I chatted online recently with Judy Patterson at WomensMinistry.Net. This is Jennifer Rothschild’s leadership Web site, and it is a fabulous resource for women’s ministry leaders.
I will be doing a series of blog posts taken from that interview that I hope will be helpful to you as women’s leaders.
Women’s Ministry has always been, will always be…
How do you respond to that? I believe it’s totally true. Just check out Titus 2:3-5 if you don’t believe me! This mandate doesn’t end with any generation or era. Now it may not look like what we now have or what we have known, but it will exist in one form or another.
I served when we embarked on the last transition in ministry with women. I learned that if we don’t navigate it well, we’ll be in trouble. If we don’t give freedom for change, we won’t have anyone to hand it off to. So we must be willing to make changes if we want to continue to be current and relevant for this next generation of women.
What makes it different? To answer that, think back (if you are old enough) to what made women’s work in our churches different around 20-25 years ago? Those of us coming up into leadership were a different generation, different culture -same reason we must make changes today. Are we as leaders even open to change? Are we willing to do it different?
We see women with great needs today-struggles, strongholds, hurts, losses, fear! How can we NOT minister to women? We must be willing to meet needs, even some basic needs that are similar generation to generation, in different ways to reach a different culture.
Women need to understand biblical womanhood today, desperately! Many were not brought up in a home where this was modeled at all. I’ve come into contact with a number of women recently who just do not even know what a biblical woman, wife, mother, employee looks like.
Let’s be willing to do it different, with the same eternal principles, to continue to ministry to and with women.
Resources:
Women Reaching Women
Transformed Lives
Lost & Found
The Millennials
Context
YOU Lead
2013 Women’s Forum
Lifeway Women Live web casts