Testimonials

Meredith

“Having had the absolute privilege and divine appointment to be a student of Ellen’s as a 1st grader in Regents PE, God’s story between the 2 of us began long before I understood what the word “discipleship” even meant. It started when I was her next door neighbor growing up. Ellen’s ruthless pursuit of my heart and her vulnerable example of living a gospel-centered life has allowed room for the holy spirit to nudge me towards discipleship of my own. The ministry coming out of the person of Ellen Tucker oozes a contagious and willing spirit to say “yes” to God in both the big and the little. It’s the same “yes” that was affirmed by God’s provision of younger girls for me to lead and disciple. Saying “yes” means trusting that God’s multiplication is real, and that He eagerly seeks after our hearts. Saying “yes” to the next step in front of your personal ministry is what the bones behind Psalm 89 beckon us to consider. And I hope I forever consider the ways God is moving in the outside-the-box realms. Thank you, Ellen, for encouraging me to open my eyes to His face!”

Clara Grace

“There are so many conversations with Coach Tucker that have shaped, grown, and guided me, and I truly give thanks to God each day for how He has woven our lives together. Now, for any of you who know her, you know that she does not hesitate to ask the blunt questions or the hard ones, and that is one of the things that I most admire about her. She loves you enough--regardless of whether she has just met you or known you from infancy--to chase you down. One specific instance comes to mind: a few days before I left for college, Coach T had me over for dinner. As we discussed the summer and what God had taught us through our time with Africa New Life, she was able to draw out of me the very doubts I had been hiding from myself. They were questions and fears I was not even aware of, but ones which had warped my perception of God. As she worked through them with me, never avoiding the hard questions, the face of my fears gradually came into view, and I was able to see it for what it was and see it contrasted by the light of the gospel. Simply by her relentless example, Coach Tucker has taught me what it means to love others well. She has taught me how to love, and she has taught me that love is not afraid to chase someone down. Whatever appearance the current mission field may take--an early morning cross country practice, a college campus, the home of a Rwandan family--Coach Tucker has equipped me to embrace it fully. She has equipped me to know what love is, and to love without fear.”

Sarah

“I’ve never met anyone who inspires people like Coach Tucker. She unceasingly loves and cares for people which equips them to become the person they desperately want to be. I have been fortunate to experience this consistent love and encouragement, which has inevitably shaped my perspective on relationships, self-worth, and the love that Christ has for us. Coach Tucker has consistently modeled the art of listening before she speaks and attempting to understand others before she forms opinions. After meeting every Wednesday for 4 years around her dining room table (after a marvelous meal, no doubt), I write with complete confidence that she has eternally impacted the person I am today and the person I strive to become. She has taught me how to listen, love, and truly live in freedom.”

Callyanne

Discipleship is an active pursuit, on both sides of the equation, towards a life giving relationship that exposes sin, re-ignites excitement, and allows for a partnership. It is learning together how to actively deny oneself, as we learn how to receive God’s love.
Isaiah 58 mentions ‘the repairer of the breach’ in verse 12. This is someone who partners with God to ‘work to loose the bonds of wickedness, lets the oppressed go free, undoes the heavy burdens.’ They teach and preach God’s law and the Light is upon them. ‘...and you shall be like a spring of water, whose water does not fail.” Ellen Tucker is a repairer of the breach. The Lord’s favor is on her life. He hears her and answers her. This is who she encourages me to be. Someone who puts together personalized prayer jars, orchestrates generational dinners, executes prayer walks, organizes prayer nights, and partners with you in anything that excites you. She has vision that is acted upon with the giftings of an apostle and a prophet. This is discipleship.
Coach Tucker rallies behind you, digs without overstepping, and celebrates any sign of life or freedom. She claims victories for you and pulls you alongside of her in all she does. Watching tears roll down her face in one of my first conversations with her, I knew she wanted real life. She is strong, but tender. Has so much wisdom, but wants to learn.
We have to let those walls down we’ve worked so hard to protect and we have to let people have an opening into places that need healing and restoration. Coach Tucker carries, and has claimed, the authority Jesus left with us to help bring forth freedom. By joining in discipleship with her, I have grown in an awareness of what it looks like to lead in weakness and strength. Coach Tucker enjoys God. This is what He wants from us. Jesus really does love us and she really does love Him.

Marilyn

Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Or as the Message translation says,”You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another.” It started with Ellen asking questions
( as only Ellen can do) about spiritual warfare. We forged a friendship that became iron sharpening iron. In this journey God places the right people at the right time. Her uncanny ability to get to the heart of an issue or to challenge people to go deeper with the Lord becomes the steel that will sharpen and make you better. Not everyone wants more of God in their life. I have ministered with Ellen, ministered to her and she has ministered to me in our walk with the Lord. What a privilege to seek God outside the box and watch Him draw us all closer to Him. Her ministry is a reflection of who she is becoming in the Lord; open, transparent, challenging, faith filled with a heart’s desire to see more people walk closer with the King of Kings.

Laura

With Ellen’s guidance, I have been a part of multigenerational gatherings. Community is Ellen’s middle name. She creates spaces where we can be genuine and vulnerable as we share life’s highs and lows.  Ellen always expects the Lord to work in big ways, and her faith is contagious. I have loved being able to lean in and also to let go. Before these gatherings (and it took me several gatherings to let the truth sink in), I was hesitant to ask for help, trying to keep score and reciprocate as needed. I felt I always had to “have it all together.” Ellen and friends shared the grace of the gospel in such a sweet way that I feel empowered to extend His grace to myself and others. I am thankful for this freeing gift!

Hannah

"My dad always says, “90% of life is just showing up”. Well, I have known Coach Tucker almost all my life and, boy, has she shown up. In the 5th grade she made a promise to do life with me, and she has stuck to it every day since. She makes dinner for me, encourages me, pushes me, and prays with me. Through her pursuit of Jesus and His Word, she has shown me what it means to disciple. To love one person in the everyday and show up for them. She has created in me a desire is to be that one in girls’ lives and to simply pursue them in whatever way they need pursuit

Like Coach Tucker, the Lord has been so sweet to show me the fruit in the longevity of relationships. I can specifically think of one girl who I have had the privilege to walk side-by-side with for years (and sometimes just one step ahead! Walking with her and experiencing every joy and sorrow has changed by faith. It has magnified to me that building God’s kingdom doesn’t have to look exponential in a moment; it can look like loving and knowing one person deeply.

I am in my 5th year of teaching and I am eternally grateful that my job is to know and love and teach the next generation. Often I get overwhelmed at the thought of attempting to touch, change, and impact so many little lives, but the Lord faithfully leads me back to his Truth that it only takes one. The desire of my heart each and every day as I watch students come in and out of my classroom, is that one of them feels loved and known. At least one! Today."

ALY

"Last Monday night I sat around Coach Tucker’s dining room table - many of you know the one -it’s wooden and sturdy and beautiful and big, worn in all the right ways. The little dents and dings tell the stories of hundreds of young girls and old women gathering around it. They speak of extra chairs crowded around to fit one more face, of plates being passed, of hours of lingering laughs and tears, stories and prayers.

Psalm 89:1 says “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations." If you know Coach Tucker, you know that this is precisely what she does. She listens to the Lord, she seeks to see Him at work, and then, she TELLS over and over again, of His faithfulness. She shares stories that embolden and bolster us in our doubts and fears. She listens and connects God’s people.

And this table has been the blessed site where God - in His goodness and faithfulness and abundant love - has been glorified through story after story after story. As I sat around this familiar table for the hundredth time last Monday night, I was struck by the profound impact that just such a place can have - not only on individuals, but on entire communities.

Over and over again God uses Coach Tucker, and this old wooden table, in surprising and unexpected ways, to connect his people and to build his kingdom. On Monday we entered hungry, as strangers to one another’s hearts, but by the time the meal was over, we left nourished in body and soul; we were sisters who knew they belonged to a story and to a hope much bigger and grander than we could have imagined on our own.

And this is the story of Psalm 89:1 ministries. It is the story of a woman, who pours out her heart to God daily, who surrenders and submits to Him, and who delights to see God’s handiwork, and to share his faithfulness from generation to generation. And it is the story of how she has challenged us to participate in this story. 

I hope and pray that the roots of your faith will be deepened by just such a story as this, as mine have been, and that you will find yourself challenged to be part of this story of:
gathering, sharing and finding nourishment and then going out to love and to serve and  TELL of the Lord with all of
your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength."

Macaully

After I graduated college, actively pursuing my faith became a bigger priority in my life, and I knew discipleship would be key to the growth I wanted. I asked God for someone to disciple me, and about a year later I got into a conversation with Meredith Nagel about it. Her first response was ‘you HAVE to meet Coach Tucker. If she doesn’t have the bandwidth, she will for sure know someone that does.’ The next thing I know I’m sitting at Cafe Medici on a Tuesday morning at 7am with Mere and Coach Tucker. In true Coach Tucker fashion, the first question she asked me before I even had time to take my first sip of my coffee was, ‘tell me about your faith journey,’ and by the end of the hour we decided we’d give this discipleship thing a try!

 My time with Coach Tucker has lead to so much breakthrough and freedom. The cool thing is a lot of these moments just continue to build on top of each other. I vividly remember the first breakthrough moment and it started with a simple question, ‘what does the gospel mean to you?’ At the time, it was questions like this that terrified me. Talking about my faith and speaking my opinion in general had always been scary for me. I felt this underlying pressure to have the ‘right’ answer and say the ‘right’ thing out of fear of being judged or not being ‘Christian’ enough. I’ve always struggled with perfection and approval and this was one of the ways it was manifesting itself. Anyways, I recited this textbook answer of what the gospel meant and Coach Tucker challenged me to speak more from the heart and personal experience. I immediately broke down, a rare thing I do in front of other people, and expressed the immense pressure I felt to say things and respond to these types of questions in the ‘right’ way. Simply speaking it out loud gave me so much freedom and started me on the journey of reshaping the way God views me. I learned I don’t have to strive to have the right answer to be good enough in his eyes. He loves me and gave me the voice and experiences I have for a reason that is good. Ever since then, God has provided so many opportunities and encouragement to find confidence in my voice and stop holding my tongue. 

In addition, Coach Tucker has really challenged me on what it looks like to live a Spirit-led life, which in full transparency is something I’ve always been skeptical about. My time with Coach Tucker has helped me see that the Spirit is stinking cool and REAL. Through the Spirit, I’ve been able to experience for myself how God is always pursuing, loving, and working in my life PERSONALLY and how God is so much BIGGER than I could even begin to imagine. Leaning into the Spirit has helped transform my knowing a lot about God to knowing him more personally. The life-giving power of the Spirit has made it much more compelling to release my tendency toward self-sufficiency and control in exchange for a live that’s completely dependent on him. I don’t and won’t do this perfectly, but for the first time in years it’s something I actually desire. 

All that being said, God has taught me so much over the years. The gospel has evolved from a story I read in a children’s bible to a personal experience.  He’s shown me how much He loves me not for what I do but because He just loves me. Even in all my imperfection. It’s that pure and it’s that simple. He’s shown me that the fruit of living in obedience isn’t so I can earn His favor or reach an unattainable standard of perfection. In fact, He’s not asking me to do that at all. He’s asking me for my heart, and His ‘commands’ are the most fulfilling and life-giving way to live. He’s shown me that He’s alive, that He speaks, and that adventures with Him are pretty fun. He’s shown me that He created me - my thoughts, my opinions, my personality, my perspective, my passions - for a reason, and I don’t need to fear sharing it with others or try to change it. He’s shown me that because of Jesus I don’t have to strive and I don’t have to be self-sufficient. He’s shown me that because of Jesus, even in the hardest moments there’s always restoration. That He’s in control, and that’s a good thing. He’s willingly given me freedom to live this way at a cost to Himself even when I did nothing to deserve it. 

Coach Tucker always says that our experiences and stories are not by chance. Case in point Katie Walker. How cool is it that a seemingly innocent question about a desire for discipleship connected Coach Tucker and I and now Katie Walker and I. Small world? Before I might have said yes. Now after where the Lord has taken me in my faith, I would say no. I know that God put us together purposely, in the same way He brought Coach Tucker and I together.

Coach Tucker and I have had many aha moments when the Lord has helped us see why He has put us together. The similarities and differences in us have been so clearly orchestrated. It makes me so excited to see the same thing unfold with Katie.

So I ask you - Where is the Lord orchestrating a relationship? Coach Tucker and I are praying  for that one relationship for you where the Lord will use your story to walk with someone else in their story. 

Emily

The past year has been a year of change for all of us.  I am not sure there has been a time in modern history when a statement has been more universally true.  For my family we have been dealing with two difficulties - one personal and one universal. We are coming up on the one year anniversary of my mother’s cancer diagnosis, so the changes in our family were swift and severe in late 2019.  My mother could no longer travel to see us as her days were spent receiving or recovering from chemotherapy.  She couldn’t leave the house and her immune system was weak and compromised.  And then somehow, in March of 2020, the entire world entered into a similar reality of lockdowns and distance from the ones we love.  So our family’s reality - the pain of separation and the fear of making someone we love sick-  became real for a lot of people.  Never before in my life have I been more grateful for or reliant upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.  

As I came to terms with my mom’s diagnosis, I had all of these emotions and some of them were so intense I could barely speak them aloud.  Most of my lowest moments centered around anger. I was really, really angry this had happened, and even angrier I could not even get to her to keep her company during treatment due to Covid restrictions.  I have been richly blessed in my life with a group of women who are prayer warriors, so I reached out to them and they carried me through those dark days.  They prayed for my mother and they prayed for me.  After many weeks the anger began to wane and as it did, the tenderness it was covering up was exposed.  Strangely, being locked-down was a blessing to me in those days because I had nowhere to go - I couldn’t cover my grief with busyness.  I had to face my sadness.  So I cried a lot with my husband and kids and we prayed my mom would survive - that the tumor would be gone and that in her vulnerable and weakened state she wouldn’t contract Covid-19.

I was able to travel to see my mother in July for her birthday.  My daughters and my husband made the twenty hour drive to Florida with me.  Mom was weak and her hair was gone.  She had lost a lot of weight.  While we were there she had a doctor’s appointment that confirmed what we feared most - after eight months of chemotherapy, the tumor was still there and still active.  She needed to make some decisions and none of the options were good.   When we left to make the drive back to Texas, we all cried.  There were no clear answers.  I reached out to my prayer warriors again.  I had dinner at Ellen’s house and sat around the table with friends and cried as I told them I didn’t think my mother was going to make it. 

Once God had gotten me to let go of my anger, once I let my friends enter into prayer with me and for me, all I could do was rely on what I know is true.  I had to walk myself through what I believe, slowly and deliberately.  God formed my mother; He cares for her more than I could ever know; He is not surprised by what is happening; and He will not waste her pain. Whatever the outcome, God’s redeeming work in this world would continue.  I prayed and read the Bible each day and I began to hope again. That hope had let the sadness co-exist, but it wasn’t going to let it win.  The gospel has taught me something that in time, with prayer and the love of my friends and family, was starting to become real. Jesus comforts the disciples in John 16 while also acknowledging that there is no easy path in verse 33, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” Jesus was offering me that same comfort in my grief.

In God’s mysterious and wondrous provision, a radiologist was assigned to my mother’s case eight weeks ago and he offered a treatment that as of today, is showing great promise.  We won’t know for sure for several more weeks, but for now a nod of his head and a “looks good!” after her last MRI has us believing again that she might survive this after all.  I hesitate to include this part of the story because it makes it seem like the only point was her healing...but of course her healing was the point of so many people praying.  But just like hope and grief can co-exist, so can the other point of this story.  God offered me healing in this story too.

My mother and I recently discovered we had been meditating on the same verse, Job 38:4, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”  I think we both loved that we can never find fault with God’s work in the creation of the world nor can we find fault in His plan of redemption for us.  Those are the healing waters I am swimming in. All of us have felt the tribulations this year and God offers all of us the hope that He, and He alone, has overcome the world. 

Hallelujah!