Choosing Joy

Meet the Team

In this new feature we would love for you – our REACH readers – to get to know some of the faces behind the scenes here at CBN Europe. Today we will meet Alisa, our Creative Media Lead. We will be asking Alisa a few questions about herself and how she arrived at CBNE. Enjoy!

Alisa Harewood

Creative Media Lead

Hi Alisa, how are you?

I am very well, thank you, very well indeed.

Fantastic! So, Alisa, tell us a little bit about yourself! For example, what kind of things interest you? What do you get up to when you’re not at CBNE?

I love the monarchy! What intrigues me more than anything are the Elizabethan and Tudor eras. If I could go back to any era (where racism or discrimination wasn’t an issue) it would be the Elizabethan or Tudor era. I am absolutely fascinated by King Henry the eighth, his life and his wives...Queen Elizabeth.

I also love music, all types of music; classical, jazz, 80’s and 90’s pop. Worship music has been something that, even before I was a Christian, I really felt in my soul. And actually, when my husband passed away in 2015, 3 days after, that was the moment that Jesus came and spoke to me and told me to follow Him. It was after just being in the shower, I just wanted some time away from everybody, I just got into the shower and sang worship and gospel songs – for a long time I was in that bathroom. That was the moment that the Holy Spirit filled that room and Jesus came and spoke to me and my life has been blessed with Christ since then.

Awesome, I love that. What a beautiful way for Jesus to meet you, in your vulnerability. Great stuff. So, how did you come to be here at CBNE?

So, prior to 2019, I pretty much spent the first 16 years of my career working at a high level in the corporate world – a 6-figure salary and working in the U.S. was the last serious role that I had before my husband passed away. Then I moved back to the UK. I felt, in 2019, God spoke to me and said,

‘I need you to take everything that you have learnt in the last 16 years – all of those skills, and bring them to ministry, bring them to build my kingdom.’

I didn’t know what that looked like. I didn’t know if that was in a church or something else. I didn’t know what that meant. So, I prayed, and God opened the door to a role at a global digital evangelism ministry – a phenomenal ministry that are using digital platforms and social media to touch the lives of people and introduce them to Jesus. So, I joined the team in Solihull as the Head of Community for the UK and western Europe and spent a year and a half with them recreating processes and structures that would work in the UK but could also be duplicated in countries in western Europe. This would enable us to partner with churches so that when we pushed out social media ads – which are all to encourage people to get to know Jesus in whatever situation they are in now – and respond to that social media ad. Those responses go to a local church partner who are best positioned to speak to them about whatever they are dealing with, but also introduce Jesus into that situation.

The content that we created was primarily focussed on introducing Jesus to non-Christians. So, I started there in January 2020 and created with the team everything that they needed – an end-to-end process, end-to-end systems of working that we duplicated and launched into France, Germany, Portugal and Spain. God was incredible through the covid season, and we were able to get more done in that year and a half than we thought we were going to. We thought it was all going to take 3 years, but it took less.

So, when it got to that point, I then thought to myself, ‘what do I do next?’ because I had done everything that I felt that I could do there and I just prayed and prayed and continued to pray about what God was asking me to do and during my time there, I really felt this desire to start to evangelise more.

I felt God strongly say ‘I need you to evangelise. I need you to share your testimony, I need you to speak to people.’

So, I sat down and was praying, and this advert come up on Facebook for a Presenter at CBN Europe. And I thought, ‘Ok, I could possibly do that!’. I’d never really had any presenting experience, but I thought that that was a way for me to evangelise directly to people. However, the role was a fixed term maternity cover contract, part time, based over 90 miles away from where I live! But I felt called to apply. And so, I did. I didn’t hear anything for a little while so thought that that wasn’t the route God wanted me to go down, and, as always, God turns up when you least expect it, and I got a first interview here.

Even though it was a part-time, fixed term contract, I felt strongly in my heart that this is where the Lord was positioning me to be. I got called back for a second interview, I came and had a screen test here. When I left the screen test and second interview, I really believed that this is where I was going to be.

There’s a funny story to go along with this. My marital surname is Harewood and, when I drove out of Herefordshire after that interview, I passed a little village

called Harewood End! I drove through it and just laughed because if that wasn’t a sign, I don’t know what is! Then, about 2 weeks later, I got a call from The Head of Operations here that they had offered the position to someone else but there was a new position just for digital platforms which is what my speciality area. I was blown away. I arrived here on 19th October 2021 and within a couple of months, as the Lord does, He moved mountains and moved situations and I got promoted to Creative Media Lead at the end of the year!

So, at the beginning of January, I started at CBNE on a permanent contract. So, God turned everything around and now I’m in a position where – with the team here – I’m able to help drive innovative content that we produce for TV, for all social media and digital platforms so we can really touch the lives of millions and billions of people across the UK and Europe.

That’s so great. I love that God knew the minute that you saw that advert on Facebook where He was taking you. I know that promotion is something that you are not new to! God seems to have a habit of escalating your roles wherever you go but I think that’s a testament to your capacity and capabilities. You may be employed at one level, but people quickly realise that there’s more to you, there’s more to your passion, there’s more to what you’re capable of and promotion just follows, so that’s exciting.

Alisa, as you know, our theme for June’s REACH magazine is ‘Choose Joy’. Can you think of a scenario where you have had to choose joy amidst difficult circumstances?

Oh wow. There’s so many, right? God is always working for our good. But the one that always stands out for me – and I share it often when I share my testimony – is when I suddenly lost my husband in April of 2015, I gave my life to Christ 3 days after and in that moment. He told me that it wasn’t going to be an easy road for me but at some point, He would show me why this had to happen. For the following 3 years I spiralled. I was so deep in my grief that I turned to dependency on alcohol, dependency on marijuana, on sex, just to feel something. I moved away from the U.S. to the U.K., lost my career at the same time that I lost my husband. I just couldn’t function in the way that I had previously. I remember this one time that I got to a place where I was just suicidal, and I wanted to end mine and my son’s lives. That evening I dropped to my knees and cried out to Him from my soul and said, ‘Help me! I don’t see any light. I don’t see any way forward. I’m in so much pain and I don’t know where the end is so you’re going to have to show up for me now so that I can see something, otherwise I don’t want to be here anymore, and I don’t want Jacob (my son) to be here anymore.’

Slowly but surely the cracks in the dark storm clouds started to open and He filled me with a sense of hope. That hope came from positioning new friends in my life that I could turn to, a church (I was unchurched at that time) that I could start to serve in on the worship team. The very first time of being part of a church where I served, He positioned me to lead worship, which is the thing that had always connected me to Him throughout the years that I was a non-Christian, it was always worship music, so it was incredible how He positioned me there. Then I started to grow in my relationship with Him. I read scripture more. He positioned, within my church, somebody who was a trained counsellor that I could start talking to about my grief and about how I could manage that grief in a Christ-centred way. My family were incredibly supportive. I think I just stopped pretending that I was ok and said, ‘actually, I want to be in a place where I have a life again.’ I want to be in a place where I can feel joy.

So, in that moment and over the course of the following year and a half it was definitely a journey of saying,

‘I choose joy now. I choose to let go of the sorrow and the pain and the grief and all of that and say that I have more to look forward to.’

I think, when you haven’t spent much time with the Lord as a young Christian, you can sometimes think, ‘He’s left me. He said He would be there, but He isn’t’. But, the more time that you spend with Him and the more time that you spend in scripture, you understand that He’ll never leave us or forsake us. The plans that He has for my life, as He told me in that bathroom many years before, was that He would show me what it was for. So, He started to position different things in my life; working in ministry, starting to build my own ministry around sharing my testimony with people who have gone through or are going through grief or some type of trauma, being able to share that at different churches, writing my book that’s coming out at the end of this year – ‘From Grief to Glory’. All of those things were positioned by Him. He knew what was inside me when I lost my husband and He said to me, ‘You’ll see one day.’ So, in my moments of lamenting to Him, where I just didn’t want to be here anymore, then Him positioning people and things in my life so that I could say, ‘no actually, I want to choose to be in a place where I can be happy again, I want to choose to live a life that is full of Him, full of love, full of truth, full of life’, and share that with as many people as I can in every single part of my life.

I think, when we choose joy, we’re making this declaration to the enemy, that you’re not going to have a hold over me. I choose Jesus. I choose love. I choose joy. I choose peace. When you do that, the storm clouds can start to disappear. They come back! And they come back often! But the good thing that I’ve been able to do is now remind myself, looking back on all of the things that He has brought me through, to be able to choose joy because He’s got more for me to do and more planned.

What a beautiful testimony, Alisa. It reminds me of the verse in Isaiah 61 that says, ‘He brings beauty out of ashes.’ Because, to meet you first of all, you would have no idea that you’ve been to such a place where life was inconceivable and that there was no light because you emanate joy, you emanate motivation, vision and energy. For the enemy to think that he could rob that from the face of the earth is laughable.

Thank you so much for joining us, Alisa, it was great to learn more about you!

Choosing

Hi there everyone, it is so good to connect with you again. These devotions are a really good way for you to take a few minutes to connect with a child in your life and speak about a Bible topic to engage with them and grow healthy values. This time, we will talk about choosing joy. Everyone has things in life that are tough. Unfortunately, being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean that we will no longer experience hurt and sadness. However, there is a gift that God promises to us – joy. Now joy may sound a bit like happiness, and in some ways, it is the same, but joy is a choice we make, whereas happiness is an emotion we feel at a certain time or during a certain moment.

Have a think about a time or moment when you have felt happy – maybe when you achieved a goal or when you were with a certain person.

“I have told you these things so that you can have the same joy I have. I want your joy to be the

fullest joy.” John 15:11 (ICB)

When Jesus spoke these words to his disciples; he was talking about keeping God’s commands and by doing so you will continue to feel the love and joy of God. Jesus did not say to his disciples that by following God, bad things will no longer happen. In the book of Acts there are many examples of how unhappy people could be during their walk with God because of the way it meant others would treat them. Have you ever struggled with the way someone has treated or spoken to you about being a believer of Jesus? The amazing news is that no matter what we go through, we can have joy in God!

“And we also have joy with our troubles because we know that these troubles produce

patience.” Romans 5:3 (ICB)

The Bible shows us this in many instances – just look at the story of Esther in the book of Esther! We can learn from our problems; even in our struggles, we can become better people with God’s help. We see that God will turn around our struggles for His glory. Take some time and read Esther’s story in your Bibles or watch the Superbook episode on the Superbook YouTube channel.

Prayer: Father God, we pray for more joy within our lives. We pray that even when life gets hard, we will remember that you are with us and that you will help us in our struggles. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Wordsearch

CHOICE DISCIPLES ESTHER GOD JESUS JOY LIFE STRUGGLES

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