women’s ministry

Four Things to Consider When Selecting A Bible Study

SHEA PATRICK | CONTRIBUTOR Does your women’s ministry have big plans for Bible studies this fall? The primary way that God works in our hearts to make us more like Jesus is through His Word, and digging into God’s Word in community can show us even more of the beauty and truth of God. Hearing the insights of our sisters studying alongside us gives us a richer view of Scripture. A blog I read recently said, “Studying Scripture outside of the influence of God’s people often leaves us building shanty homes next to the beautiful, unshakeable house of God.”[1] Deep Bible study alongside our sisters in Christ can lead to heart transformation. One fall, ladies at a church I had recently started attending decided that the women needed to do a Bible Study. Past studies were an inconsistent hodgepodge of choices that didn’t seem to have much thought or intention put into them. It had been a while since the church had hosted a Bible study as part of their women’s ministry, so the woman in charge was unsure where to start. She dialed directory assistance and asked for the PCA, and someone in the CE&P office (now CDM) sent her videos and a study. This material was deep and rich in gospel content and was a blessing to the women who participated. While the Lord providentially blessed her dial-up request for material, I think we can take intentional steps in discerning quality studies for the women in our church. Bible Studies that Serve We should thoughtfully and prayerfully consider what we are studying with our women. Not all studies are created equal. I too have felt the allure of the most popular, best-advertised Bible studies or those from celebrated authors. An essential question to begin is: what will best serve the women of the church?...

Four Things to Consider When Selecting A Bible StudyChristina Fox2024-08-26T14:51:33+00:00

The Blindspot About Women and Sexuality

ELLEN DYKAS | CONTRIBUTOR I well remember a conversation years ago, at a Harvest USA fundraising banquet, during which I needed to defend my full-time position in our ministry to women. The conversation went like this: Well-meaning man: “You’re full time? Are there that many wives who have Christian husbands looking at porn?” Me: “Well, yes; not only do wives reach out for help, but Christian women who are struggling with things like pornography and casual sex do as well.” Well-meaning man: “Really? I never thought women struggled with that stuff!” It wasn’t the first time I had to defend my job. Women have long felt invisible in the church. When it comes to sexuality, most of the attention has gone to men. So, when a woman needs help for her sexual struggles, she often wonders, where do I turn? Who can help me?! Darcy¹ came for help because she couldn’t stop hooking up with men. She’d sought out more men than she could remember, and her face and voice communicated shame and pain as she gave me her diagnosis, “Ellen, I guess I’m just more like a man.” She needed help understanding that lust and sexually sinful behaviors are gender neutral. Why did Darcy think that? Because in her church circles, she only heard that men had problems with lust. Yes, there was something wrong with Darcy, but it wasn’t that her sexuality was more like a man’s. She needed help understanding that lust and sexually sinful behaviors are gender neutral! Idolatrous, lonely, and selfish hearts don’t belong to one gender. Is your women’s ministry a safe space for women who struggle sexually?...

The Blindspot About Women and SexualityChristina Fox2024-07-24T17:09:04+00:00

Equipping You For A New Women’s Ministry Year

MARIA CURREY | CONTRIBUTOR With a new Women’s Ministry year peaking on the horizon, leaders’ minds are perking with everything from finalizing calendars, setting the fiscal year budget, and encouraging and recruiting existing and new team volunteers—just to name a few likely thoughts on your prayerful punch lists! Sometimes, facing new year expectations seems daunting, like scaling a ministry-Mt.-Everest. Fortunately, we have the best gear for whatever climb we face: God’s Word, prayer, and leaders before and behind us as “spiritual sherpas” of sorts. Jesus is first and always at the front as our guide and hems us in from behind, but it is also helpful to know the resources and relationships of trusted leaders who have climbed similar mountains. The Priority of Prayer The combination of God’s Word and prayer first informs our preparations. Pulled from God’s Word, prayer was the pacing of Jesus ministry from His baptism in Luke 3:21 to His final breath in Luke 23:46 and in His consummation of blessing and breaking bread with His disciples in Luke 24:30. As we follow in Jesus’ perfect footsteps, trusting established placement of our feet, He gives us the critical cues to pray without ceasing as we prepare. Jesus, who was perfect in every way, relied on prayer as the lifeline with God His Father; if it was critical for Him, it is even more essential for us...

Equipping You For A New Women’s Ministry YearChristina Fox2024-07-24T13:50:16+00:00

Before You Lead a Small Group

SHEA PATRICK | CONTRIBUTOR My spiritual life has been greatly impacted by participating in small group Bible study including coed life-groups, larger community Bible studies, and small groups through my church. I recently spoke to a group of women leaders who were preparing to kick off their fall Bible studies about the basics of leading small groups. Most of the questions they asked me to address were about problems that may arise while leading a group such as what to do about someone who talks too much or too little, or someone who proposes a position contrary to the Reformed faith. While these things are important to consider in our preparation, they are secondary to considering our motivation in studying God’s word together. Thinking about our purpose in meeting together brings focus and encouragement and spurs perseverance in the face of any challenges that may arise. Why small groups? We don’t want to do things because that is what we have always done; instead, we want to consider what we hope to accomplish by engaging with others in small group Bible study. Our purpose will then help to inform the practicalities of how we carry out our time together. Our aim in studying the Bible with other women should be the same as our own devotional study of Scripture: heart transformation and life change. Our exposure to God’s Word in community leads to this Spirit-led work of sanctification that ultimately glorifies God. As we gather around God’s Word, we want to grow in our knowledge of who God is. We marvel at His holiness, justice, truth, and omniscience as revealed in His Word. The Word also reveals the truth of who we are—desperate, needy sinners, who are affected in every area by the Fall. As we study together, it's against this backdrop that our appreciation of who Jesus is and what He accomplished on our behalf grows. When we see the chasm between a perfect transcendent God and fallen humans, we marvel even more at the cross. And our lives are changed. This transformation (growing in the gospel and becoming more like Christ) focuses on both vertical and horizontal relationships. God is working to cause not just individual transformation but corporate transformation as well. Small groups are just one of the tools God uses...

Before You Lead a Small GroupChristina Fox2023-11-10T22:42:09+00:00

Steadfast Hope for a New Semester of Ministry

BECKY KIERN|CONTRIBUTOR It’s that time of year again. Everywhere I look there are advertisements for kids clothing, backpacks, and notebooks. My inbox is full of email correspondences for fall teaching engagements. My social media pages are filling up with photos reminiscing about last-summer adventures. And friends are preparing to drop their kids off on the new adventure of kindergarten and college. All of this adds up to the truth that another summer is ending and a new fall semester is upon us. Some of us are entering into this new semester with excited energy. We are ready to roll out the new ministry programs we’ve developed or Bible studies we’ve prepared to teach. But some of us find this semester approaching and the best we can do right now is limp along. We are unable to fathom where we might get the energy for this new semester. We are still recovering from, or in the middle of, a painful ministry season. Paul’s words of hope to the Romans, can offer us a chance to pause and reflect upon the simple, yet profound foundational truth of the gospel message. His encouragement to the early church was to remember their peace, their relationship with God, and their steadfast hope. And his words of encouragement can offer us the same hope as we enter our ministry work in this new semester. Romans 5:1–5: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us...

Steadfast Hope for a New Semester of MinistryChristina Fox2023-08-15T13:13:52+00:00

A Prayer for Bible Study

SARAH IVILL|CONTRIBUTOR Another season of women’s Bible studies is upon us! In the midst of all the planning, let us not forget to pray. Father, We are so grateful that You have chosen to reveal Yourself to us in Your holy Word. Too often we look to other people, places, or things to revive our soul when Your Word alone rejoices the heart (Ps. 19:7-8). Too many times we make room for other relationships in our schedules but fail to take time to “meditate on your statutes” (Ps. 119:23). Help us, O Lord, to “delight…in the law of the LORD” and meditate upon it daily (Ps. 1:2). As we begin another season of Bible study, please give us a heart of love and compassion for all the women who will attend. Open our eyes to see women who are hurting and need someone to befriend them. Open our hearts to those women who have hurt us in the past, or been difficult to understand, so that we might love them well as sisters in Christ. Open our minds to appreciate changes the leaders may have made this year, especially if we would prefer things to be different. Help us to not have a consumer mentality, but to pray that we might benefit, encourage, and edify the women with whom we study and fellowship...

A Prayer for Bible StudyChristina Fox2023-08-15T13:14:30+00:00

The Most Important Person in Your Bible Study

CHRISTINE GORDON|GUEST I’ve seen the signs and I’ll bet you have, too. They’re on special store shelves, tucked into sale flyers, and piled up in designated areas of Target, curtly signaling that summer is waning. The school supplies are back. It always surprises me, no matter how many summers I’m alive. “Really?” I think to myself. “It’s already time?” Once I’ve accepted the sad fact that pool season will once again come to an end, I begin to think about what comes next. For me and many women in the church, this means Bible studies. Every fall, we crank up the machine: leaders, sign up lists, childcare, and nighttime meeting spaces. It’s a good effort and a worthy cause. We need the help of our sisters, the regular schedule and expectation of a passage studied, a book chapter finished. But in all our resolute efforts, it’s easy to forget that we are not the only participants in this endeavor. In fact, if the sum of our activity was simply a group of women regularly reading the same text, our time may have been better spent back at the Target school supply area. The Work of the Spirit Thanks be to God, something more than a good book club happens in these groups—something supernatural and beautiful. God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, works alongside the Word of God. Our Father not only reveals himself in his Word; he also illuminates our hearts so that we might understand and believe it...

The Most Important Person in Your Bible StudyChristina Fox2023-07-25T19:12:32+00:00

Making Prayer a Priority in Ministry

MEAGHAN MAY|CONTRIBUTOR Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Better Together: A Team Based Approach to Women’s Ministry. Get your free copy here. We live in a culture that celebrates self-reliance and ingenuity, and this pressure extends into our ministry lives. We become reliant upon instant fixes to what our hearts desire, and our dependence upon the Lord diminishes. We depend upon our own wisdom and skill to accomplish the next task. In love, God uses prayer to shape us to be patient, expectant, and others-oriented. Prayer in the Bible has a communal dimension, which reflects our interdependence. Beginning with the family of Seth in Genesis who called upon the name of the Lord, Scripture shows us that God’s people pray together. In Acts we read that the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”[1] Prayer as a Priority When we pray with one another, we will learn things about the Lord that we did not understand on our own. As often as we are able, we should prioritize prayer in community. C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves, points out that the angels in Isaiah 6 are crying out “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another. Each angel is communicating to the other angels the part of God’s glory that they see. As we pray and praise the Lord together, we get to know Him better and deepen our delight and dependence on Him. When we pray in community our lives and ministry agendas are pried out of our own hands and return to the One whose glory we seek. The beginning of prayer (and truly the whole thing) is all about God. “Adoration” and “Thanksgiving” are God-oriented and heal the heart of self-centeredness. Augustine taught that one of the chief benefits of prayer is that it addresses our “disordered” loves. [2] He believed that if we do not let God change these drivers inside of us through prayer, they would be “part of the problem, not agents of healing.” When God is our greatest love and deepest delight, every other aspect of our prayer life is transformed...

Making Prayer a Priority in MinistryChristina Fox2023-08-15T13:24:52+00:00

How Team-Based Ministry Shapes Us

JANET LAROCQUE|GUEST When you think of leadership in the church, how often do you think of team-based leadership? We often think of leadership as an individual exercise. Perhaps someone who is specially trained in leadership who runs and manages everything. Or maybe someone who is the go-getter, who gets everything done. But team-based ministry is how God created us to serve the Body of Christ. In working as a team, we not only accomplish what God has called us to, but He shapes us in the process. Teams Are My Testimony I love team-based ministry. Currently, I serve on the PCA’s National Women’s Ministry Team as Regional Advisor to the churches in mid-America. In my local church, I serve on our women’s ministry Servant Team in the area of Titus 2 discipleship. But let me back up to explain how I got here. I grew up in a liturgical, works-based denomination, fully believing I was a Christian because I had checked all the boxes. There is a beautiful story about that for another day, but around my 40th birthday the Lord decided it was time. He placed a number of people in my path and a greater number of questions in my mind. That all led me to my very first Bible study at Naperville PCA, taught by Karen Hodge, and I’ve never left. As a “made-new believer” in my 40’s I was hungry to know the Lord, devouring theology. Thankfully, the preaching and shepherding I received was solid, well-communicated, and true-to-the-Scriptures. But in my mind, I was making up for lost time and this gnostic quest to know Jesus became kind of a solo-act. At that time, my team was often just Jesus and me—the vertical without the horizontal. Enter God’s grace again, and He began moving me toward less “doing” and more “watching.” So I watched—how women at my church served together on teams—quite joyfully. And I watched—Care Teams, Prayer Teams, small group co-leader teams, teaching teams, and the women’s ministry Servant Team. Then zooming out I watched my pastor and his wife serving together, modeling was a team looks like. Next, I watched our session, a plurality of elders, leading our church—all serving together. All these teams reflect the Godhead—the ultimate team of three persons in one being, eternally serving and pouring into each other. And the best part is, we are invited into that union! As Jesus prayed in John 17: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (vv.22-23)...

How Team-Based Ministry Shapes UsChristina Fox2023-08-15T13:43:52+00:00

Cultivating Community on Your Leadership Team

SHEA PATRICK|CONTRIBUTOR I’ve noticed a recurring theme in the phone calls I have received during my five years as a Regional Advisor on the PCA’s national women’s ministry team: the women’s ministry team at a particular church is unable to accomplish any of their goals because someone is trying to take over the team, or strife and conflict have caused relationships to completely break down. How can our leadership teams work together while loving and serving the church and each other well? I believe the answer is by working on the relationships between the women on the team. Even more, the relationships on our team can help our women’s ministry to support the mission and vision of the church or it can hinder these same things. We can take steps toward cultivating community on our team by doing two things: 1) remembering God’s design and 2) intentionally pursuing community...

Cultivating Community on Your Leadership TeamChristina Fox2023-08-15T13:47:15+00:00