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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.
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
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.
As the Christmas season is upon us, sometimes as leaders we feel so overwhelmed with family, church needs, personal feelings, that we fail to enjoy the beautiful season God has given us to celebrate the birth of His son. Read guest blogger Deb Douglas’ insight to help us navigate it well this year.
One little fitting on a hot water tank failed and my house is in chaos for the holidays. Sheet rock ripped from the walls, floors torn out, dust on every surface, and furniture moved to safer locations. I am battling down the overwhelming sense of panic wondering how my granddaughter’s first Christmas is going to match my dream Christmas in the midst of this chaos. Christmas as a minister to women is a challenge but when personal challenges mount on top, Christmas becomes a looming deadline rather than a joyful season.
I know God will use this Christmas season of chaos to teach me something amazing, but the obsessive person within me screams, “Lord your timing does not work with my schedule!” Honestly, I do not want to learn this lesson right now but I have no choice but to submit to God. Not just because He is all-powerful but because I have no other choice. This is beyond my ability to cope. I need Him to cope. I need Him to make it through a normal Christmas in ministry, but this year I will have to learn a whole new level of depending on Him. Depending is how I will survive.
Walking that fine tightrope of balancing ministry and family is stressful during a normal season, add in Christmas celebrations and it's precarious. I constantly must leave my time management at His feet. When I submit to Him, living out my call works. I’m still busy, but I make it through knowing He is at work.
As I write, personal chaos is impacting the ministry. I cannot be in two places at one time; it’s either church or home. My pastor is being understanding but my heart is not. “There’s people to see and ministry to do,” it screams but instead I am waiting on the arrival of another contractor.
Ministry would be much easier if God gave us everything we needed when He called us, but we would miss the joy of knowing that He is at work in us. It’s that joy that gets us through chaos, the faith of knowing He has worked in past and He will work through this circumstance too. Job got through His continual trials by being stubborn in his faith; circumstances or others did not sway him. I need to be stubborn in faith this Christmas.
How to be stubborn in my faith at Christmas?
1. Pray! Pray for my mind to be focused on Godly priorities. Pray for my heart to be in tune to the joy of celebrating Christ’s birth.
2. Look for and submit to the lessons God is teaching in the midst of a chaotic season.
3. Continually remind myself to let go on my expectations.
4. Seek forgiveness for my impatience.
5. Determine to be joyful!
May your Christmas be merry, bright, and stubborn!
Dr. Deb Douglas, is the Minister to Women, First Baptist Church, Bossier City, LA and also serves as one of our LifeWay Ministry Multipliers. Deb launched her first women's Bible study at the age of 20. Her passion is encouraging and equipping women to serve. She is the Minister to Women at FBC Bossier City and a conference/retreat speaker, strategic planning consultant, and freelance writer. Deb graduated from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with a Masters of Arts in Christian Education/Women's Ministry and a Doctor of Education in Ministry degree from NOBTS. She is the wife of Paul, mom of Jared and Katie, and mother-in-law to Emily.
Shirley Moseswill be retiring at the end of this year from her current consultant position. She shares her journey with us and shows us how to allow God to move us out of one way of ministering into another.
Leaders know the day will come when you much ask yourself, “How do I leave successfully so the ministry can continue on without me?” Each of us will experience God's calling us to leave one place of service to go to another place of service. I think as women in leadership, it is especially difficult to leave a leadership role because we are so relational and those we lead become very close to us and a large part of our life.
So the question remains: how do we let go to follow God?
1. Commit those you have led to God
When Paul was on his way to Jerusalem, he chose to stop and say his farewell to those Ephesians he had led. Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace... Acts 20:32b If you were to read on in Acts 20, you would find that Paul knelt down with all of them prayed and wept. I tell you this to let you know that yes, it is OKAY when we cry as we leave.
2. Give the successor your blessings
Those you lead need to know you have confidence in your successor. You need to encourage the women to support her. Pray publicly and privately for her and the ministry to continue strong.
3. Create a smooth leadership transition
When it is time to leave, we need to face that final transition head-on. I'm reminded of Moses when he passed the mantle to Joshua. Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in The presence of all Israel, Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land... Deuteronomy 31:7
4. Remember the ministry belongs to God; we are just the caretakers. So praise him.
How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. Psalm 116:12-14
5. Let Go and Let God
Please understand that things will change. Don't expect things to stay the same with the ministry; when God brings change, it is good. If the ministry belongs to God, it is up to God to determine what he will do with that ministry. I would like to leave you with this last thought to encourage your heart and keep you moving forward.
6. Get excited about what God has for you next!!!
Shirley Moses is an author, Women’s Ministry Team Advisor at Hagerman Baptist Church in Sherman, Texas, and the Women's Ministry Consultant Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, retiring at the end of this year. She also serves currently as a LifeWay Ministry Multiplier, helping train women’s ministry leaders across the country. Shirley contributed to our leadership book, Transformed Lives: Taking Women's Ministry to the Next Level and is co-author of Heart Friends: Beginning and Maintaining a Small Accountability Group
Dawn Stephens is the Associate Minister of Local Disciplemaking and Women’s Small Groups at The Church at Brook Hills, in Birmingham, Alabama
"I am thinking there is a story in this experience as I am helping a woman in a neighboring community dig through the remains of her home after the devastating tornadoes of April 27, 2011.
She and her mother, niece and her niece’s infant daughter were all huddled in the hallway of her home when these monstrously devastating tornadoes literally leveled her home. All that was left was the interior walls (where they were huddled) and the foundation. Her car was now in the kitchen, the roof and all four walls gone.
Our church began helping these families almost immediately with the basic job of salvaging whatever they could from this now wasteland of a neighborhood to begin a new life elsewhere.
A fellow church member and I volunteered to go with this lady back to her home one more time to search for her eyeglasses and a new iron she had never opened. As we drove up to her house, I’d never seen devastation like this!
We started climbing into the house and looking in the general area of where these items might be. We looked as long as we could until the smell (as it had rained earlier in the week) and heat took us over. She conceded that these items were probably gone with the wind.
We asked was there anything else she would like to look for before we left and she said “Yes”! “Could we look in the kitchen cabinets for my mother’s bowl and my stock pots?”
We said “Yes” and after climbing over the hood of her car to get into the kitchen, we began looking into the cabinet. We found her mom’s bowl and after digging in the back of the bottom cabinets, found her stock pots. She was so excited she began telling us the recipes that she always made each year in those pots, caramel icing for her caramel cake for Christmas and her hamburger soup.
As we pulled those pots out of the cabinets, the scripture struck me, “ But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal.” Matthew 6:20
And to add to that verse, where tornadoes do not suck away, never to be seen.
As the seasons change and we all begin to clean out closets, cull out unused clothes and items that we simply do not need, ponder this verse also, “ Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” Luke 12:33
I pray that you join me in praying and asking God to help us both to not put our stock in our pots, so when those pots or material things are suddenly taken away, we know our treasure is secure in God and His love for us. Lead the women God has entrusted to you to do the same!
Dawn has been involved in women’s ministry in both volunteer and staff positions for many years. She is the Associate Minister of Local Disciplemaking and Women’s Small Groups at The Church at Brook Hills, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her desire is to train, equip and encourage women to use their God given gifts and abilities to show Christ’s love and grace to our world. She graduated from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Women’s Ministry certificate program, has served on the Alabama Baptist State Women’s Ministry leadership team, and serves as a LifeWay Ministry Multiplier.
