Value the Women!
Encourage their gifts! Provide opportunities for women to test their gifts in a safe space and allow the women to own their gifts. Remember this isn’t about you. Be a producer of fierce women of God. Don’t look at what they do and don’t do, look at what God can do in and through them. Let the ministry environment be a place they can fail. Let it be a place where they don’t worry about getting kicked when their down. Let it be a place where they are valued.
Action Step: Let someone else teach, or facilitate. Delegate some things to others. Don’t let the women’s ministry be the “YOU” (insert your name) show. When you empower them, defend them too! They are going to make mistakes, defend them publicly and adjust them privately. Adjusting and correcting is another post and there is a Godly way of doing that. (hint: first look for the grace, God empowering, their lives before you do any correcting)
Be a good steward of their time, energy and money. If someone gave you their last $20 to go out and do what God has called you to do, you would be very careful on how you spend that money. You wouldn’t go out and spend it on something wasteful. Well, I hope you wouldn’t. It’s the same with their time. Let’s really consider priorities for a moment. Let’s make a list of what goes where for most people, including you. First, God. Second, marriage. Third, children. Fourth, work. Fifth, family and friends. Sixth, church and you. Wow that makes the women’s ministry sixth on the list. If you honor a woman’s commitments (you encourage and empower her in those other priorities) she will value the ministry. So when you get that little piece of her time and energy, value it. Guard her time, like you would guard that $20. Spend it wisely.
Action step: If she comes to your event, fellowship group or even Bible studies make sure it is an encounter with God. Nothing makes it more worthwhile than the Holy Spirit, in revelation and power. If you say the meeting is 2 hours honor that commitment. If you say it is a Bible Study then that’s it and nothing more. If it is just a time of fellowship then ensure that is all it is. Have a volunteer thank you dinner. Send out thank you cards to the spouse and children. Be creative on ways to honor their time and energy.
It’s all about relationships! No matter how you look at your calling, it’s all about the relationships. Fight for them. You can have this amazing vision and top notch strategies, but they are all in vain if you lack the team working together to get it done. This is the environment that vision and strategy is cultivated. Relationships are the air you breathe. Gossip, power plays, and unforgivness is all toxic to the relationships, just like carbon monoxide is toxic to the air you breathe. If you value those relationships and fight for them, they will become what makes the ministry work or fail.
Action Step: Put the relationships before the ministry. Take a courageous look at the ministry and then take a courageous stand against the toxins. Get your members directory out and each day pray for a different woman in your church. If your involved in a large church, get some help, get your core team to help pray. If you don’t know the woman then get to know her, ask her out for coffee and find out what you can pray with her about. Be sincere when you do this and then keep the info between you and her. Don’t stop praying for them until God has turned your heart into a compassionate melted loving heart for all those women. Be ruined with the love of Christ. It will show at your next meeting how much more you care about them than the ministry itself.
If you have any comments or suggestions on how we can all Value people and our relationships" in the ministry please leave a comment!
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