Essential Elements of an Effective Women’s Ministry

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Colleen McFadden: Well, the way we’re going to settle our time today is we have a couple of questions that we’ve prepared in advance that we hope will give some practical insights into how to shape Women’s Ministry in the local church. And each of the women up here today represents a different local church. So I love just for us to get to know our panelists so that we have a context in which they’re speaking. I’m going to start with you, Jen. If you can just say where you’re from … I just said your name, but where you’re from and your context of Women’s Ministry in the local church.

Jen Wilkin: My name is Jen Wilkin and I am at the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas. I serve as the director of classes and curriculum for our five campuses. My role on the Village Church staff is not a Women’s Ministry role per se. I actually am over all adult classes, but I think we all know what I love. I teach the women’s Bible class at the Flower Mound Campus, and we do plan events that are gender specific for our women. We just don’t have a formal Women’s Ministry at the Village, but at my previous church in Houston, I did serve as the Women’s Ministry director there, in a lay capacity for several years and then for five years as paid staff.

Courtney Doctor: I’m Courtney Doctor, and when they asked me to serve on this panel, I was director of Women’s Ministry in our local church. And we transitioned out about nine months ago, but through the years, I’ve served in lay leadership in several different churches, both in teaching roles and in leadership roles, and then served on senior staff for five years at a local church. I do serve our denomination Women’s Ministry, and starting next year, I am going to be a visiting professor of applied theology at Covenant Seminary. So I’m really looking forward to that, but that’s helping to equip men and women to go into their local churches. So, still serving, loving the local church.

Danielle Anderson: Hi, I’m Danielle Anderson and I live in Atlanta, Georgia, where I served as the Deacon of Women’s Care for a three-year-old called Cornerstone Church. And before that and beyond that, I have to the passion for teaching women’s Bible studies, usually in small group context and where possible, traveling and being able to teach at retreats or conferences.

Colleen McFadden: My name is Colleen McFadden. I am from Chicago, Illinois originally, but I now live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And my context of Women’s Ministry has been mostly in church plants in a big city like Chicago or Philadelphia, where there is no Women’s Ministry and we’re trying to build something from scratch. I love the diversity on this panel, that we have on staff and then not on staff. And same with you and Deacon of Women’s Care. Because there’s a variety of women in ministry, I’d like us to just start with what is a definition of Women’s Ministry. Jen, do you want to kick us off?

Jen Wilkin: Yeah, I’ll try. I really, I’ve tried to think about this. There are a thousand different ways you could say this. The way I try to think about, a good working definition is to think in terms of the whole woman. So heart, soul, mind, and strength. So here’s what I got. You can tell me what you think. No, don’t, just stare at me as though it’s the best thing you’ve ever heard. That Women’s Ministry should strive to help women learn, connect, serve and receive care in ways that undergird the mission of the local church. So basically that whatever we’re doing in a Women’s Ministry setting, it would not happen off to the side and on its own, but that it would be coming alongside the things that are already happening, but perhaps in ways that remove barriers to entry for women to participate, that other areas of ministry might not do with the same level of intention.

Colleen McFadden: That’s great. Courtney, would you add?

Courtney Doctor: The only thing I would add, and it’s probably more just reiterating that it is just one aspect of the ministry of the local church. And by one aspect, that actually helps in two ways. It’s not outside of, it’s not a siloed ministry, it’s part of, and so it’s the part that helps to accomplish the ministry towards women, helping them grow towards maturity in Christ. And so it’s part of the whole.

Colleen McFadden: I love these definitions because it goes along with the title of this workshop session, which is Women’s Ministry in the Local Church. That’s really the context from which we’re speaking, is in the local church, the ministry that’s happening, that’s part of that church. So with that in mind, what would be some essential elements that should be part of Women’s Ministry in the local church? Danielle.

Danielle Anderson: I think a clear vision and goal is key that we actually know what we’re striving for. And I think sometimes we can define that by what we don’t want to be, but I think it’s clear that we define it explicitly saying what we actually want to be. Other things that would be essential elements, I think prayer and continuous grace for self and others. A genuine love and care and concern for the women in your local fellowship. Willing participants that actually would want to participate in the things that you are planning for the women. Committed leadership, I think is key to Women’s Ministry, and a good relationship with the pastors. And as Courtney mentioned, aligning with the mission of the church.

One thing that I think is really essential that sometimes it can be found missing is to have intentional self-care elements for those who are serving in Women’s Ministry, particularly those in leadership, but also that the leadership would model that for those who are participating, that we would be mindful to set things in place to possibly limit overworking or putting term limits on things so that people don’t over commit and become worn out and then bitter to Women’s Ministry. Those are just some things that I think are essential.

Colleen McFadden: Can I draw you out on one or two of them? You said a vision. We should have a vision. Do you have a vision at your church for your Women’s Ministry? Do you have it memorized? Is it a sentence? Just practically, right? What does that mean to have a vision?

Danielle Anderson: Yeah, well, I haven’t memorized it. I mean, it is a good sentence, but it was the idea of we want to come alongside the women in the church and grow them and to care for them well, to promote connection. We had a lot of Cs. Care, connection, competency, and character were the four Cs that were in the vision statement. Just the idea of, for Cornerstone as a young church plant, one of the big visions and goals of the church was just to connect. It really was to help people know that you are part of this body, you are seeing, you are cared for. And so, part of the goal of Women’s Care was to help to foster that connection.

Colleen McFadden: Okay. You also mentioned committed leadership. Is that on the part of the pastor or the pastoral staff or the elders or of the women, or both?

Danielle Anderson: I would say both. I was speaking in particular about the committed leadership, but of the women who are leading out in Women’s Ministry. But I do think that it’s very helpful. I want to say essential, although I know that’s not always the reality, but to have committed leadership from pastors and elders of the church.

Colleen McFadden: Jen, you’ve had a couple of different experiences in local churches. What would you add to that? Even to what she just said or something additional for an element in the ministry?

Jen Wilkin: Yeah. I would second the idea of top-down buy-in. I think one of the hardest things with Women’s Ministry is that even if the women themselves don’t want the ministry to exist over to the side, sometimes functionally it does because male leadership sometimes just, they don’t have a vision for it, which is understandable, but if they’re responsible for it, they should be bought in. And so that can mean that whoever the woman is, who is at the top of the leadership structure for the women, it may be on her to continually be asking for, “Hey, can I get a meeting with you to talk about what’s next? Hey, can I get a meeting with you to tell you what we’re thinking here and get your input, and to invite the partnership there?” It’s good for the church. That’s the right decision just in terms of leadership, if that’s not already happening naturally, but it’s also safe for the ministry, because over time, the more isolated the ministry is over to the side, the more questions can come up looking in from the outside.

And there can be the likelihood that fear can creep in that maybe you’re a church within a church, or maybe you’re just doing your own thing and it doesn’t have anything to do with what the rest of the church is doing. So it’s really good for the person who’s the leader in charge, who would be the one interacting with a pastor and staff to be in good communication and to be, not only casting vision, but asking for direction and inviting that man to come and be a part of the teaching environments or, “Hey, come to our women’s event that we’re having and just hang out in the back for a little bit and just see what’s going on.” Just ways to help them to understand the value and to partner with you in the work.

Colleen McFadden: That’s great. I think a lot of us here are … Well, if you’re here, you’re interested in how to shape Women’s Ministry. So either you are … Well, I think there’s three things. Either you’re starting a brand new ministry, a church plant, perhaps. So your ground up, right? Or perhaps you’re trying to shift, literally shift a shape for your ministry, or you just want to be encouraged that you’re on the right track. Maybe you are doing some really good things and the Lord is really blessing it. With all those three things in mind, I want to talk practically about good designs of a Women’s Ministry. The elements I think are really key. What are some good designs? So we have variety up here. Danielle, how do you design your Women’s Ministry for a city church plant? How do you do that?

Danielle Anderson: So we have to be honest and take inventory of the participants, the women in our body, and go, okay, so we have a lot of diversity here, whether it be ethnically or socioeconomically or professionally, or married, singled wood, and try to create something that works well for the vast majority of the women. So when it came to scheduling events, we would want to do those things in the evening so as to not dismiss those women who have full-time jobs, out of the house during the day. Something else with the church plant, because so much of a church plant, sometimes you hear the term that 20% of the people can do 80% of the work. You just want to be mindful not to overwork volunteers and just being mindful of, maybe we just start slow. Be careful not to try to do too much too fast.

So maybe we just start with and was what we did. We just started with gathering women once a month just to pray about, for vision, for wisdom, for clarity on growing this effort towards the women in the church. Another aspect though, that comes with the idea of a church plant, but also diversity of a city, as you design offerings for women, I think you ought to be mindful that the teaching that’s happening is reflecting the diversity of the body you are before. And I was telling all of you this on the, we talked earlier. So if you are the majority culture of the church, being mindful that in your teaching you’re not passing on majority culture norms and calling it biblical truth.

I think we have to be honest enough to say, “Okay, as I’m preparing to teach, or I’m going to try to give some practical applications to hit as many women in my local context, are my applications actually relevant to where they are or am I passing on my culture as Bible truth?” So those are, I think, some things that are helpful when you think about church plant. So the youth of a church, but also idea of a church in the context of a city where you might have more diversity. I’m just assuming that, in my experience, I’ve seen more diversity in the city context and suburban, but that could be a wrong assumption, but that’s just my experience.

Colleen McFadden:
So you said is a church plant three years old? When did you start the Women’s Ministry? I mean, do you start it right away or have you been there from the beginning?

Danielle Anderson:
No.

Colleen McFadden:
I asked you three questions in a row. They’re all different. Go.

Danielle Anderson:
I came along about a year in and I first began to serve alongside a sister who was leading up the small groups area. So she was in charge of training up small group leaders and helping people get into small groups. So I first started to assist her in that effort. And then, I think it was our pastor actually got myself and two other women together and said, “Hey, I’ve heard chattering. I know y’all are passionate about this thing called Women’s Care. Let’s get together and get the conversation started.” And so after that meeting, which was about a year and a half into the church, then the three sisters and I, we got together, dreamt up a plan, presented it to our pastor. And then after that, they created this formal role of, they rolled out deacons in the church and one of the deacons was a deacon of Women’s Care.

Colleen McFadden:
That’s interesting. Just from my perspective and being part of church plants, a similar thing happened, to launch the Women’s Ministry really was started when the right women came to the church. Perhaps the pastors didn’t want to loft it on their wives to have to take care of it. That’s not the role of a pastor. If you’re a pastor’s wife here, your role is not director of Women’s Ministry, unless you really want it to be, then it can be. But I think that’s really great that your pastor was listening and heard the chattering, as you say, and then mobilize the right women to do it. Courtney, you’ve been part of more established churches, and praise God for that. I mean, I love all the church plants, but praise God for solid churches that have been around for a while. What did the design look like in established church?

Courtney Doctor:
They do all vary. Don’t they? But as I’ve been thinking about that one thing before I jump into just the long established church, I would love to say that, I think for any context. And I’ve tried to think, overseas, church plants, urban, suburban, longest, I’ve just been trying to think through a lot of different contexts. And the best I can come up with, I think that this is true to say that for every context, I am a big advocate of building teams. And so two teams in particular now. Now you mentioned a prayer team and I hadn’t put that in there, but that is great, obviously. But I would say two other teams that I’m a big fan of, and the first is a teaching team. And so identify and raise up and equip and give opportunity to a variety of women in your church to teach. To have a deep bench of women who can step into that role is so healthy for the church.

And then you’re listening to a lot of different voices too. And it’s just a good thing to have multiple women equipped and ready to teach. And the other team that, and you alluded to this, but a leadership team. And as you’re putting together a leadership team or you’re trying to reframe a leadership team, look at your church. And as much diversity as your church has, make sure that you have that representation on your leadership team. So if you have diversity of age, if you have ethnic diversity, if you have diversity of marital status, diversity of call-ins and career, bring as much as you can to the table at a time. And then the rotation of leadership. Was that you Colleen that said that or Danielle? That not letting … and that leads me right into then the whole long established church thing, because the majority of the contexts that I’ve been in have been long established churches. And there is beauty in that and there are challenges.

I mean, any context is going to have its beauty and its challenges. And so to recognize the beauty, because sometimes it can be frustrating. So if you’re stepping into or you’re currently functioning in the context of a long established church, there are things, and there are things that are in the just the culture of the church, the rhythm of the church, the calendar of the church. And so even just a Bible study that’s been going on on Tuesday mornings or Wednesday nights for 30 years, I mean that, there is beauty in that, because that is so built into the rhythm of the life of the church and the life of the women. There are women that haven’t scheduled a haircut for 30 years on Tuesday mornings. They wouldn’t consider a doctor’s appointment on a Tuesday morning or whatever it is, that’s because it’s just, it’s part of, that’s what I do on Tuesday mornings. I do Bible study.

And so recognizing the beauty in things that are long established. The flip side of the same coin, right? Is that not everything that’s been going on for a long time is still relevant or helpful. And we were talking about resources and the idea, and Jen, maybe you’re the one that said that, but the idea that we have volunteers, and so say you have five volunteers and they only each can give two hours a week. How are you going to invest that resource? I mean, if you are in leadership, you need to steward all of the resources you’ve been given. And so to spend a lot of time or effort on something that is long established but no longer relevant or no longer aligned with the vision and mission or strategy of the church, it’s not being a good steward of those resources. And so recognizing it is the first step and then unwinding it is the second step. And how you unwind it is crucial. There are people [crosstalk].

Colleen McFadden:
How do you unwind that?

Courtney Doctor:
Oh, I wasn’t going to answer that part. I was just going to tell you be careful. Yeah. Yeah. And there are people that love it and there are people that started it and it’s … I had, Tasha Chapman, a professor at Covenant Seminary, said, “Leadership is learning to disappoint people at a rate they can absorb.” So, take that one to the bank.

Colleen McFadden:
Wow. Thinking about the long established church and the women who for 30 years have not scheduled a hair appointment on Tuesday morning, that means you have women that are at least 48. I don’t know. I mean, what I’m getting at is you guys have multi-generational representation in those churches if they’ve been around for that long. You have even mothers and grandmothers, whole families that are there, kids raised in the church and then they stay at the church and they have their own families. How do you cultivate that? I mean, it can get really innocent, separated by age group. How do you cultivate a multi-generational fellowship?

Courtney Doctor:
Well, I think first of all, you have to love multi-generational living. I mean, that has to be in you. You can’t cultivate something in someone else that you don’t have a love for yourself. And so, like right now, I truly am so blessed. Two of my best friends, one is 25 years older, and one is 25 years younger. And I love doing life with these women. But do you have a love for it? And then if you do, are you creating spaces in your church, in your Women’s Ministry for multi-generational fellowship and ministry to occur? And so look around the church and outside of your Sunday morning worship context, which is multi-generational, where else are your small groups age and stage, are your community groups age and stage? Do you have a lot of maybe classes, a parenting class or an empty-nester class? Is everything pulled apart by age and stage?

Then be intentional about creating those spaces where multi-generational lives are going to intersect. And I was telling them that one of the sweetest things that happened, it wasn’t anything that I did intentionally, it was one of those things that I realized what was happening, but we were studying in Bible study, one of the last letters that Paul wrote. And so I asked some of the older women in the church, and we do have that resource. I mean, I was in a church that was really blessed with that. But I asked some of the older women who had walked with the Lord for decades to just spend 10 minutes before Bible study, testifying to how the word of God has sustained them.

And what I saw happening as these older women week after week, would stand up and share their testimony, the hearts of the younger women were just being inclined towards, I mean, they were falling in love with these older women, and relationships came out of that and discipleship groups came out of that. And I was like, “Wow, this is so cool.” So the next year or next semester, whatever it was, I asked the younger women to testify to an unresolved. The current struggle that they were … How’s the word of God’s sustaining you through a current struggle? And the exact same thing happened. The older women just fell in love with the younger women. And so do you create platforms and space for that to happen intentionally?

Colleen McFadden:
So you created those platforms and spaces within your Women’s Ministry, but it also sounds like there were other ministries within the church that emphasize multi-generational fellowship. Is that right? That it wasn’t just a Women’s Ministry thing, but the whole church really focused on that?

Courtney Doctor:
Yeah. So if any of you have ever put together small groups for Bible study, you’ll know it’s like the, you cannot win. I mean, you just cannot win. So you just need to be okay with that on the front end. But I stepped into a church rightness.

Jen Wilkin:
I mean, eye twitch [inaudible].

Courtney Doctor:
[inaudible]. So, I stepped into a church that a woman in her early 80s had been running the assignment of the small group. So every year she would. And she had color coded cards. And so pink were 50 and up. Now that I’m 50, nevermind, 60 and up. And then the middle group was green, and they were the middle age. And then the young group were the yellow or whatever. And so she would, we would spend an entire morning putting the cards out and arranging and making sure that each group was multi-generational. And it was, I inherited that system, but I loved the idea behind it. And one year, I actually said, “Okay, we’re going to let everybody self-select into their small group.” I will never do that again.

Colleen McFadden:
Let’s hear Jen’s eye twitch. Why was your eye twitching?

Jen Wilkin:
Well, we actually, we tried to hybridize our approach too because of our ministry structure at the Village, which is very streamlined. We’re always looking for ways to perpetuate as much community as we can. We’re a very large church that for many years, only had small groups and weekend services. And we’ve added in classes, Bible studies in particular, over the last several years. And so one of the things that we have done is, the common experience of most of the women in our church was, well, I know the women in my home group, but I’d like to know more than six women in the church. And so of course, women’s Bible class is a place that provides them that opportunity. So what we do is we allow them to sign up with people who are in their home group or with a friend that they know that is coming.

And then we don’t overturn the apple cart. We let them stay together with that group for as long as they want, assuming that the group is functioning the way that it should. So that means that we run into some difficulties administratively, where you might have, as a small group leader where you could have seven women who know each other really well from a home group and four women who we packed in there because we have to pack out the room. And so we train our small group leaders to be aware of that dynamic and to make sure that everyone in the group feels welcome and is included in the discussion. However, what we have seen is that, we want that small group discussion time to be a place where people are talking about sin and confronting really difficult things.

And by not doing the overturning the apple cart every time, it’s much quicker for women to go deeper on the questions that we’re asking. And it has enabled us to have a greater level of vulnerability. And it could just be that that’s what works at our church. I know there are places where you get the holy huddle problem and people don’t ever want to be separated, but we, unless a group grows, and some of them do grow to be like 27, 30 women, we usually will just allow them to stay together, but we tell them, “Hey, here are the guidelines for what you’re going to need to do if this is going to be the case,” but we do let them have some choice, but we also reserve the right to say, “Oh, that didn’t work out this time. Sorry.”

Colleen McFadden:
Well, it sounds like a good balance.

Jen Wilkin:
Yeah, hopefully.

Colleen McFadden:
Just to affirm you in that. It sounds like a great balance.

Jen Wilkin:
Thank you. Thank you Colleen.

Colleen McFadden:
Well, two things that have come out that I think it’s actually a heartbeat of all of us up here. Courtney talked about having a solid teaching team. And Jen, you just mentioned about how the Village Church had Sunday service in small groups, and now you’ve introduced this Bible class. So I think a heartbeat of all of us is word centered ministry. And boy, if you’re at this conference, are we getting the word or what? So Jen, how do you cultivate a word centered ministry from one that doesn’t exist at all, from one that is the opposite of that? How do you cultivate it?

Jen Wilkin:
I think that a lot of times people will start to discover the beauty of Bible literacy and the tools associated with it. And they’re like, “Well, I want this and I don’t want anything else. And so these other things that have been here since the church started, I need those to stop.” And I think that’s the wrong answer. It’s what we touched on earlier. There are women who have been there long time, who are invested in those things and a better approach to shifting the tone of your ministry is to build the more beautiful vision. You start doing the thing that you perceive the value of, but you don’t have to shut down whatever the other thing is, but you do begin to focus and devote resources to the thing that you see as the long-term healthy option for the ministry.

And the thing with doing words centered ministry is, I just need to be very honest, I think you will not disagree with me. Women don’t necessarily wake up in the morning saying, “That’s what I want.” What they come for is community. We love to get together and know one another. And so what you’re doing is you’re leveraging that desire and then you’re hijacking them with really good content once they get there. So, with that in mind, you need to understand that putting the better content out there for them, it’s a little jarring for a lot of women. They’ve been in environments where that’s not been the case and it’s going to take some time for them to adjust. Many of them are going to say, “Well, that’s not for me.” What we found would happen is we, everyone would sign up, be all excited and they’d come for the first week and get the workbook and be like, “Well, that is not what I thought I was going to do.”

So we would see for a long time an attendance drop, about around week two until we developed credibility and predictability around what we were doing. And that takes some time. And so when you start introducing this thing that you really feel like is vital to the health of your ministry, just understand that it’s a slow boil that you … I always say I started with seven women in my living room. And at the end of that semester, three of them were still coming. And those three never studied the Bible the same way again and they brought friends. And that’s what happen over time, is you’re teaching them how to hunger properly for the scriptures and you let it build over time. And depending on your environment, it may take longer or it may take shorter. Don’t look at my church as your example, because we have this unique thing in the way that the preaching happens, that it creates a real hunger in our people to go, “What’s next? What else can I learn?”

And honestly, I know not every environment’s like that. I’ve been in the church where the preaching was here, and what I was trying to do and Bible study was here. And that means that you may hit the ceiling on the number of women who are going to buy into what you’re doing lower than a church that has a different setup. But hear me say that’s okay. I mean, you’re doing a good work in the church the Lord has placed you in, to the capacity that there is there for women to come. And the important thing is we want to honor the scriptures and so we’re going to do this thing. And the women who get it, they’ll never be the same.

Colleen McFadden:
I hear what you’re saying, that every church will be different in the timing. How long did it take, would you say, from inviting those seven women to your home to actually feeling as if, “Okay, this is a healthy thing?” Just so we can have a sense from one person’s experience.

Jen Wilkin:
I don’t know. I mean, I started in my living room and within a year, I was doing morning and evening in my living room and we had as many moment as I could fit in. It was probably, I could fit about 45 women into my, they were in the kitchen and back in the … And at that point, and instead of-

Colleen McFadden:
So it’s not a slow boil. I just got to-

Jen Wilkin:
Yeah, but I will say … That’s why I’m saying, you don’t know where … It just depends on a lot of factors, but if it doesn’t move as quickly as you saw it move somewhere else, it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It just means you’re in a different place. Like I said, I was at this church full of young moms. Listen, you know when women realize they need to study the Bible, when they kick out a baby, right? And then you’re like, “I don’t think I know what I’m doing.” And so that’s where I found myself.

And there was a supply and demand factor, but your church may not be like that. You may have a group of women who have been in church their whole lives and they’re like, “Listen, I know the Bible and I know how to do Bible study, and don’t come in here and tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing.” And that’s a whole different scenario to walk into. So I don’t know that you can look at my situation and ask for a normative. I will say at my last church, I was doing the exact same thing I’ve done at the Village, and I never had more than 45 women. And it was a church of about 3000.

Audience:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Wow.

Colleen McFadden:
Well, those are two great experiences. I mean, that could be transferable to us here. Yeah.

Jen Wilkin:
And I didn’t care if I’d had 45 people until Jesus came back. Seriously, [crosstalk].

Colleen McFadden:
You got 45?

Jen Wilkin:
Yeah, those 45.

Colleen McFadden:
I think I’ll add just from a different experience that I’ve had in a church plant, trying to cultivate a word center ministry. I think we give our time to what we love. And so when we as leaders love the word and give our time to it, that excitement does grow. I mean, listening to these ladies, especially just what Jen was just saying, like, “Yeah, I want to get on board with that.” I love her excitement and that’s what I want to be excited about too. For me to be able to demonstrate that excitement, one simple way that I started to cultivate this was, along with my pastors that helped me really design this, was to start just simply reading the Bible one-to-one with another woman.

So I didn’t invite 45 women to my living room at that point, but I invited one woman to a coffee shop and we simply opened the Bible, we read through Colossians, and we would read one chapter a week and then we would talk about it. And we had a list of questions that would guide our time. And we had a great experience. And guess what? When we parted ways at the end of Colossians, she went and read with another woman, and then I went and read with another woman. So now there were four women reading the Bible together. And then after that, each of those women went and read with another woman. And soon enough, I think it took maybe five years, it became a thing at our church.

You’d hear in the halls, “Who are you reading one-to-one with?” And, “Oh, well, I just ended mine and I’m about to start another one.” Or, “Hey, are you going to do that next? Can I jump in with you?” It created this thing because one person was excited and then it just kept going on and on. If that sounds intriguing to you, I would highly recommend a resource called One-to-One Bible Reading. Very easy to remember that. I know it’s for sale in the bookstore by David Helm. He actually was my pastor when we … I sat down with him and we had a napkin in front of us and he drew out the plan for how we could make this spread and then he put it into a book and it really has been helpful in our setting.

As we talk about this and especially as we talk about words centered ministry, I know we all teach and it takes a lot of time to teach. It takes a lot of our time, and we’re not all paid staff. At [Willis], we don’t get paid to teach. A lot of it is volunteer. And I think that’s probably the situation for many of us, that we give our time to Women’s Ministry and we don’t get paid for it. We just do it because we love the local church and we love Christ and we want to make his name known. To that end, how do we develop leadership then? I mean, we might have money, there might be budget for a staff, but even beyond the director of Women’s Ministry, how do you develop leadership? Whether it’s teaching, whether it’s just leading the ministry or helping to lead the ministry. Jen, do you want to lead us on that?

Jen Wilkin:
Yeah.

Colleen McFadden:
Because it sounds like you’ve been doing that.

Jen Wilkin:
Yeah. My leadership pipelines come through, typically through small group leaders for the Bible study. That’s usually where you can identify whether someone has some additional gifts. We designate our small group leader role as a facilitator and a co-learner. We just say, “You’re not an expert. We don’t want you to teach,” because obviously if they’re teaching in the small group time, that means my people are hearing teaching twice instead of having a dialogue and then hearing teaching. And so what we’ve done is we’ve made that just such an entry-level role. In terms of commitment and requirement, all you need to do is show up and send a weekly email and keep the discussion on track. And so then you get a woman who’s in that role, who she can do more than that, and she has more time and she has more interest or maybe she was like me when I led the small group and she talked way too much.

And you’re like, “I think maybe you’re a teacher and not a facilitator.” And over time, those people begin to rise up. And the thing that’s interesting about women is, I at least consistently over my time in the church, I’ve seen that most strong women leaders are identified through single gender environments. I think women are just hesitant to put themselves out there a lot of times in mixed gender environments. Although, we certainly have a lot of mixed gender environments where women serve at the Village. I think it’s probably because sometimes men in leadership are just more accustomed to looking for the next guy who’s going to come along and women have eyes for women who are coming up the pipeline. And then the women who are coming up the pipeline are more likely to put themselves out there and take a risk if they start in just single gender environment.

So, we vet them as small group leaders, but we don’t even allow you to lead a small group, even though it is just a facilitator role, you have to have participated for at least one semester, maybe two. You have to be recommended by your small group leader. We’re not like whosoever will may come, because that didn’t work out so great when we did that. And you guys know it’s really hard to get rid of a bad leader once there in the role. So, we want to move really slowly on that, unless you love conflict. If you do, I’d like you on my team. So, we do that and then eventually they bubble up onto the leadership team and we go from there.

Colleen McFadden:
Let me follow up to that, just to ask, so if it’s the small group leader that would recommend a woman within their own group, I love that model. I think that’s great. What do you do if you have a woman that comes to you saying, “I would like to lead.” How do you address that?

Jen Wilkin:
Is this being recorded? Well, so my standard line is, “Let me check and see if we need any leaders.” And then sometimes we don’t.

Colleen McFadden:
Do you follow up with their small group leader?

Jen Wilkin:
Yes.

Colleen McFadden:
Okay. So that would be the process?

Jen Wilkin:
Yeah.

Colleen McFadden:
You would follow up with their small group leader in team.

Jen Wilkin:
And we tell them, we say, “Hey, thank you for offering.” I’ll say, “I’ll check and see if we still need small group leaders.” But typically that’s done by being recommended by your small group leader. If you want to talk to your small group leader about recommending you, that would be great. So it’s not … and that’s another key thing, like on my leadership team, do you know who I don’t want to be? I don’t want to be the person who’s making that decision. So I have a morning small group coordinator and an evening small group coordinator. And I typically say, “Well, you need to reach out to so-and-so.” And then that woman is going to say, “Oh, well, here’s how the process is for that. And no, I don’t need leaders right now, or yes, I do.” They don’t know whether you’re still looking for leaders or not. And it gives you some room to steward that in a responsible way without just being like, “Oh, well I do need someone and she’s willing. And she has a heartbeat.” Yeah.

Colleen McFadden:
Well, that’s helpful. Danielle, what would you say? Because you really are building this as a church plant young, how do you develop … You don’t have small group leaders recommending other people.

Danielle Anderson:
Yeah. So what we’ve done, we’ve had pastors and elders give recommendations for people that might be good to serve in a certain capacity, and then, we approach those people and ask them to prayerfully consider, start getting on this on-ramp to potential leadership. And so what we’ve done is we’ve taken those nominated people and had this intentional time of training and equipping, and which just see who filters out of it. And basically, we try not to grow any faster than the number of leaders that we have. Just like Jen said, we don’t want to just put people in positions just because you’re willing and have a heartbeat. There really is a capacity and a competency you want to see in your leaders. And so for a church plant, that’s hard because you want to probably do more, but you just don’t have the people and the resources, so you have to be willing to go slow and follow the Lord’s leading and what he’s provided. And so I think other intentional things you can do to continue to equip and train leaders is to offer ongoing trainings.

Colleen McFadden:
What do those look like?

Danielle Anderson:
Well, so we-

Colleen McFadden:
What’s the content of those trainings?

Danielle Anderson:
Sometimes it’s just practical facilitation tools. “So here’s how to study your Bible. Here’s time management. Here are some self-care elements that you will need to care well for yourself if you’re going to serve others well.” I think it looks different. So the pastor, of course, he will, he has a pastoral training group that happens where you meet with a group of guys. And he intentionally, separately meets with the women who were in leadership and invest in them. So I think that’s really beneficial, is to have your pastors and elders to also intentionally pour into the leadership team. And if the leadership team then, sometimes they copy that model, then the leadership team ends up having their own little groups of growth and development, similar to reading one-on-one with someone. And those become other on-ramps where you can look for competent and trained leadership.

Colleen McFadden:
So you’re talking a lot about working with pastors. Actually, I’ve heard that from all of us, appear about working because we are in the local church. This is Women’s Ministry in the local church. What are helpful ways to work with pastors? That’s a question I think that we all wonder, because I think another theme that’s come out here is we’re not a silo. Women’s Ministry is not a silo ministry that’s separate from the church. It’s within the local church. So what are some helpful ways just to work with pastors? Courtney, do you want to start us off there?

Courtney Doctor:
Sure. I would say that, so communicate and collaborate. So communicate, you’re going to have to initiate it probably, and that’s okay. Communication is a two way street, right? So the first part of that is make sure you’re receiving good information, ask good questions. Make sure that you understand the vision of the church, the mission of the church, the key initiatives of the church. Make sure that you understand those things so that you can align your Women’s Ministry with the leadership of the church. Remember, we don’t want to be outside. We don’t want to be a silo. We want to be part of. And so an example of that, I was meeting with a pastor and a Women’s Ministry Council, recently, and the pastor said that he is noticing that there is increased biblical illiteracy in his congregation, and he wants to address it.

So he’s really focusing the next two years on addressing biblical literacy. So, the Women’s Council then needs to take that into consideration and align what they’re doing with, that’s really more of a key initiative than a vision of the church. It’s what he’s going to be focusing on for the next two years. So are you receiving good information? Do you understand what your pastor is striving to do? And then communication is also giving good information. And so, I love to give reports. I don’t love to write them, but I love to give them because they are passing information back to your pastor, and not just what you’re doing. “We studied this, we had this speaker.” Not just a chronology of what you’ve done, but actually what’s happened as a result.

So, if you’re studying and applying the living active word of God, you’re going to have results to report. You’re going to be able to testify to how that word is working in the women. So update your pastor, update your leadership on what you’re doing and what’s happening as a result of what you’re doing. So that’s communication, two way street. Receive good information, give good information. And then collaborate as much as you can. And there are so many ways to do this. I was sharing with them that a couple of years ago, our pastor preached, he spent a year preaching through the Book of Ezekiel. And so in Women’s Ministry, we chose to take that same year and study the Book of Joshua. So it’s the people of God entering the land and the people of God being exiled from the land. And they were bookends. And it was really nice to be able to do that.

I know of a pastor who preached through Proverbs. And so the Women’s Ministry did the Book of James, Old Testament wisdom, New Testament wisdom. And it’s just nice to say, “Hey, I want to know what your next preaching series is going to be.” And that’s going to help me decide curriculum choices and where we’re going to head with the teaching. But you mentioned earlier, even Jen, just the idea of inviting them to come in, kick off a study with prayer, kick off a study with teaching, attend an event, speak to the speaker. I’ve even had a pastor email me before. He was the one inviting me to come in and speak at their church. It was a really beautiful thing. It showed his involvement and his oversight and his care of the women. And so, involve, collaborate. Communicate and collaborate.

Colleen McFadden:
Jen, what would you say? Because you’ve been both on staff and volunteer. What are helpful ways that you found to work with pastors?

Jen Wilkin:
Well, you’ve actually tipped up. One of the things that I started doing early on that was a big help in developing partnership, was I would invite whoever the key person was to come and open us at the beginning of the year and then to close us at the end of the year, because the first day and the last day of women’s Bible study are usually a blowout. They’re super fun or super energetic. And so, I mean, on the one hand, it’s good because it demonstrates to the women that he sees them and cares about them. And it’s also good for him to see what’s going on in that environment. So that was important. I have had a boss before who did not want to meet with me, I presume, because I was a woman that was the vibe that I got. And also just because he just wanted me to go manage it and make it all happen.

And I just had to keep after it. There were a couple of things that I did. There were several things I did. I baked things for him. I did. Not super proud of that, but … And then what I did is I looked for ways that my team could help him with his things. So, he was in charge of adult ministries, I had a huge hospitality team. If he had something come up he needed hospitality for, I said, “I have some women who would love to help with that.” Another thing that we would do is at a women’s events, we would ask if the, in this particular church, it was deacons. If the deacons would come and serve the women. And then all of those men are seeing what you’re doing and they’re getting invested in the importance of what you’re doing.

Showing numbers is really important. And I mean, not just numbers of people who attended, but if you can make the money make sense, a lot of times, it really helps the church to have buy-in into what you’re doing because often Women’s Ministry can be perceived as a great money pit. And so one of the things that we’ve done at the Village is, and it’s good for the women and it’s good for the church. We charge for our classes, and women pay $30 for the class. We produce our own materials, so the workbook costs us about $4 to print. So that means that I have $26 per woman that I can use to do hospitality, that I can use to thank small group, whatever it is that we’re going to do for the rest of the year. So we actually end up coming out even or a little bit ahead for the year, just based on … And when a woman pays $30 to participate in a class, she’s more likely to come.

And it demonstrated to people who were watching to see if this was going to be a big outpouring of money. “Oh, this makes sense.” Just from a stewardship standpoint, for both sides of the equation. And telling the stories is huge. If you think about the things that you care about, it’s probably because someone told you a moving story about it. And often the critique of women’s environments is, “Well, they don’t translate into anything. What did they do? They didn’t start a nonprofit because they came to Bible study for a semester.” And I’m like, “Well, yeah, because they got a bunch of little kids or they’re caring for an elderly parent.”

And so to be able to tell the stories of Women’s Ministry in terms that are intelligible to men and leadership, to be able to say, “She’s not the same wife that she was, because of her participation in this class, she’s not the same mom. Look at how her relationship with her parents has changed or how she’s now mentoring these younger single women in the church.” And so to be a curator of those stories and to carry them to those in leadership so that you can help them be invested in what you’re doing.

Colleen McFadden:
That’s helpful. You brought something up that I think would be helpful to address, which is when you did try to work with a pastor, you had to bake him something. Perhaps he wasn’t as into a relationship as you were.

Jen Wilkin:
I’m a good baker though, so it’s cool.

Colleen McFadden:
I’ll give you my address later. I like chocolate chips. I think one thing that we can come across, well, let’s just say, it sounds like it’s all success stories up here, but it’s not always success stories. There could be situations where a pastor or pastoral team elders are not so excited about Women’s Ministry or starting Women’s Ministry or putting money towards Women’s Ministry. How do you deal with that? Danielle, what would you say? How would you approach that? It sounds like you have a great pastor right now in pastoral team. What advice would you give to somebody that’s dealing with that?

Danielle Anderson:
I wrote my answer down so I could be gracious. I just want to say the right things. My first encouragement to that sister would be to believe God first, which is so hard, but sometimes the voice of that man or that pastor can start to dominate, but you have to believe God first. God has recreated men and women as new in Christ and we are all ministers of his good gospel. And so we have to hold onto that truth. And honestly, then with the Lord whose truth we’re clinging to, bring all of our frustration in the situation to him. I think we have to be honest with ourselves about where we are. So deal well with the Lord in that area. Practically though, beyond the internal spiritual things, pray, pray for your pastor, pray for the leadership team, pray for wisdom and clarity and the ability to be gracious.

And then I would encourage a sister to actually try to gather some women to pray with you. And maybe you and this little small group of women can begin to pilot and try out some things that you have a heart to see happen in your church. So that if and when the Lord begins to change your leadership, the heart of your leadership team, you will have something to point to and say, “Well, actually for the past year, we’ve been doing this. Here’s how it’s been beneficial, here’s the changes in the growth that we’ve seen. I think that this would roll out very well in our context. Here’s our idea. Hey, the plan’s already. All I need you to do is give me a green light.” If we can work well in the meantime, I think that that serves us well.

Colleen McFadden:
I like that you didn’t say complain. You didn’t have that written down, right?.

Danielle Anderson:
No.

Colleen McFadden:
I think that’s a great way to approach it, is to pray that the, if the Lord said on your heart and our hearts for this ministry to happen, pray that the Lord would lay that on their hearts too. Do you have anything to add, Courtney, to that? Even for a pastor that maybe is okay with Women’s Ministry, but you go off and do it over there, I’m not going to support you so much. What would you add?

Courtney Doctor:
There are so many reasons that that might happen. And so we can’t hit all of those. So I’m going to try and hit one of them and then maybe everybody else can speak into it. But I do think it’s valid and helpful. If you’re feeling like I had this great idea and my pastor doesn’t support me, to stop, back up and ask yourself, “Is he not supporting you or is he not supporting your idea?” And Danielle just hit on something really key. Did you hear what she said? She said, “When you have this great idea and you present it to your pastor, you have the entire plan spelled out,” because a lot of times, just speaking, I’m sure you can amen this. Speaking as someone who has been on staff at a church, you can get a little overwhelmed with all of the creative ideas of the people in the congregation, because a lot of times what happens, people come up with great ideas and then they lay them at the feet of the pastor or they lay them at the feet of the staff of the church.

And they’re like, “This is such a great idea. You should do this.” And it’s completely overwhelming. And so, I think a lot of times you just have to back up enough to say, “He may just not be supporting my idea.” Maybe there aren’t the resources to implement it. Even the HR resources or the financial resources, or maybe it just doesn’t line up currently with the vision or the key initiatives. The time needs to be spent doing something else. But if you do have great idea, then make sure when you present that, you also are presenting it with the way that idea is going to be implemented and your part in the implementation of that great idea, because it does take the body, but we can’t just take those and lay them at the feet of our pastor and our church staffs.

Colleen McFadden:
Well, we can talk a lot more about this topic. So I think I’d like to end our time because we do need to end. I think we’ve had a lot of resources. We’ve been blessed with a lot of resources. Actually in the bookstore, there’s so many. What would be some recommended go-tos that you would offer to our friends here and anybody listening in, related to Shaping Women’s Ministry in the Local Church? And it could be related to feet on the ground ministry, it could be related to training leaders or teachers. What comes to your mind? For us to have beyond one hour of help as we leave here. Jen, do you want to …

Jen Wilkin:
When we went through this question earlier, when we were having a little chat session before we got here, I really was thinking more in terms of what are the questions I get the most for? Where can I go for resources? And I’m typically more in the Bible study world on these questions. And one of the things that I like to point people toward, people are always asking, “How do I know what commentaries to trust?” And I send people to Ligonier Ministries, top five commentaries list. They have it over every book of the Bible and it’s broken out in terms of, this is academic, this is more for the everyday person. I got this from this one, or this from that one. I start reading there and then I go to Amazon and I compare a few reviews, because people who relieve reviews on Amazon are totally normal. Speaking as an author.

But it really is a great starting point to go there. That’s been a help to me. I appreciate it. It’s been out for a while, but the Susan Hunt, Ligon Duncan, New Doors for Women or … No, what’s that called? Women’s Ministry in the Local Church, is that what’s called? I appreciate, although, not all of that book applies to my context, I thought the Apologetic for Women’s Ministry that it was at the beginning in the book was very helpful and it was helpful that it was written by a man. I’ve given that to two pastors and said, “You don’t have to read the whole thing. Just read the first chapter.” And that’s been a help.

Courtney Doctor:
I’d say that one resource is just other women in your town, in your city, in your area that are doing Women’s Ministry. And so I have a group that are outside of my church and we all do Women’s Ministry at different churches in St. Louis, and reality is we get together once a year. We always say, we try to do it every six months and it just doesn’t happen like that. But we get together for fellowship and encouragement and brainstorming and we share ideas. And that is just a great resource. You don’t have to align completely on everything. You just can enjoy the fellowship and the support and the encouragement.

Then my other resource I’m going to recommend is very specific. So, it’s a website, it’s pcacdm.org. So that stands for Presbyterian Church in America Committee on Discipleship Ministries, pcacdm.org. And they have a little dropdown bar that’s called resources, I think. You can help me out with that. And it’s Women’s Ministry Toolbox. And once you get to, however you get there, once you get to Women’s Ministry Toolbox, there’s just a plethora of-

Courtney Doctor:
Oh. Oh, my God, you want me to repeat. You’re fine. I was going to start dancing, but you are fine. You are fine. Pcacdm.org, because that’s what I thought you were going to ask. Anyway, Women’s Ministry Toolbox. There’s just a variety of resources that you can tap into.

Danielle Anderson:
Yeah. Mine is similar and it’s not necessarily explicit to Women’s Ministry, but a great resource. It’s a YouTube channel and a podcast, but it’s called the BibleProject. Okay. Yes. Well, I was going to say that it’s a really helpful tool to learn for yourself, but also if you ever show images that say a women’s Bible study, I think it’s beautiful because representation matters and Jesus is brown in that podcast. Okay. Being fully transparent here. I think I might be stealing one of your books, but the Trellis and the Vine, great book just for, it’s a good one to remind you to go slow and to take a realistic pace, because Jen probably can, Women of the Word, I recommend as a fantastic book for women.

We actually gave that to our women for one of our church anniversaries. We gave that to every woman. And then two books that for me personally have really been helpful in the emotional health space, the self-care I’ve been mentioning as you serve, one is called Grace for the Good Girl and another is Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. And I think that those are helpful tools, especially as you think about serving in ministries, that you might be able to be healthy and not overworked or push too far to capacity.

Jen Wilkin:
Can I-

Audience:
[inaudible].

Danielle Anderson:
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

Jen Wilkin:
I’d like to recommend one more book for you guys, because Women’s Ministry is often the first place that abuse is reported. First of all, if you can, if it’s at all possible for you to do this, train your leaders in abuse, not so they can counsel a woman through an abusive situation, but so they can get her to someone who can help her. Okay. Leslie Vernick has a book called the Emotionally Destructive Marriage, and it’s a good starting point for you to think through some of this. And so that’s something, if you’re a woman in leadership in your church, it’d be great for you to read and maybe get it into the hands of pastors as well.

Colleen McFadden:
If you’re a teacher in the local church, two resources I would say is, Nancy Guthrie has an amazing podcast sponsored by TGC and Crossway, called Help Me Teach the Bible with Nancy Guthrie. And I highly recommend a book called Saving Eutychus, which is impossible to spell, but it’s about how to teach a Bible well, while keeping people awake because poor Eutychus fell asleep and fell out the window in Acts, when Paul preached all night long. So, you’ll never forget that title now. You can’t spell it, but you won’t forget it. Those are two good ones.

And then I also want to just recommend, if you are in a church that really does need to think about shifting the shape of your Women’s Ministry, go to the website, ministrytowomen.com. One of my good friends runs that, and it’s all about really shifting to, if you’re illiterate to become literate, to be a ministry of the whole church. It’s just a really great resource. I’m going to end us in prayer. Thank you for your time. Let’s pray. God, there are so many ministries represented in this room, would you bless them so that we can bless you. We bless your name and we lift it high and pray for the rest of this conference in Jesus name. Amen.