This November we completed our 16th Lifeway Women Leadership Forum and it was the best ever according to attendees! I always have a blast being with these leaders and hope you will attend next year! Click this link to find out dates.
We asked attendees to share their ministries that have been planned or have already been successful at connecting the generations. I will share those in several blog posts so you can see what is working. Please tell us what you are doing to connect the generations.
Jan shares a great idea for a retreat that small churches can easily do:
At our church, we hold an annual event that includes all denominations, all ages! This was our third year and God has certainly blessed our event over and over again! Our speakers have been Kelly Minter, Lisa Whelchel and Jennifer Rothschild. Next year we have already booked Esther Burroughs. Our first year, we had about 350 ladies on Friday night, last year we had about 450 and this year, we squeezed in almost 700 women…all denominations, all ages! We structured it for our rural area, the women in our area and many others just simply cannot afford the time or money to go somewhere to a large event so we decided to bring something to our area. We charge $10 which includes both sessions, Sat. a.m. also, supper on Friday night and more than a continental breakfast on Sat. It is a huge success because it is God-centered.
We are completely funded by our event. We hold two fundraisers every year, a Faith, Friends and 5K Run/Walk, and a “Crop This House” scrapbooking event, plus we sell t-shirts and custom Bible bags! We are very proud of this event but we give God the credit. If you could hear about our first year and how we got started and funded (our church has no money!) you would realize He has had his hand in this from the very beginning! It is a one-of-a-kind event in our area. We have local speakers, one on Friday night and one on Saturday morning who share something God has done in their lives, we have a wonderful storyteller who writes original material, a story about a woman in the Bible, and then we have an awesome lady who performs Christian drama! All have been on board since the beginning.
We formed our own acapella singing group, Amazed, and that has been inspirational. We have been invited to sing at every church around during the past year! We call our ladies conference Rock This House taken from the Acts 4:31 scripture.
For rural areas, this has to be the coming thing! We start as soon, as the event held in August is over, planning our next event.
Watch for more ideas coming soon!
Helpful Resources:
Women Reaching Women, Revised and Expanded version, Chris Adams
Lost and Found, Stetzer, Stanley & Hayes
Context, Threads by Lifeway
The Millenials, Thom Rainer & Jess Rainer
Respect: Meaningful Ministry with Baby Boomers in your Church and Community, Craig & Gandy
Essential Church, Rainer & Rainer
Simple Church, Rainer & Geiger
www.lifeway.com/womenreachingwomen
The Barna Group on-line, http://barna.org
Gen Trends, http://www.gentrends.com/
Scouting the Divine, Margaret Feinberg
No Other Gods, Kelly Minter
Interrupted, Jen Hatmaker
Sacred Roads, Heather Zempel
The Tough Sayings of Jesus, Michael Kelley
What Do You Do With Your Wait?, Mike Harder
Connect the Dots, Mike Hurt
unChristian, David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons