We'd like to start a women's ministry but we don't know where to start. We don't have many women and can't do much.
Women's ministry isn't about programs, projects or formulas. It's about relationships. If you want to start a women's ministry, begin by getting together with a few women and talk. Talk about your hopes, dreams and plans. Talk about where you are spiritually, and if you're comfortable, pray together. Let the Holy Spirit show you where to go. If you are yielded to God, especially as a group coming together in Jesus' name, he will lead you to do what pleases him.
As we've said before, it's perfectly OK to start out small and slow. Women's ministry works best when you start slowly and build on a foundation of prayer and love for each other and for the Lord. If all you can do is get together once in a while, then do it. God will add the growth, bring forth leaders and show you how to serve him while you become close sisters in the Lord.
It seems women's ministry is trying to separate the women from the men. I want to work together, all of us.
The ideology behind women's ministry is Titus 2:3-5: "The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things-- that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed."
Paul's instruction here is that spiritually mature women had the responsibility to mentor those women who were less mature, which includes both younger women and those new to the faith. Mentoring, or discipling, is accomplished in two ways, through being with a person-- sharing her life--and instruction. This training of women to be firmly rooted in the faith and built up in Christ is best done by older, spiritually mature women.
"Whereas truth is truth, gender does determine how some aspects of truth are lived out in daily life" (Woman's Study Bible, Nelson).
If women's ministry accomplishes this objective, it will serve to strengthen women, equipping them for more effective service to the congregation as part of it. The outreach aspect of women's ministry does not need to be exclusive of men, teens or children, but the mentoring, nurturing aspect is best accomplished woman to woman.
April WN, page 16
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