Author Interview (Plus a Giveaway!): Melissa Spoelstra

Posted September 21, 2016 by meezcarrie in Author Interview, giveaway, Melissa Spoelstra, nonfiction / 0 Comments

Good morning, my friends! Today, I am pleased to welcome author Melissa Spoelstra to the blog!

Melissa Spoelstra is a popular women’s conference speaker, Bible teacher, and writer who is madly in love with Jesus and passionate about helping women of all ages to seek Christ and know Him more intimately through serious Bible study. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Bible Theology and enjoys teaching God’s Word to diverse groups and churches within the body of Christ. She is the author of the First Corinthians: Living Love When We Disagree, Joseph: The Journey to Forgiveness, and Jeremiah: Daring to Hope in an Unstable World Bible studies and Total Family Makeover: 8 Steps to Making Disciples at Home book. She lives in Dublin, Ohio, with her pastor husband and four kids.

Melissa’s latest book is Total Family Makeover: 8 Steps to Making Disciples at Home, which released this month from Abingdon Press. (Follow along with the LITFUSE TOUR)

Train children in the way they should go; when they grow old, they won’t depart from it. —Proverbs 22:6

God calls us as parents to be key disciple-makers in our children’s lives, but if we’re honest, some days it’s a battle just to get them dressed and ready for school on time. How can you mold their hearts when sometimes you can’t even find their shoes?

In Total Family Makeover, author Melissa Spoelstra gives parents a way—a sort of spiritual track to run on—when it comes to building family discipleship. She focuses on eight key habits of growth:

-Spending Time in Prayer

-Reading God’s Word

-Growing Through a Mentoring Relationship

-Finding Community in the Church

-Serving Others

-Taking Time to Rest

-Giving Back to God

-Sharing Your Faith

Disciples are made, not born. Whether your children are babes in arms or teenagers getting ready to leave the nest, making disciples at home starts with you! Give your family a makeover with this practical approach to helping your children learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Hi Melissa! Welcome to the blog! I start everyone out with a “fast four” –

Melissa: Apples – to keep the doctor away!

Melissa: Summer – The sun, the warmth, the pool, vacations, kids home, and winter is cold!

Melissa: Neither – allergies to both.

Carrie: Aww… Zuzu (blog mascot) is sad for you!

Melissa: Tea – because it makes me happy, and my mom said I would like coffee when I grow up, but I still haven’t grown up yet.

Carrie: Haha! Yes… me either 🙂

Around here I like to say that reading is my superpower. If YOU had a superpower, what would it be?

Melissa: Prayer! – [It] keeps [me] connected to God and helps me remember His heart of love and presence in all of life’s ups and downs.

Carrie: Yes! Prayer is vital! And a superpower that is available to ALL of us! How awesome is that?!?

Since reading IS kind of a big deal here on the blog, I want to know – Other than the Bible, what are five of your favorite books?

Melissa: So many great ones… hard to choose! Here we go:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. (classic!)

The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

What’s So Amazing about Grace by Philip Yancey

A Woman’s Place by Lynn Austin

Love Does by Bob Goff

Carrie: You have just named several of my favorites as well! The only one I don’t know about is The Hole In Our Gospel – heading to Goodreads to check it out now 🙂

Of these famous on-screen families – The Incredibles, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Brady Bunch, and The Addams Family – who does your real-life family most closely resemble?

Melissa: The Swiss Family Robinson. We fight and get ourselves into predicaments, but we fiercely love each other!

Carrie: I love that! Hopefully you don’t have to live in a treehouse though 😉

You’ve previously published Bible studies on Jeremiah, Joseph, and 1 Corinthians. How does writing a Bible study differ from writing a book like Total Family Makeover?

Melissa: Writing the Total Family Makeover was different in that it wasn’t curriculum and didn’t require a lot of digging in commentaries and hours of research and reading. Instead it was born more out of my own life experiences and the simple teachings of Jesus regarding discipleship. While it uses quite a bit of Scripture, the tone is practical with ideas to implement right away.

Total Family Makeover teaches parents how to help their children be disciples of Jesus. In your opinion, what are the biggest roadblocks to family discipleship?

Melissa: The biggest roadblocks for our family included not having an intentional plan in the midst of a busy life. Other times it was overcomplicating the plan for discipling our children so that it wasn’t sustainable. Total Family Makeover provides parents a place to start and proverbial “track to run on” so that they can intentionally make disciples at home when it comes to things like prayer, Scripture, mentoring, church, etc.

Carrie: I think lots of parents can relate to both of those – too busy to be intentional and then overcomplicating it. Total Family Makeover is a great practical resource to meet those needs.

What do you most want parents to take away from Total Family Makeover?

Melissa: I pray parents see that making disciples at home doesn’t have to overwhelming. We found small changes can yield big results by taking the time to model and train what it means to follow Jesus along the journey of life. As we get intentional about training our children rather than grading ourselves based on our child’s current behavior, then God does the Total Family Makeover!

Melissa – again, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me! 🙂 Before we say goodbye for today, tell us what‘s coming up next for you.

Melissa: I am currently working on my next Women’s Bible study on contentment from the book of Numbers. I’m studying the wilderness wanderings of the complaining Israelites and making connections about how we can learn contentment in a culture of more!

You can connect with Melissa at:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram

More Books by Melissa Spoelstra