Today’s the official release date of Proven by Jennie Allen! We’re celebrating all week on the blog. We loved this segment of a recent HomeLife article with Jennie, so we wanted to kick our celebration off by giving you a glimpse into the study and the heart behind it. To read more, be sure to subscribe to HomeLife!
Jennie Allen is in high demand. As a wife, mother, author, speaker, and founder of the global ministry, IF:Gathering, Jennie understands what it’s like to juggle multiple roles and manage expectations in a Pinterest®-perfect world. On a typical day, she writes books and develops Bible studies, interacts with over 150,000 followers between Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and leads an amazing team of sixteen women, all dedicated to making disciples of this generation.
Jennie and husband, Zac, live in Austin, Texas, with their four children, Conner (16), Kate (14), Caroline (10), and Cooper (9). Jennie and Zac adopted Cooper from a Rwandan orphanage when he was four years old. Their immediate and steadfast love for Cooper has deepened the Allens’s understanding of God’s love for His children. Jennie says their relationship with Cooper is a constant reminder that “God has us, He is for us, and He is enough.”
Signs of Thirst
Despite being rooted in God’s Word, and although the 2014 launch of IF:Gathering reached an unprecedented audience in record time and has inspired over a million women to live out their purpose, deep down, Jennie was struggling. Close friends expressed concern that she no longer opened up to them, laughed when she should laugh, or cried when she should cry.
On the outside, Jennie’s life seemed like a model for success: a happy marriage, four beautiful children, a close circle of friends, a healthy church, and a thriving ministry doing exactly what God called her to do. But on the inside, Jennie says she felt parched and overwhelmed by the weight of expectation and striving, as if she’d been wandering in the desert with a heavy backpack in search of water.
As Jennie began to understand how everyday pressures caused her spiritual thirst, she became convinced that women are losing their joy in the desert of approval, striving, and performance. “We are missing our lives,” she writes. “Striving is stealing our joy, our moments.”
In what Jennie describes as “numbing out,” women look to careers, shopping, entertainment, technology, exercise, and sleep to find self-worth, value, or an escape. The need for acceptance and perfection compels them to chase “broken cisterns” that will never satisfy (see Jeremiah 2:13, NIV). Disillusioned and thirsty, women often succumb to spiritual dehydration and wander through life in defeat.
Jennie hopes her latest book, Nothing to Prove: Why We Can Stop Trying So Hard, and corresponding Bible study, Proven: Where Christ’s Abundance Meets Our Great Need, will help women find fulfillment and joy in Jesus. She writes, “What if I told you today you could start enjoying yourself and your life without performing or striving for another minute? What if I told you that you don’t measure up? And that it’s okay. In fact, it’s necessary.”
The refreshing eight-week study, available through Lifeway.com, examines seven moments in Jesus’ life that unfold in the Book of John. Jennie invites women to gather around the coffee table and discover who Jesus is, how He lived, and how His sufficiency can move into their daily lives and radically change them. She hopes the study puts readers on a collision course with pride, sin, and the fatigue of trying to measure up. When that happens, Jennie says believers become more free, more present, and better able to take risks for God’s glory because they’re not afraid of failing.
Surrender and Power
Through her in-depth study of the Book of John, Jennie recognized the contrast between the enemy’s accusations and Jesus’ soul-freeing message. In Christ, believers are given permission to fail. In fact, Scripture promises that God’s power will shine forth when believers feel most weak (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). The good news for anyone who is thirsty and tired of striving is that “God has us, He is for us, and He is enough.”
Jennie wants women to find true fulfillment in Jesus and reclaim their joy. Throughout the Book of John, she believes Jesus is essentially saying: “You’re living with a shut-down mentality, as if I’m not enough. But I go overboard for My people. I give you streams of Living Water that will not only quench your thirst but will flow out of you to a thirsty world. I don’t just feed five thousand people to the full. I leave exactly enough bread and fish to fill twelve extra baskets, so that each man who serves Me knows I have this covered.”
Over and over, Jesus’ message to thirsty souls was one of abundance and provision, in spite of His followers’ performance. Jennie says, “The way Jesus worked had nothing to do with the disciples’ adequacy, gifting, or morality. It had everything to do with their surrender and His power.”
Pointing to Peter’s transformation after he betrayed Jesus and then repented with great humility, Jennie reminds women that God doesn’t disqualify His children from service when they fall short. Confession and repentance frees believers and allows the Holy Spirit to fulfill God’s purpose for their lives. “We’re so afraid of our inadequacy, our sin, and our failures,” Jennie says. “Yet these are the very things that cause us to need Christ.” Total surrender means that God becomes great, which is a freeing and fun way to live.
Set Free to Win Souls
Jennie champions the transformative power of people coming together, confessing sin, and being vulnerable with each other. “I believe that life change happens when we look at God’s Word and let it change us. I believe in Spirit-led conversation with Scripture always at the center.”
Reflecting on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on IF:Gathering, she’s excited to see women surrendering their gifts in obedience to God and carrying the gospel to their families, neighborhoods, and workplaces. Rather than viewing herself as someone in the spiritual trenches, Jennie feels called to teach the Word of God and is humbled to build tools, like the Proven Bible study, that help equip women on the front lines of ministry.
“I’m so honored,” Jennie says. “I’m like the tackle builder, but those are the fishermen—the people out on the wild sea, bringing in the nets, risking it all, and doing the work of the kingdom while I’m in a little shop, building tackle. My prayer is that I build tackle in such a way that they can catch fish and make disciples.”
This article was written by Holly Logsdon and originally appeared in HomeLife Magazine.
