Ministry is always adapting and changing and this is especially true for women’s ministry. In this video, Women’s Ministry Specialist, Kelly King, walks through some of the positive trends happening in women’s ministry in the local church.
Learn more about Lifeway Women here.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
Around the first of the year, I really take some time to think about what are some trends of what’s happening in ministry to women in the local church. When I look at what’s happening I find that there’s some really positive things that are happening among our churches. And so I want to just give you some topics that you cannot ignore that are happening in the area of ministry to women.
The first one is that, smaller is bigger. What I mean by that is, it used to be that our ministry to women in the churches, it was all about getting large audiences or a Bible study where we just had a one-size-fits-all and everybody came. And we based our success kind of on numbers and not really on the impact.
So, when I say smaller is bigger, what I see is the trend towards smaller groups. That means that we don’t base what we do on the numbers, but on how we’re interacting, how women are doing life with each other.
I’m hearing more and more churches who are doing things like table groups and meeting in homes, meeting in coffeeshops. Just sitting down and going through a Bible study together. And I think that’s really healthy.
And kind of along the same line, another positive thing that I think that we need to pay attention to, is that women are studying Scripture for Scripture. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t use Bible studies or we don’t use them to supplement what we’re doing, but I see women opening up God’s Word and saying, “Let’s talk about what we’re learning.” And maybe that’s just going through a chapter at a time, a certain passage at a time.
But I also see the importance of when they do that, that they’re journaling. So they’re taking a journal and they’re also expressing what they’re learning and then how they’re applying it.
And I always tell them look for a few things:
- In that passage, what do I learn about God?
- The second thing is, what do I learn that is applicable to me? Is there something that I’m supposed to learn from this?
- And finally, am I supposed to do something? Is there an action that I need to take?
Those are things that I think we can help women with and that’s a really great topic that I think you need to pay attention to.
Another one is mentoring. Now mentoring has been around a long time. I mean, you look at Titus 2 and what Scripture tells us about older women teaching younger women. That’s not new. But there has been a real movement of more intentionality for women.
And we say “mentoring” and that can mean a lot of different things. But really, it’s some one-on-one discipleship. Of saying, “How am I getting this younger woman to get in God’s Word? How am I living life with her? How am I helping her with the things that she is learning every single day?”
Finally, another topic that I think is really important and something that we need to pay attention to is online Bible studies and really, digital everything. If you’re not paying attention to the digital world, whether that is what women are watching in any kind of form, or how they’re getting their information through podcasts, through videos like this, or maybe an online Bible study.
Here at Lifeway we offer women’s online Bible studies almost constantly and it gives women the opportunity to do that kind of study at any time during the week and in any setting. We see thousands of women who form a community in a digital form.
Don’t neglect and don’t see it as a competition, but see it as an enhancement to what you can do in the local church.
