There’s no doubt it’s challenging, if not impossible, to reach every woman in our church.
While we’ll likely never achieve 100% attendance, there are things we can do to invite and involve women outside of our core group of attendees.
Have you ever taken a close look at who attends the majority of your women’s ministry events?
Are you missing any age groups?
Are your single women showing up?
Do you have a lot of young moms in attendance?
What about the attendance habits of working women?
What about your senior saints? Are they still coming faithfully?
If you’re not pulling in women from every age and stage of life, do you know why they aren’t coming?
Several years ago, the women’s ministry team I was serving on asked the church secretary to run a report on the women in our church. We wanted to know precisely what age and stage our women were in.
I thank God we took a look at our demographics. We discovered that there were more younger women than we realized in our church. While a few might attend women’s ministry events and activities, we weren’t reaching most of them.
We also discovered that we had a large number of widows.
Knowing who we were trying to reach changed the way our team approached our publicity efforts, and it changed the way we delivered material at our events. If our discussion questions or activities were centered around marriage or children, we were leaving out many of our women!
Our team needed to take the time to figure out the needs of the women that were missing from our events and activities.
Let’s be honest, that’s no easy task!
I can help.
Identifying the needs of women we struggle to serve and support is one of the reasons that I organized the Ministry to Women Summit.
I’ve been guilty of ignoring the needs of many groups of women in our churches over the years. It was never intentional; often, it was a matter of not seeing the need or not knowing how to meet it.
Each speaker has a specific experience to share with you. They are sharing stories of infidelity, grief, sexual abuse, mothering special-needs children, receiving a life-altering diagnosis, life as a military spouse, what it’s like to walk through infertility, and much more.
I ask each one to share their story and then we discuss:
- What to say or not say
- How we can serve and support women in a similar situation
- How we can include women who have experienced something similar in a healthy way in our women’s ministry
- What resources they recommend – for us and for a woman in that situation
I’ve put together a short video to give you a sample of what they shared.
I believe we can reach more women.
As you’ll hear these speakers say, it’s not about launching another program (though God may call you to do that), it’s really about making certain every woman knows they matter and that they are loved.
Expect God to prick your heart and show you ways that you can support and serve every woman in your church and community.
I can’t wait to hear how God uses these stories to increase the reach and effectiveness of your ministry.
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35 (ESV)
The Ministry to Women Summit videos are available here.
You may also want to read:
Ministry to Women Summit Videos Available Here
How to Get Women to Show Up
Why Women Aren’t Coming to Your Women’s Ministry Events
Wanda Farra says
I watched all the videos except one, and found them very insightful and enlightening. The is summit has infused me, as a pastor’s wife, with more information and excitement about womens’ ministry. Thank you so much for the great “conference.” It was well worth the time.
On another note, I never was able to get the free resources offered after paying $29.00. I tried several times by filling out the prompts, went to the websites, filled the cart, entered the code, and was still going to be charged for the items. I never got access to the videos for more than 48 hours, and would have loved to go back over them. I started taking notes, but only for the last half of the conference once I realized that I couldn’t get it to work. Can someone help this technology challenged person? I would really like to download the podcasts too, but couldn’t figure that out either.
Cyndee Ownbey says
Hi Wanda, I am so glad you’ve found the videos to be helpful. 🙂 I’ll email you and we’ll get things straightened out.