Welcome Home. Here, Us, Now.
A space for all of us seeking what's real and sacred in a world that rushes past the soul.
Welcome Home. Here, Us, Now.
Reverend Ocielia -- Women's Ministry From The Inside Out
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Reverend Ocielia describes being full of beauty.
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_00Welcome home. Hear us now, a space for all of us seeking what's real and sacred in a world that rushes past the soul. Hi, I'm Eric Engelman, your co-host. In this room with me is my co-host, president, and CEO, Charles Wolford. Good morning.
SPEAKER_01Eric, my friend, good to see you as always. This is a post-Thanksgiving sharing moment, as it would be. We're dating ourselves a little bit, but it is always to be thankful for the time that we have and just to be able to share with you. So, my brother and I am so grateful to you in this season that we're sharing together. God bless you, real good. Eric, we have an amazing guest today. I believe that our listeners will be absolutely blown away for our time and our dialogue and discussion. And without further ado, we want to introduce to some who may not have had a chance to maybe hear or read, Minister Ocelia Sprout. Welcome, Ocelia, good to have you.
SPEAKER_02Yes, hello. Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_01That's a proud married woman. Like, no, no, no, you have to put that married name on the end. She's carrying the name. She's carrying the name. Absolutely. Well, it's so good to have you. Welcome to the Welcome Home podcast here at Union Gospel Mission of Terran County. It is such a joy to have you, and we're just going to jump right in. Tell us a little bit of your current role at Union Gospel Mission and talk through that with us for those who may not have heard you previously. So let's talk a little bit about that and then we're going to unpack some more conversations that we want to have with you about your book and your ministry. So introduce yourself a little bit for those who may not know you.
First Women’s Chaplain Role
SPEAKER_02Yes, well, my name is Ocelia Sparrell, and I am currently the women's chaplain here at Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County. I have the honor and the distinction of being the first ever chaplain in the hundred plus history of this mission. And so what that means is my primary role is to provide the spiritual guidance and care for all of our women, whether they're a resident or whether they're just staying overnight with us for a night, or even if they're just coming for a meal, I am the one that is solely responsible for their spiritual care and oversight and discipleship while they're here at our mission on their journey to hope in a new future.
SPEAKER_01Well, what a blessing. Let me unpack that because you added a lot of elements to that that I don't want us to gloss over. So, first and foremost, you are the first female chaplain at Union Gospel Mission in the 137 years that we've been in existence. Did I hear that correctly?
SPEAKER_02That is correct.
SPEAKER_01What an amazing how does that feel to you? When you let that marinate with you a little bit, how does that feel? What does that do for you?
SPEAKER_02It's an honor. Yeah. It's an honor, but I'm also kind of accustomed to being the first in different things in my life. Okay. Tell us about that. So when I think back in my twenties, uh back when I had my pageant career, I was a scholarship pageant queen growing up. That's how I paid for both of my degrees. It's my scholarship winnings. But I was Miss Black USA in 2011, and I was the first and the only Miss Black USA to date from the state of Texas.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wow. That is a first.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was the first.
SPEAKER_01We need a hand clap for that, Eric. That is worth celebrating. Congratulations to you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. So I felt like I pioneered in that space. And even when we were working together at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, I was the first woman on staff as a girls minister. I wasn't the first woman on staff for the youth ministry, but I was the first girls minister that ministered for vacation Bible school, who got to preach during vacation Bible school and do a youth service. Before then, they never let any of the female girls ministers on staff do any type of preaching to the youth in general. And so there's been different spaces and different times where I have been the one that's like, okay, this hasn't been done before, but you're the one that's stepping out and starting it. So coming here to UGM is kind of in sync with just different things throughout my life. It's just like, okay, I'm creating this, I'm stepping into this new tor territory, I'm building a foundation, and I'm prayerfully working to build a foundation that all future women's ministers and the future of the women's ministry here uh can build upon to continue to disciple the lives of these women who come here to this mission.
SPEAKER_01We are in the presence of a pioneer. She is. Yeah. I think that's a first, right? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00And if she runs half as fast as you, I've got a lot of work to do.
SPEAKER_01Well, absolutely. Well, let's just share just a little bit more about the ministry to women at Union Gospel Mission. Tell us a little bit about that because that's seems like a very daunting task. And you're only one of one. Yes. So share that with us. What's going on there?
SPEAKER_02Yes, I
Trauma-Informed Ministry And Identity
SPEAKER_02love having the opportunity to minister to the women here at UGM. Um, many of the women that we have coming here, as we know, they come from very challenging circumstances. These are women who've gone through immense trials and traumas. And so ministry to them, as I like to call it, I like to call that I practice trauma-informed ministry. And it is a blend of the trauma-informed care that you learn in the social services world. But when you put ministry on it, you're taking in the unique elements of ministry and applying that to the trauma-informed care. And also understanding that there are sometimes barriers that women may have to ministry and to being involved in ministry type um programs. So, for instance, some of the things because of the experiences our women have, they may feel that, okay, God doesn't love me anymore. I'm not seen by God, I'm not good enough. You know, I I there's not a place for me in the kingdom of God. I have to fix myself before I come to God. I'm not accepted by the church because of my past and because of some of the things I've gone through. So I'm always very careful in my discipleship and in my ministry, my conversations with the ladies. I'm always trying to be inclusive and making sure that we have a foundation of understanding their identity in Christ and the love of God when we're ministering to them. It's very easy to think of discipleship and just think of do this, don't do that, right? Just learn the basics and learn all these scriptures and you'll become a great disciple. But it has for our demographic that we serve, because they have such a marred identity, because they've gone through so many things that have damaged and tainted the way they see themselves and see Jesus, you have to come in with that foundation that there is a place for you here. You are accepted, you are loved, and understanding who they are through Jesus Christ our Lord. So that is what I root a lot of my work in, because that is foundational. If they don't have that, it's hard for them to take on the other parts of being discipled and the Bible study and things of that nature.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's very rich.
More Than Pretty And Mirror Story
SPEAKER_01I want to maybe just stay there for a minute, Eric.
SPEAKER_00Well, I heard that you wrote a book called More Than Pretty. Yes. It sounds like it relates a whole lot to just the foundation that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02That Bible study that I wrote, that is what it keys into. It's based on 1 Peter 3, 3 through 4. I like looking at the Holman Christian Standard Bible version of that verse. When I wrote More Than Pretty, I went off of that version because it says that your beauty does not consist of the outward things. You think of consist, that's the ingredients of something, right? You have your favorite snack, look on the back of it, you look at the ingredients list, it's telling you what it consists of. And he's teaching that your beauty doesn't consist of the outward things. He is teaching the women of God that what makes you beautiful, the ingredients of it isn't the outward things. It's not that you don't have outward things, but that's not the essence. That's not the ingredients. That's what not what makes a woman of God beautiful. Um, what truly is beautiful in the sight of God, as the scripture says, is the incorruptible beauty of a gentle spirit, a gentle and quiet spirit, a woman who has a heart for the Lord. So when we're working through more than pretty, we're really are working on that biblical inner beauty for the women and helping them to discover that and to build that. And the transformation that we see in their lives is remarkable. Because many of them, they've never heard this message. They've never been ministered to in this way. They've always been told they're doing wrong and that they're not enough. And so to get this transforming truth that God loves them, God sees them, and what he finds beautiful is the incorruptible beauty of the heart, the spirit inside of you, and that is what you cultivate that's very freeing for them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's very freeing. So share with us, if you don't mind, an experience or two as you've taken our neighbors, our female neighbors through More Than Pretty as a discipleship experience. Because as I'm listening to you, what I heard is that as uh the female chaplain at Union Gospel Mission, there's a different ministry for women who've been through trauma and use used trauma-informed ministry. And my suspect is that uh women maybe have experienced injury by men, and to have you as a female minister to be able to have some transformational conversations with them, I can only imagine the deliverance that may come from some of those sessions.
SPEAKER_02Yes, uh, the first story that came to mind is a mother who came to UGM and I was doing an exercise in one of the classes. I had them holding up mirrors, and we were speaking, again, I was talking about their identity in Christ, and we were speaking God's word over ourselves, and what word says who we are in Jesus Christ, right? And the mother she came after to me after class and she said, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I haven't looked at myself in the mirror for about three years, I think she said. Oh, wow. She says, I learned how to do my hair and I do everything without looking in the mirror. I'm so ashamed, she says, I I I I can't even look at myself. She says, even if I'm doing something to my face, I've trained my kids to tell me, Hey mom, you got this on your face. Hey mom, do that. Because she won't look at herself.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02And I I I hugged her and I said, My prayer is by the end of this class, going through the discipleship, that you can look at yourself in the mirror again. I want you to see yourself the way God sees you. And so we kept going and I kept doing that exercise every class. And little by little, she started looking in the mirror. And by the end of the class, she could look at herself in the mirror again.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Praise the Lord. Yes, that's powerful. Yes, that's rich.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, something that's simple that we take for granted, huh?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the number of times that she may have to turn her face, the reflection that she may have seen in a window, or you know, passing through uh it could be just a pain on a picture, and she would maybe turn her face because she didn't want to see her. Imagine going through life that way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wow. And she shared it with you. And that's you know, guys, are you listening to me? Yeah, yeah. There's a place for guys to share too. And shame has a power if we let it have a power.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00But Jesus has borne the shame on the cross for us all. Yeah. He gives his spirit to us. We confront shame. Yes. In the humility of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit more about your book, More Than Pretty.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So More Than Pretty was my first book that I wrote. It's a Bible study curriculum, actually. And it was originally written for teen girls. Okay. Uh I wrote it in 2016. It was published by Lifeway, a Christian publishing, and it's a Bible study curriculum, also includes a video portion of it as well that walks women and girls through biblical beauty, as I was saying earlier. And so when I wrote More Than Pretty, the Lord had opened so many doors for me becoming Miss Black USA. I was traveling and speaking and going to churches and doing conferences, and there were so many young women that were coming to me and talking about issues of not feeling beautiful and self-image and even self-harm. I knew that we needed to have more of a biblical understanding of beauty. I knew that there needed to be a more biblical understanding. So that's what gave me the desire to even write and go through this Bible study because I was seeing that women in the church were having the same distorted view as women outside of the church. And it shouldn't be that way, right? And and so that's what encouraged me to go ahead and write that first Bible study. More than pretty. And then I've just expanded it since being here at UGM, expanded it to a 12-week discipleship program to the lady neighbors that we serve here. So what's in the book? This is actually available on LifeWay's uh website on LifeWay.com.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so then go lifeway.com, any other place that they would be able to purchase it.
SPEAKER_02Is that primarily that's primarily now?
Redefining Beauty Through The Senses
SPEAKER_02Not so much there might be a few copies left on Amazon, but primarily you'll have to go to LifeWay and get it now. To talk through the chapters of the book, I have to explain the concept. The actual definition of beauty is something that is appealing to all the senses. What if we looked at beauty and we looked at it as something appealing to all the senses? And so what I did is I found a corresponding character trait in scripture to describe each sense of beauty. Start with the flavor of beauty. The scripture references I use for that was in Psalms, Taste and See that the Lord is good. Also, Matthew 5, where Jesus taught on you being the salt of the earth. Then I go into the sound of beauty, which is the words that we speak, words of love, words of wisdom, words of kindness. We go into the aroma of beauty. And I use a funny little illustration there. I said, You ever hear somebody that has a they say yeah, they have a stinky attitude. The attitude stinks. I said, the aroma of your attitude is stronger than any perfume you can wear, ladies. Renewing the mind. And then the touch of beauty is how do you treat others? And then the final icing on the cake is the view, the visual. An outward appearance that reflects your inner radiance from Christ. And so when we put all of that together, that is what it means to be beautyful. You're filled with Christ-like beauty from the inside out. To be more than pretty is to be beautiful, filled with the beauty of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01I cannot wait to pick that book back up. I need to do that. And we're going to encourage our listening audiences to do the same because, again, just as you've walked through that, I am intrigued by it all over again of what you've shared in our closing time that we have with you.
Encouragement And Closing Prayer
SPEAKER_01I really would want you just to pour into uh maybe one of our neighbors who's listening for the very first time and maybe struggling with the inner beauty, the beauty. And so I just would want you to minister to them just for about a minute or so. Eric, um any uh last minute thoughts or questions or comments that you want to make before we allow uh Minister Ocelia to just uh Reverend O'Celia to be able to share with um maybe one of our listeners.
SPEAKER_00You know, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and it disturbed him because he saw this big, beautiful statue trashed by a rock. But it was a rock that was alive, it was a rock that grew, and it's a picture of how the the kingdoms of this world do not have what we have in the kingdom of Christ that is not of this world. And and may we drink deeply of the thoughts that are his and not of the world. This is this is fun.
SPEAKER_02Amen. Amen. If I was to speak to someone listening today, I would encourage them. If there was a a a female lady neighbor that was listening to us, um it's normal for women to be concerned about beauty. We live in a world where that is something that is we get pressure about it and we we think about it, and a lot of times we mistakenly find our worth in it. But I want to encourage whoever is listening that God has a purpose for you, and it's bigger than any beauty you think you do or do not possess outwardly. Your worth and your value to God is internal and it has eternal weight because of what Jesus has done for you. Because of Jesus' love that He lavished on you and sacrificed for you, you are beautiful and worthy just in that alone. And there's a walk that you can have with Christ that can help you to cultivate and show that beauty from Jesus to the world. It's not in the hair, it's not in your figure, it's not in whether you feel like you have the nicest clothes or not. There is an incorruptible beauty that you will possess once you walk with Jesus because he gives his beauty to you, and you can develop it, you can polish it, you can cultivate it and shine that to the world and leave what I call a beauty mark in the world. Christ-like beauty. The Christ-like beauty mark um that impacts the world because it's through his love. Love looks impressed, but the love of Jesus impacts, and that's what we want to be impactful with the beauty of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01How amazing is that! I think your next book is Beauty Mark. Oh, I love it. That just drops so deep into my spirit when you said that. I love that how you put that together. Um, we are so grateful for you and what you've shared with us. We are the better for your ministry and the gift that God has placed in you. And we're grateful that you have received what God has poured into you, and seeing you pour it out is nothing short of amazing to see the work that God is doing with you. So God bless you. Thank you so much for being a part of the Welcome Podcast. Eric, you'd mind taking us out.
SPEAKER_00Father in heaven, thank you for your love for Jesus. Thank you for the oneness that you have revealed in the Spirit through Jesus. And the Son is willing to reveal his Father. I pray that you reveal the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the oneness that is in heaven, and thank you for adopting us as we trust and surrender to you. Change us more and more. Let us be the kind of people that get the greatest gain for the least amount of pain. In Jesus' name. Thank you for your love, joy, peace in Christ. Lord, may we hear and obey you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
