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Keeping our women’s ministries strong and healthy is an important task for those of us in leadership. Finding fresh ideas to keep the momentum going and help our focus to be sharp is helpful. Women’s Ministry provides our small churches with a very specific platform for addressing the spiritual needs and concerns of women. Our main objective is to create an encouraging environment where women feel safe to share, and where they feel valued and seen by others. We desire to have a space that provides opportunity for connection with each other and with God and a chance to build relationships.
These relationships can reach across generations, which is the type of community environment that God desires our small churches to be. Our women’s ministry can also provide engaging activities and events that appeal to the unique interests and needs of the women in your group.
Did you realize that the health and excitement that is generated in your small church women’s ministry can spill over and affect the overall attitude and spiritual health of your entire church?
So, let’s see how we can strengthen your women’s ministry to be the best that it can be.
9 Tips To Strengthen Your Women’s Ministry
1. Have You Heard?
Promo is so important for a successful women’s ministry. If the women in your small church are not aware of the regular meetings or special events that your group is having, then they will never get involved. You also don’t want them to think that they are being excluded because they didn’t know about an activity. So it’s up to us to make sure we are using whatever means available to get the word out.
If you have a printed bulletin at your church, list your meetings. If you have a church calendar, whether paper or digital, make sure your group has visibility.
Social media presence is important too. Church Facebook pages are a great way to spark interest in your group. Post pictures of your meetings or special events (make sure you have permission to post group members’ photos online). Then encourage the women in your group to share the post on their personal page; it really expands the reach that the post can have and the impact on your community. This is a free and simple tip to do!
Don’t discount snail mail invites to special events. It may be old school but it’s a treat to receive and makes the one who receives it feel important! As always the personal invite is the most successful way to connect and be engaging.
By being purposeful and active in promoting your group, its purpose, and activities, you may be encouraging that woman who is on the fence about attending. If the leadership and members of your group are excited, others will sure be too!
2. Personal Connection
The most valuable tip that we can give you is to make personal connection your priority. Make the effort to connect with others personally, whether it be going out for coffee, or inviting them for lunch. Take that time to connect, listen, and get to know who they are. They each have so much to offer. God has made each of us so unique, take the time to find that beauty!
Set the example for others to do the same, grab 1 or 2 others to join you when you go for a connection time.
As you encourage ladies to seek out opportunities to connect with each other outside of meeting times, give them a list of ideas for possible connections. Allow times for sharing about these new connections in your meetings, this will be inspiring to others who haven’t tried it yet. Personal connections build a natural caring network in your group as people are seen and valued.
3. Thankful-Grateful-Blessed-Sharing Nights!
Set aside special nights throughout the year for sharing testimonies and times of praise and worship. Ask each woman to share or invite specific ones beforehand to share their spiritual journey and how they came to have Jesus in their life.
Use this night as an impromptu time of praising God for His goodness. Mixing times of prayers of thanksgiving with worship songs. This could be a very meaningful time together.
A night of focusing on our spiritual journeys and sharing what God is doing in our lives, we are living as Jesus formed His church to live. We are exemplifying community and sharing joys, challenges, and praise together. Events like this can also help us to be able to pray more effectively for each other.
4. The ‘No-Clique’ Zone
No one likes to feel like an outsider. It’s important for us to make sure our women’s ministry is not a place for ‘cliques’. Try some fun and innovative ways to get your women to ‘mix up’ where they sit when they come for your meetings. It’s natural for us to gravitate towards things we are more familiar with, and we end up always sitting with the same people because it’s a safe place! Consider inviting your group to go beyond the norm and mix it up!
Here are some simple methods you could use to accomplish this:
- Put numbers on each chair, then have attendees randomly choose a card from a basket with a chair number on it.
- Play a game that places you at a table with your birthday month, or write out different categories that you know your ladies would fit into.
- Use different colored plastic tablecloths and each person draws a card with a colored dot. Then you sit at the coordinating colored table.
However you manage the mix-up, it will be worth your time!
Asking people to step out of their comfort zone may be a bit intimidating at first, but when everyone is doing it together, it releases the pressure. When we encourage the women in our meetings to sit in a new spot, and spend time with someone they don’t know as well – mixed with someone from a different generation, we are creating a whole new space for connection, friendship, and strengthening the community within our small church’s women’s ministry.
5. Community Connection
Working on outreach or community service projects together is a great way to spend time together as a group. Serving the Lord and sharing God’s love in your community is so important and doing it together is a great way to encourage involvement, especially by those who may seem a bit intimidated by a project like this.
Encourage the women in your group to make suggestions for a project. Allowing them to organize and plan the project gets them involved in new ways, as well as mentoring them in leadership roles for the future.
As your small church sees the excitement of your women in participating in some of these projects, they will be inspired to find ways to serve as well! The impact that these events can have on your community is huge.
6. Listen, See, & Learn
Keeping things fresh in our groups can be difficult at times, but we shouldn’t be afraid to try new things. Research and see what other churches are doing, be brave, attend a meeting at another church, and experience what they do! Ask friends from different areas what women’s ministry in their church looks like. You can go online to see what’s trending. There are tons of ideas out there, but remember, know your group and what will fit your area and the personalities and abilities in your group.
Regularly ask your group if they have any new ideas. There is probably someone out there with a great idea but is just afraid to speak up, so encourage it! As people suggest ideas, get them involved in planning and executing them. This is a great way to foster leadership development.
Stepping out of the box in your women’s ministry is a great way to keep things fresh. It’s also a perfect opportunity to invite new faces in. Have an event where women can invite their friends. You’ll discover that when everyone is trying something new, there is no ‘old guard’ who knows the routine, so that makes people more comfortable. You are all doing it together!
That’s how relationships are formed and new women can get connected.
7. Cultivate Caring
We mentioned before in Tip #1 that making personal connections is a natural bridge to a caring network in your group. As we develop deeper connections, we naturally want to care for each other.
We can encourage and model simple things like celebrating special days, as an easy step to cultivating a community of caring in your group. Remembering women on their birthdays with a snail mail card or use them to celebrate milestones together.
Demonstrate simple gestures of what caring looks like. Invite others to join you on a house call or hospital visit. Find someone to teach your group how to make care baskets. Find a team to do random acts of kindness for those who may need a pick-me-up. These are activities that stretch across the generations.
As your women see these actions demonstrated and received, they will become excited to participate and be part of that caring community!
8. Don’t Be Afraid Of Down Times
Sometimes we need to schedule purposeful times of quiet, reflection, and seeking the Lord’s presence. Our women’s ministries do not have to be go-go-go all the time, in fact, that is not modeling Jesus’ lifestyle of ministry. Jesus took those deliberate times away from activity, to seek out God and to be renewed. As a leader, you should be encouraging your women to do the same. Perhaps you could organize your own spiritual retreat, whether it be right at your own church or somewhere off campus. Plan for times of quietness and times of being able to hear from the Lord.
This practice in your women’s group will encourage those who have been on their faith journeys for a long time, as well as those who are younger Christians, just starting out. Together you can all use this time for refreshing your spiritual walk.
9. Seek Him First & Foremost
As a leader in your small church’s women’s ministry, the most important thing I can encourage you to do is seek God out first and foremost. Bring each woman in your group to the Lord in prayer, earnestly praying for their growth and care. Pray for direction and for the group to be a tool for God to use. Finally, pray for your leadership. Pray that God would give you a deep love for each woman, a good example for them to follow, and a vibrant connection with God and with each other.
This tip alone will equip you with all that you need to develop and strengthen your women’s ministry!
Shifting The Perspective A Little Bit
Remember the philosophy that Small Church Ministry was built on, it’s not about the numbers and it never was. Your women’s ministry is there to encourage, inspire, and connect these women with each other and with God. Whoever God brings into your ministry, that is who is supposed to be there and that is what we need to be thanking Him for. Don’t waste time and emotion thinking about ‘who’s not there’, but rejoice in how God is working on who was there!
I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1-2 NIV
I hope you have been encouraged and inspired by these tips and I hope they will strengthen your small church women’s ministry. We are excited to see and hear about how God is working in your small church. Don’t forget to post in our Facebook group and let us celebrate with you, as you encourage others to do the same!
Read More:
10 Perfect Icebreakers For Your Women’s Ministry Events
24 Ideas To Renew Your Women’s Ministry
4 Tips For Bridging The Generational Gap In Women’s Ministry
