Sheila West is a special friend and women’s leader who will encourage you as you read this post today. Ask God to help you incorporate these two essentials as you look forward to leading women in 2012.

I’m sure that it is just a matter of common sense that just because you get a car up to speed at seventy miles per hour doesn’t mean you can let up on the gas.  If you don’t keep the fuel flowing, the vehicle will slow down to a stop.

The same is true when we are responsible for keeping the momentum of women’s ministry moving. We can not rest on our laurels of past experience. We must keep pressing on with a commitment to purposefully pursue ways to minister effectively.

What does that look like? Even though there are massive amounts written on leadership, for me, there are two essentials: 1) being driven by a passion of purpose and 2) forever learning.

First, being driven by a passion of purpose means always keeping the end in mind. The end result of women’s ministry is equipping women to move in natural increments toward a more Christ-centered life as they purposefully fulfill the great commission. The focus is who women are becoming not on what are women doing. A passion of purpose fuels women’s ministry because it is about seeing His gals look like Jesus in the world rather than being driven by the pressure of being boxed into what women’s ministry looks like in the church.
 
Secondly, since we live in an ever-changing world, leadership in ministry requires developing a mindset of forever learning, an attitude of teach-ability. The willingness to learn and re-learn, is a crucial factor in keeping the “pedal to the metal.” Here are five components I have discovered that contribute to becoming a lifelong learner:

1.    Learn by observing. Be on the alert to notice what is going on around you.  Instead of resting on what you know, continually ask yourself, What don’t I understand, and how can I learn it?

2.    Stay flexible. Trade in the mindset, “but we’ve always done it this way” for an attitude of expectation and adaptability.  Our world is constantly changing – computers that were the greatest and latest yesterday are obsolete today.  Manufacturers know about the critical need for continual upgrading in order to compete. We must maintain a ministry position of flexibility in order to meet new challenges in effectively reaching women.

3.    Be a good listener.  The true leaner is always open to acquiring advice and information from those around her.  Practice listening to what others are saying – not to respond, but to understand and absorb. Soak in all the information you can acquire.

4.    Learn from followers as well as leaders.  In our cultural pre-occupation with authority and position, we often forget how much we can learn from those who are on our team. They have strengths that we don’t. And often their position as “followers” gives them insight and perspective that we don’t have. Don’t limit your range of vision to people who are high-profile.

5.    Fail forward. Failures don’t have to be setbacks. When you learn from mistakes, failures can put you ahead. Use them as stepping stones to insights you can put to use in the future.

This year, ask yourself as a leader, how to I lead with a passion of purpose and what do I need to do learn in 2012 to effectively lead the women God has placed in my path?

Sheila has been involved in women’s ministry for over 25 years, serving as Director of Women's Ministry for over 20 years in the local church. She is presently on the Leadership Team for Heritage Community Church, Lady Lake, Florida, including coordinating women's ministry. She is the founder of Real Living Ministries, a speaking, teaching, and leadership development ministry to women. Sheila is also a contributing author to Transformed Lives: Taking Women’s Ministry to the Next Level, Revised and Expanded edition. Sheila has appeared on numerous Christian radio and television broadcasts, including The 700 Club, and 100 Huntley Street. She is the author of Beyond Chaos, published by NavPress and is a LifeWay Ministry Multiplier. She and her husband, John, are the parents of two and proud grandparents of eight.

Of course, and play the piano and teach the children and cook a big Sunday meal for anyone and, and and…..Right!

OK, seriously, if this is your assumption, then you must also thing each woman in the church has a pre-arranged ministry to lead and you know just what it is!  How many of us, pastor’s wife or not, have served out of obligation or “because someone else wouldn’t volunteer?” Probably all of us!

At times, there is just some work that has to get done in church, but if we are spending most of our time and resources where we are not gifted and passionate, we will burn out quickly. We will also not be investing our time in the place that has most significance, or as some say, ROI (return on investment). Now, I am not saying that we must serve in some areas out of necessity, but I am saying that should not be where we spend the majority of our time and effort. The same is true for the pastor’s wife.

We should never assume because she is a woman in that position that she is “supposed” to lead women. She may have a calling to lead women and know what God has designed her to do, but we just cannot assume it. Years ago when our new pastor came on staff while I was in Texas, we desired that she serve on our women’s leadership team because our previous pastor’s wife had and we desired her insight and influence. But as we got to know her, we discovered her passion was young adult couples. She had led in that area before and felt God had truly called her to invest in these young marrieds.  So, she sat as an advisor on our team when she could, and she opened most of our events with welcome and a story with spiritual significance. She was great at that and loved to do it.

Let’s give our pastor’s wives a break, get to know them, love on them, support them in whatever God has called them to do. Pray into position the women God is calling for each leadership position with your women’s team.

For more on calling and leadership passion, see blog posts for Jan. 6, 9, and 13. Or check out these resources below.

Resources:

Is God Calling Me, Jeff Iorg

The Power of the Call, Henry T. Blackaby & Henry Brandt

Beautifully Gifted: Equipping Today’s Women for the High Calling of God, Angela Bisignano

Women Reaching Women, Chris Adams

Debbie Stuart offers a great challenge as we think about the year ahead. Whether you make new years resolutions, and I don’t exactly either, you still need to consider how you will lead women this year. This is a great way for us to check what our “fire” is!

Recently I spent some time at our camp which affords me much needed time to rest, to THINK and sharpen my focus on the Lord and His desire for Women’s Ministry for 2012. And girl, did I get an unexpected lesson in leadership!

One of my favorite things about the camp is the campfire! I can create (keep those 3 words in mind) quite the campfire…and I love every minute of it and others enjoy it as well. For several months I have been studying through Isaiah, I was at Chapter 50 during my little camp retreat. And I read these words, in Isaiah 50:11- "But watch out you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires" (TNLT).  Uh, excuse me?

Read it again, give it some thought, what do you think the Lord means by that?

This is what I learned from it: As a leader among women it is absolutely imperative that I do not “create” my own thing that can draw a crowd. Never before has our need to rely on God (and not in our intelligence, ideas and creative thoughts and trends) become so essential to meaningful ministry. I can create…is extremely dangerous!  Vs. 11 goes on to say that if you do your own thing, “This is the reward you will receive from me: You will lie down in great torment”. Original Hebrew language defines torment as, a place of sorrow, great pain and grief.

So what’s a leader to do? The answer is found in verse 10…”If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God.” I love the KJV – “Let him trust in the name of the LORD (The Existing One) and stay upon his God”. In Hebrew, stay means lean on, support oneself upon. It indicates we are not able to do it on our own and we would be causing great sorrow, pain and grief to do so.

Caution: Don’t walk by the light of your own fire. Let’s remove any smoke screens of self sufficiency and flames of personal desire and give ourselves entirely to walking by the light of God’s Word, obeying Him and leaning on Him especially in the dark places of our life where there is no light. In the words of F.B. Meyer – “May we be used fully for Gods glory, with deep convictions, spiritual passion, individual holiness, active faith, complete devotion and absolute surrender”. And may I add: leaving no room for our own light.

Missionary Hudson Taylor said: “God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”

Isaiah 66:9 says: “Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery? … Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?” Don’t fear the unknown future. Receive new strength from the Lord as you step into this new year of leadership and directing/teaching women how to walk with the Lord, especially in the dark places. 

Stay Upon Your God!

Resources:

Just Enough Light for the Step I'm On by Stormie O'Martian

Women Reaching Women

Debbie Stuart is Women’s Ministry Director, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX and a LifeWay Ministry Multiplier. She earned her Women's Ministry Advanced Certificate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary  and is a member of the Association of Women’s Ministry Professionals . In addition to being a conference and retreat speaker and Bible study teacher, she was the founder and director of Network Extravaganza in the Shreveport, Louisiana area. She is married and has two young adults.

Leighann McCoy helps us get our year off to a great start with this encouraging message about what doesn’t change in women’s ministry. We have no idea what is ahead for us personally or for our women’s ministry in 2012 so it’s nice to know a few things about ministry to women that stays static!  Remember, outside these 3 things, there is lots of room for tweaking and even “chunking” elements of the way we’ve always done it!  Enjoy Leighann’s thoughts!

I don’t know about you, but as a women’s ministry leader I’ve spent the past few years reeling in what felt like a rip tide of change. I went to conferences where I heard that women are looking for authenticity and purpose. I read blog posts where they begged us to stop hosting our decorated banquets, and I sat in staff meetings where I was challenged to give up women’s Bible studies as I knew them so that we could simplify our programs.

I’ve never actually been in a rip tide, but I’ve studied the posters planted in the sand on Florida’s panhandle beaches. And according to their instructions the only way to survive a riptide is to “go with the flow” rather than fight against it to swim directly back to shore—you just swim with the current a bit until the force no longer pushes against you. Rip tides do not expand the entire width of the beach and eventually you will get beyond them and be able to make your way to shore without any resistance at all.

I swam with the tide of change for two years and just let the women’s ministry at my church carry on. But this past fall I discovered that I’d made it to the edge of my sanctified rip tide. As I set my feet on the soggy sand of the shore I realized that no matter what changes come in 2012, these three things will remain the same:

1.      Women will always need one another.

2.      Women will always find answers in God’s Word.

3.      Women will always love chocolate.

Women will always need one another. We’d stopped having our retreats three years ago. But as I was speaking to a small group of women gathered in the Zion National Park in Utah, I remembered why we used to have retreats. All over the room women were chatting in small groups of 2 and 3 and sharing their stories. They were connecting more than they ever would over a Styrofoam cup of coffee on a Sunday morning. Sharing soup and crackers Friday night and cut up bananas and oranges Saturday morning created an atmosphere where ministry took place. Women were sharing things they’d kept hidden for years. Others were confessing fears about their near and distant futures. God was working. I’m not saying that the only way to foster an atmosphere for women to connect is to host a retreat, but it’s a good way! As for me and my house…we’re having a retreat the first weekend of February in 2012.

Women will always find answers in God’s Word. We know how God speaks to us through His Word. But do the women we serve know what a treasure they have in the Word of God? Unfortunately for us, Bible study has been diluted to about 35 minutes on a Sunday morning with a teacher who studied 45 minutes Saturday night and delivers her insights to women she barely knows as they perch on cold metal chairs spread across the expanse of a white walled room.  In 2012 I am gathering 8 women in my home. Together we are going to work through the chronological study Bible so that we can have a comprehensive understanding of this amazing collection of books we call “God’s Word.” THEN, in 2013 each of those women will gather at least 5 women in their homes and do the same thing. In 2014 each of those 40 women will gather 5 and by 2015, 1000 women in the reach of our ministry will have read the Bible through in a year and have a personal experience with the Word of God.

Women will always love chocolate. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! He has given us all that we need to entice and encourage women to connect with one another and with Him. Many years ago when I wasn’t that terribly concerned with trends and statistics, I led our women’s ministry to host a chocolate buffet. We dressed to the hilt and served chocolate and encouraged the women at our church to connect with one another and to sign up for Bible studies. It worked, so we’re doing it again. I figure that if back then, when the only M&M candies we could serve were either plain or peanut, then surely now when we can serve plain, peanut, pretzel, cinnamon, coconut, peanut butter, dark and milk, then chocolate can still be one of our best women’s ministry friends.

I hope that you have plans to lead the women you love to connect with one another and with God’s Word in 2012. And I hope that you will savor some chocolate along the way.

Resources:

Chronological Bible Discipleship

Readers Guide to the Bible Chronological Reading Plan

Leighann is a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the senior pastor's wife at Thompson Station Church, Thompson Station, Tennessee, a mother of three, a LifeWay Ministry Multiplier and a writer and speaker. Currently, she serves on staff at Thompson Station Church as the prayer and women's minister, and is a frequent speaker at women's events and prayer conferences. Throughout her ministry, she has served in several denominational positions relating to children and women's ministries. She is the author of nine books, most recently being Spiritual Warfare for Women, published by Bethany House. In addition to her website and personal blog, you can read more about her ministry here.

One question I often hear from women’s ministry leaders is how to connect with the younger generation. Beth Moore and daughter, Melissa Moore Fitzpatrick, who collaborated on the Bible study James: Mercy Triumphs, discuss how women's ministry is changing for a younger generation of women. Melissa notes the importance of diversity in this generation. Beth points out one of the unique parts of the James study — the fact that two generations spoke into it. Their discussion is facilitated by Bible study author Kelly Minter.

Watch the video here. Is this what you are hearing from younger women in your church?
 

Resources:
James
No Other Gods
Ruth
Nehemiah
Scouting the Divine

I recently visited with a women’s ministry leader who shared a concern with me and asked for some advice. Maybe as a leader you too have faced this type of leadership issue with a Bible study leader or other team member.

Here was the issue:  “This morning, I got an email from one of the women who has been facilitating Beth Moore Bible studies.  June is one of the women God has used me to help raise up to facilitate women's Bible studies to in our church. She stated to me that she has the upcoming year of Beth Moore Bible studies all planned.  I then emailed her back reminding her she has good ideas and how the team will discuss her ideas and suggestions at our next meeting. I got a second email back and she said, "I will be doing them with others or by herself."  OUCH!  What advice can you give me?”

I wonder about who all has been included in vision casting for the ministry? If the small group Bible study leaders were not, they may not understand the purpose and direction for leading the women. Sometimes women go to Bible study, year after year, without much transformation and very little giving back, serving, or leading coming from the attendees. Perhaps if you meet with your women's small groups leaders to pour into them, let them share their hearts with you, and have them share why they lead the groups they lead, that might begin to get them to think about how the participants are or are not growing. It will also help them connect with each other and the other women’s ministry team members. 

One thing we always want to do is see where the hearts of women are, where their passions and gifts are, and match those with ministry. We must also connect that with the purpose of the church and the purpose of women’s ministry which should directly support the purpose of the church.  

You might also think about how your church as a whole does leadership--how do others serve in the structure of the church? How does the pastor fit into the direction for all leadership? Does he provide direction at all? 

Just talking with the small group leaders like this Bible study leader and getting her into the conversation might help. Otherwise she may just think you decide what will happen regarding Bible study and tell her what to do. Perhaps even asking her to come share with your team why she has chosen what she has chosen to teach, pray with her about it as a team, ask her how she will help develop leaders out of this group, and how to include even more women in Bible study, will help her feel needed and that God is using her to help others understand scripture.

If none of this works, there may be a different type of underlying issue. Continue praying as a team on how to encourage all your leaders at the same time making sure the right ones are in place.

Did you notice during the holidays ministry needs surfacing in larger than normal numbers, especially in the lives of single women? But what do you do after the new year has begun to follow up on those needs. Linda Lesniewski challenges us to consider what plans we have in place to continue ministry  after the holidays.

 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you took care of Me; I was in prison and you visited Me. Matthew 25:36 HCSB

As I'm clearing off my work space from the past month's activities, I realize that the majority of the ministry bustle had been directed toward assisting the needs of single women. That wasn't intentional. The requests that came to our church just happened to come from women in desperate situations, and most of them were single. The Christmas season provided a window into their lives and entrance into their homes. But how will we continue to minister to these women during the months stretching out ahead of us? Their needs won't disappear just because of the new year.

I'm convicted to be intentional about staying in touch and making sure they have a personal presentation of the Gospel beyond the Gospel track tucked into their bags of groceries or among their children's gifts. I want to introduce them and their children to opportunities to grow spiritually at our church. I'd like to find out about their personal needs. Do they need the computer skills offered through Christian Women's Job Corp or codependency recovery offered through Celebrate Recovery? Is domestic violence part of their situation? Have they healed from their divorce or would they benefit from Divorce Care? Are they recently widowed and need Grief Share?

Now I'm concerned that their needs might feel as overwhelming to me as they do to them!  Fortunately, the body of Christ makes reaching out possible. Together we can make a permanent difference in these women's lives rather than provide temporary seasonal relief. What experiences did you have meeting needs during the past month? How many recipients were single women? What are your plans for continuing that loving touch of God's love into the new year?

Resources:

God Loves Single Moms: Practical Help for Finding Confidence, Strength, and Hope 

Women Reaching Women

Transformed Lives

Connecting Women: A Relational Guide for Leaders in WM

Lorie Looney Keene shares a fresh approach to mentoring and play dates. Consider this when you are seeking ways to connect the generations of women in your church.

    I have been comfortable teaching women's Bible study classes, helping with events, doing young women's mentoring for many years now. Recently, however, God has been redesigning my concept of ministering to women. He has been developing in me a love for older women.

   We have several senior adult couples in my church who, for various reasons, do not have any biological grandchildren. Several of these couples have become very fond of Elijah. So, rather than just having 'play dates' with other young moms in the church, I have also been scheduling play dates with several of the older ladies as well. Recently, Elijah and I spent the morning at the home of an older lady who was so excited to have a child play in her yard again. We now go there once a month.

   In addition, I've watched a couple of the ladies recently lose their husbands. I had been especially close to one of the couples and was caught off guard when I received a phone call in Kroger with her crying on the phone asking me to please 'come over and see if her husband was in a coma because he wasn't responding to her.' I went to her home, held the hand of a dying man with cancer, and helped her come to grips with the idea of enlisting Hospice care. He passed away 5 days later.

   All this to say, God is really growing me in my idea of what it means to love on women in my church. I am blessed with many women my age and absolutely LOVE them...but I'm realizing the added blessing of also building relationships with those of older decades.

   As women in the younger generations, we have such a unique opportunity to minister not only to one another, but to women who have walked longer miles in similar shoes.  We are wise to include older generations in our normal life routines.  The wisdom and experiences gleaned from them is invaluable.  Some ways that you may begin to include various generations in your life include:

1.   Adopt an older lady in your church as a second ‘grandmother’ to your child.  Children can never have too many people loving on them!

2.  Take time to develop a real friendship with a woman at least a few decades your senior.  Ask her to share her mothering experiences and favorite pieces of advice.  You may be amazed at how much she can relate to you.

3.  Schedule a ‘play date’ for you and your child/children to spend some time at the home of a senior adult woman. 

   Prayerfully ask the Lord how He wants to beginning tying together some generations of women in your church. You will become much the richer for the experience.

Lorie Looney Keene earned both a Masters of Divinity in Christian Education and a Masters of Theology (Th.M) from Southern Seminary, where she worked for three years as The Assistant Director of Women's Programs.  Prior to working at Southern Seminary, Lorie served in Poland with the International Mission Board and has over seven years experience as an ER nurse.  She is the author of "Pull Up A Chair: You, Me and the Gospel of John (LINK)" by New Hope Publishing, as well as a contributing author to Journey Magazine  . Lorie lives in Tullahoma, TN where her husband, Stephen is the Youth/Education Minister at Highland Baptist Church . She is a Sunday School teacher to HighSchool girls, leads a weekly women's Bible study and teaches Biology at her church's homeschool co-op.  Currently, Lorie is enjoying the role of stay at home mom to her 2 year old son, Elijah.

 

Categories: Leading Young Women, Reaching Women, Top Ten for the Generations
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Today’s guest blogger is my friend Margaret Kennedy, a Biblical retreat and conference speaker, who also has a call for mentoring young women on her life. Read her message to us to make sure we focus on the relationships God brings into our ministries and our lives. As we begin this year together, let’s evaluate how we might better  foster “togetherness”!

Remember the popular TV show “Cheers”?  It was a bar scene where regulars would come daily to sit and chat.  Ever wonder what drew them there?  The lyrics to the theme song tell us the drawing card: “Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same. You wanna be where everybody knows your name.”

Chuck Swindoll says: “The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give His Church.  It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality.  But it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love, and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers.”

My burden is this: as women’s ministry leaders, are we aware of this lack of connection, though we are rooted and grounded in Christ? Over the last year, most of the churches in which I have spoken or done leadership consultation have asked me address this very issue.  How can we help the women in our church to connect with one another?

Through technology, busyness, and self-centeredness, we are losing personal touch with one another.  Our world, while offering opportunities for forming merely surface relationships, is leaving little time for cultivating deeper connections in Christ. 

God created us for community.  God has given us what I often call “The Gift of Togetherness” to meet this need.  Scripture teaches us that we are fellow workers, helpers, labourers, prisoners, sufferers, etc.  The word “fellow” means this: “together with, implying a nearer and closer connection, a more intimate relationship as Jesus Christ has with us. This is more than the word ”meta” which means “amid or among, merely in company with.”  This word for fellow, sun, is used 127 times in the NT, telling us how we are to be closely connected. I think of us as being “sun sisters”. 

So, I believe the need will be answered only when we as women’s leaders intentionally institute methods, programs, and plans that promote this “Gift of Togetherness”.   How can we do that in the coming year?

1. Recognize and address the need of our women to be accepted and connected as a women’s ministry team.  Make your women at large aware of this inborn need. 

2. Assess where your women are in your fellowship.  Which best describes the relationships of your women.  Are they “fellows” or merely “amid” one another.

3. Is the opportunity being afforded for them to truly connect with one another?   Or do they merely meet, greet, eat, and depart in the same manner they came. 

Intentionality will be the key to meeting this need in your women’s lives.

Because I teach a large ladies class that schedule only affords 1 hour a week for cultivating close connections, the leaders in my class formed 4 small groups, inviting them into my home for food and fellowship.  Our goal was to make each woman feel accepted and connected.  It worked well.  Used the same menu, same table talk questions, and centered our group discussion on Hebrews 10:24.

Our Women’s ministry team is piloting a program that will connect older women and younger women, by using Woman to Woman Mentoring and Apples of Gold resources.

Accountability opportunities are opening up for women to form small accountability groups, using Heart Friends resource.

A sister church is beginning a series of small gatherings in individual homes, entitling it “The Bridge”, for the purpose of connecting with each other in preparation for connecting with the world. I held a training session beforehand for the leaders on “Telling God’s Story Your Way”. Then a different leader was asked to begin each “Bridge” gathering by sharing her story.

Hebrews 10:24 encourages us to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” 

Until we are closely connected in the body of Christ, we will never bring those outside into the fold though their hearts experience the same need as ours:  to love and be loved, to be accepted and connected.

 Ladies, let us make sure that our assembling this next year includes appropriating our “Gift of Togetherness”! Tell us in the comments below what you are doing to create community for your women, a place where "everybody knows their name".

Recently at a YOU Lead women’s leadership training, we had a panel of leaders answering questions submitted by attendees. Several past and upcoming posts address those and try to help answer them. 

Today’s question is: In addition to prayer, how do you affirm whether you are moving down a path to which God has called you or if you are “seeing” affirmation because it’s what you want to do?

Wouldn’t it be nice if always, the handwriting was clearly on the wall and addressed personally to us by name?  But, if that’s the way God worked, I wonder if we would truly seek Him and study His Word for direction?

You might want to read this post from January 6, Women Finding Their Calling. Next, I’d do several things in addition to prayer:

 1.    Specifically ask God if He is leading you in this way.

2.    Confirm what He is telling you with Scripture.

3.    Ask the advice of godly women in leadership who know you and who will pray for you.

4.    Be in accountability with someone who will pray you through this decision.

5.    Don’t barge the doors down. God will open them, you will not have to beat them down!

6.    If you notice doors opening, ask God to confirm your next step. Even ask Him to close the door very obviously if it’s not what you should do.

7.    Continually seek to know HIM primarily, not just seek to know the answer.

8.    Know that sometimes God may open a door that doesn’t work out the way you thought. But if He opened and you obediently followed, then He may have something to teach you even if it is a difficult journey or if the door later slams shut.

9.    Continue to trust Him fully as you learn all He has for you as you seek His call daily as well as in the bigger picture of ministry!

Resources:

Is God Calling Me, Jeff Iorg

The Power of the Call, Henry T. Blackaby & Henry Brandt

Beautifully Gifted: Equipping Today’s Women for the High Calling of God, Angela Bisignano

Women Reaching Women, Chris Adams

Karen Doyel shares a heartfelt experience regarding mentoring. Be blessed by this guest post today!

"One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts"

Psalm 145:3-5

As we serve the women God brings into our lives, I am reminded of the wonderful women God brought to minister and serve me.  My life has been blessed with mentors when I did not even know I was being mentored. My sweet grandmother wet my appetite for God’s word as a 6 year old girl.  I spent the night with her and we slept together in her big feather bed.  It was such a treat to have my grandmother all to myself.

As we settled in for the night, she began to tell me a story of a young boy who left home and ended up eating pig food!  She went into great detail and I was captivated by this young boy and the mess he was in.  Of course, my favorite part was the happy ending!  As she finished the story she told me it was a story in the Bible!  Now I was really shocked!  I could not wait to tell my parents and could not wait to hear another story.  That began my hunger to know more about my God.

I wonder if you are sharing with the women around you.  Are you giving them an appetite for God’s word?  Are you seeking women who give you an appetite for God’s word?

A young wife and her husband took Doug and I into their home once a week during our engagement and let us watch them relate, cook, take care of their children and fed us!.  They then separated us and each took time to teach us how to be a Godly wife and husband.  What a blessing!

Another woman took me with her when she visited homebound people and I watched her love.  I was taught how to be a pastor’s wife, by my pastor’s wife.  She took time to share, but more importantly she walked the walk of a loving supportive wife in front of me.

I was even blessed to be taught how to be a widow when I had no idea I was going to be a widow.  A wonderful elderly lady asks me to her home on a consistent basis and shared her life with me.  Never did I suspect she was teaching me how to be a Godly widow.

This is just a short list of the women God has brought into my life and I pray that I will not forget and be always willing to speak into the lives of the women around me. 

What are you teaching?  Are you being intentional in bringing up the next generation?

There are wonderful tools out there if you need help. Women Mentoring Women by Janet Thompson is one of them.  Take time to check it out.

Karen is a writer for the Tennessee Baptist Convention Ministers’ Wives blog .She is a speaker and conference leader, former pastor’s wife, and LifeWay Ministry Multiplier from Lenoir City, TN. Karen was married to Dr. Douglas R. Alexander, former pastor of First Baptist Church, Lenoir City, Tennessee until his untimely death a few years ago. They served in ministry in Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Ohio and Tennessee. Karen established and led women’s ministries in each church she attended and is a conference leader and writes and teaches Bible studies. She especially has a heart for ministers’ wives and wants to help them love their special calling in ministry. Karen is married to Jim Doyel and is the mother of three grown sons. 

If you missed the re-airing of this inspiring and informative web cast this inspiring and informative web cast: Ministering to the Military Spouse December 13, you can still watch the recording here.

Join by video Chris Adams, Pam Case & Paige Greene,  as we talked with Sara Horn, founder of Wives of Faith, a military wives support ministry and author of the new LifeWay study, Tour of Duty: Preparing Our Hearts for Deployment. We'll discussed the challenges military spouses in particular face and how your ministry can make a difference in the lives of these families who sacrifice so much for the freedoms all of us so often take for granted.