There is much to be encouraged by in ministry among women today. But what about the challenges? What needs to change?

“We need to regain legitimacy,” Jen Wilkin remarks in a new roundtable video with Gloria Furman and Kathleen Nielson. For many years, she believes, much women’s ministry was characterized by inspirational messages with little substance. So while she’s heartened to see many women desiring greater depth, Wilkin senses they aren’t yet entirely sure they can “trust us” when attending an event. “I don’t want women to leave feeling satisfied,” the author of Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds (Crossway) [review] says. “I want them to leave feeling hungry.”

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“The competition for our attention and affection today is great, and the world isn’t going to offer us any outs,” Furman adds. “So unless we’re pursuing serious study and discipleship, it simply won’t happen. I talk to many women who have a desire for ministry, but their other desires end up crowding it out.”

Nielson, director of women’s initiatives at The Gospel Coalition, underscores the vital and grounding function of the local church. “We live in a cyberspace world, and perhaps we’re not connected enough with a church that grounds us in flesh-and-blood human relationships and gives us that ground-zero—and that authority context—in which to minister.”

Watch the full six-minute video to hear these three women leaders discuss the challenge of mobility, prowling for mentors, spiritual mothering, and more.

Jen Wilkin is an author and Bible teacher from Dallas, Texas. She has organized and led studies for women in home, church, and parachurch contexts. An advocate for Bible literacy, her passion is to see others become articulate and committed followers of Christ, with a clear understanding of why they believe what they believe, grounded in the Word of God. You can find her at JenWilkin.net.

Kathleen Nielson is an author and speaker who loves working with women in studying the Scriptures. She has taught literature (PhD, Vanderbilt University), directed women’s Bible studies in local churches, and served as director of The Gospel Coalition’s women’s initiatives from 2010 to 2017. She and her husband, Niel, make their home partly in Wheaton, Illinois, and partly in Jakarta, Indonesia, where Niel helps lead a network of Christian schools and universities. They have three sons, three daughters-in-law, and nine grandchildren.

Gloria Furman (MACE, Dallas Theological Seminary) is a wife, mother of four, cross-cultural worker, and writer. She lives in the Middle East where her husband, Dave, serves as the pastor of Redeemer Church of Dubai. She is the author of Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home (Crossway, 2013) and Missional Motherhood: The Everday Ministry of Motherhood in the Grand Plan of God (Crossway, 2016). You can read her blog at GloriaFurman.com.