Himself?

Jesus didn’t defile Himself by going into those homes because He wasn’t participating in, nor approving of, any sin which took place there. He met those people where they were, called them to repentance, and planted the seeds of the gospel. And that’s exactly what many Christians do on Halloween. (And they often receive from their fellow Christians the same Pharisaical judgment Jesus received.)

And this is the crux of the answer to your question, my sister. Participating in dark, evil, pagan, or debaucherous aspects of Halloween is just as wrong as participating in yoga. How is participating in non-sinful aspects of Halloween different from participating in yoga?

Think of it this way: A kid rings your doorbell on Halloween. You hand him a tract and some candy. That tract is the good news that the celebration of death, evil, and darkness all around him is wrong and that Jesus is the light of the world and the Lord of life. You’re leveraging the good news of the gospel against the evil, pagan, and sinful aspects of Halloween. When you do yoga, you’re taking part in paganism, cooperating with it, and tacitly approving of it – not fighting against it.

I don’t see [Halloween] as [adiaphora] in the same way I don’t see practicing yoga as [adiaphora].

That’s good, because while participating in non-sinful aspects of Halloween, such as the aforementioned, is an issue of adiaphora (Christian liberty), participating in the pagan (Hindu) worship ritual of yoga is not, so you shouldn’t see them the same way.

All of this, of course, is not to say that you can’t avoid Halloween altogether if it makes you uncomfortable. You don’t have to take part in your church’s fall fest or hand out tracts at your door. You can go out to dinner, go to a Reformation Day worship service, go to bed early, or whatever you like. But what you can’t do is bind the consciences of your brothers and sisters in Christ who want to do something on Halloween that isn’t sinful and might even be evangelistic. You cannot unbiblically judge them by your personal convictions. And you certainly can’t call them names or question their salvation as I’ve had the misfortune of seeing some professing Christians do. You have to follow your biblically-informed conscience on issues of Christian liberty. Your brothers and sisters have to follow their own consciences. You will answer to God for your decisions. They will answer to God for theirs.

Additional Resources:

Christian Liberty at A Word Fitly Spoken

Christian Liberty with Michelle Lesley at Echo Zoe Radio

If you have a question about: a Bible passage, an aspect of theology, a current issue in Christianity, or how to biblically handle a family, life, or church situation, comment below (I’ll hold all questions in queue {unpublished} for a future edition of The Mailbag) or send me an e-mail or private message. If your question is chosen for publication, your anonymity will be protected.