Movement Toward Women's Ministry

We had our first meeting in a long time toward building a women's ministry at Vintage21 Church yesterday. (There have been many attempts to get this kind of thing running over the course of our history ... 7 years to be exact ... but nothing ever quite stuck and things slowly fizzled out.) So, needless to say, I was a little wary going into this meeting, but it turned out to be excellent!

I feel that in many cases, women's minsitry in general seems to be very pragmatic and program-driven and is not interwoven into the DNA of a church and it's mission. It tends to be a ministry that wants to empower and build it's women, but not propel them toward the gospel in everything it does and build the kingdom. Not that I have a whole lot of experience with women's ministry, so I could be wrong, but that's my overall impression.

The beautiful reality that came out of yesterday's meeting is that our elders stated the importance and absolute need for this ministry to be gospel-centered in all it does, and not just be a sin-management program. And so the elders are going to begin building this ministry at the root level by identifying the fruit that the Bible says a biblical woman should possess and move backward to develop systems and structures to make that happen -- one that leads to mission ... pointing women toward the truth of the gospel at all times and equipping them to go out and love other women well so that those women, who may or may not know Jesus, have an opportunity to see Him more clearly. How beautiful! I'm siked to be a part of this process!

Join me in praying for this ministry and that God would bring the right people to begin laboring for it and leading it!

In relation to this, I was reading over some stuff about missionality this morning. If you're not familiar with the term missionality, or missional living, it basically means that we should adapt and reformulate the way we [the church and it's people] do absolutely everything in worship, discipleship, community, and service -- so as to engage with the Non-Christian society around us. (This is very relevant to us as women because we have the beautiful opportunity to share with women who don't know Jesus, or who do for that matter, the beautiful design and purpose that He has for them that is contrary to the feminist ideology that is so present in today's society. We have the opportunity to adapt the way we live, to live and breathe scripture, but to be relevant within our culture so that we can take Jesus to the women around us gently, lovingly, authentically, and humbly.) Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York has a great paper on this (not necessary directed toward women in general, but it definitely applies). If you're interested in learning more, I would encourage you to check it out!