Thank you for visiting Raised to Walk.  Here is a little bit more about me.  I’m a mom of three active girls and an Oregon transplant to Texas. Life is busy with work, church, and all my girls’ activities.  Part of my “day job” is writing a variety of content for clients (press releases, articles, social media, etc.).  As I was writing on a variety of topics for other people, I wanted a place to publish my own thoughts on God, faith, and life, so I launched this site in 2013.

I volunteered at my church teaching a third-grade Sunday School and vacation Bible school classes for eight years.  I believe that if you truly understand a topic, you should be able to explain even the most complex subject clearly, so I try to present information in the same way I would explain it to my class of 8-year-olds . . . simple and clear.  If there are any areas in what I write that aren’t clear, please let me know.

Educational Endeavors

In the fall of 2015, I was accepted into the graduate program in Cultural Apologetics at Houston Baptist University and graduated with a Master of Arts in Cultural Apologetics in December, 2017. I once told a friend that if I could do one thing and nothing else it would be reading and writing. I don’t think I ever made that a formal petition to God . . . but obviously he heard the reading and writing part because that is what this program about. It was intense.

An Unexpected Journal

Part of the joy of the apologetics program was meeting a group of like-minded people. In 2018, a few of those people . . . members and alumni of the HBU MAA program . . . launched An Unexpected Journal, a quarterly journal that discusses the Christian worldview from a cultural apologetics perspective.

December 2024: AUJ was a primary focus of my life for six years. I learned a lot about editing, publishing, and how to help writers develop their work. As of August 2024, I am no longer associated with An Unexpected Journal. For more information, you can watch the announcement of my resignation.

For those who have contributed to the journal prior to September 2023, the original writers’ agreement gave AUJ an exclusive right to publish for 90 days after the publication of the issue they appeared in and a nonexclusive right after that. The writer maintained the copyright; AUJ was granted a specific use. I am not an attorney, but as one of the founding board members and as the person who spent two months going back and forth with Createspace’s content review before the agreement met with their approval, I can tell you for an absolute fact that was the intent of the agreement.

As of the time of this update, my contributions to the journal are still available online. However, as there have been multiple instances of sabotage on the AUJ site as a whole and to my essays in particular, the oddness about the listings of the journal issues on Amazon and other distribution platforms, the fact that a number of my essays have been removed from inclusion on Google Scholar, and the elimination of the ability to subscribe to the journal, I am no longer promoting my essays on anunexpectedjournal.com. I have republished my essays on Substack and have updated the links throughout RaisedtoWalk.org to direct to Substack.

2018-2024 Publications on An Unexpected Journal

On Influences

The graduate apologetics program I went through under Dr. Holly Ordway was heavily focused on writing and it did make me a much better writer; however, my Bible studies, which are constantly hit by content thieves, are not the result of that program. I learned how to teach a Bible study from my church.

My own Bible studies are shaped by sixteen years of sermons, small group Bible studies, special topic classes, and eight years of teaching in children’s ministry at Second Baptist Church in Kingwood, Texas. My perspective and understanding have been shaped by many good Bible study teachers and hours of discussion and input from fellow class members in addition to my independent reading of church history and teachers and scholars such as Derek Prince and Michael Heiser.

The apologetics program had a significant impact on my life, but it was a part of my life for just two years. When I write, the whole of my life has a larger impact.

I say this because people are selling services based on the fact that we graduated from the same program. All MAA graduates are not equal and just because I write with a solid grounding of Scripture, does not mean that every other graduate from the program can or will.

Ministry Outreach

When I began this site in May of 2013, I didn’t know what it was going to look like. Popular female Christian bloggers at the time were Jen Hatmaker and Rachel Held Evans, and their style of content was not mine. All I knew at the time was that I didn’t want to write to keywords, I wanted to write whatever I wanted to write about without editing, that my call was to the church, and my thing was words (see my testimony of my baptism of the Holy Spirit, 12 min)

In addition to the reviews and Bible studies on this site, I also publish on more culturally specific issues on Substack. My main video presence is on YouTube where I publish videos and host livestreams.

Some of the Bible studies I’ve taught have been with Afghan Christians in exile in Pakistan. If you would like to learn more about that story, visit the Kabul Hope series. If their story touches your heart, I hope you will consider organizing a Welcome Corps sponsor group to provide an open door for immigration with your church or four of your friends.

If you’ve come across a mention of the targeting of my site in one place or another, you can find those updates here: Hacked: the Saga.

The Ongoing Journey

“ . . . For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

My life has seen a number of unexpected turns over the past several years.  If you’d like to join me in this ongoing unexpected journey, be sure to subscribe to updates.

Carla M. Sallee Alvarez

 

Updated February 19, 2025