Designing Effective Women's Ministries: Choosing, Planning, and Implementing the Right Programs for Your Church

by Jill Briscoe, Laurie A. McIntyre, Beth Seversen

Overview

For nearly twenty-five years, Elmbrook Church in Waukesha, WI, has supported a variety of ministries by and for women. Today their program stands as a model. Yet, as the authors of Designing Effective Women's Ministries will tell you, it did not happen overnight, but through trial and error. In Designing Effective Women's Ministries, the authors share what worked for them and what didn't. they explain how to start where you are, with what you have, and how to do what God wants you to do. Designing Effective Women's Ministries included tips and techniques for establishing groups and programs that meet the needs of today's women. The book shows how to develop programs that are specifically tailored to your church and your community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310877240
Publisher:	Zondervan
Publication date:	08/10/2010
Sold by:	Zondervan Publishing
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jill Briscoe was born in Liverpool, England, in 1935. Educated at Cambridge, she taught school for a number of years before marrying Stuart and raising their three children. In addition to sharing with her husband in ministry with Torchbearers at Capernwray in England, and in pastoring a church in the United States for thirty years, Jill has written more than forty books, travelled on every continent teaching and encouraging, served on the boards of Christianity Today and World Relief, and now acts as executive editor of a magazine for women called Just Between Us. Jill can be heard regularly on the worldwide media ministry Telling the Truth. She is proud to be called “Nana” by thirteen grandchildren.

Since 1990, Laurie has served as pastor of the Elmbrook Women’s Ministries, a dynamic ministry drawing over 1,200 women weekly. In addition, she maintains an ambitious speaking schedule at retreats and conferences. Laurie has co-authored Designing Effective Women’s Ministries with Jill Briscoe, and is a contributing author of Mothers Have Angel Wings by Carol Kent. She is a graduate of Biola University and Dallas Theological Seminary.
Beth Seversen has served as a ministry leader at Elmbrook Church, Waukesha, WI. She was formerly associate pastor of women's ministries at Elmbrook Church.

Read an Excerpt

Prologue
This book was written by several people who have invested their lives and hearts into ministry to women at Elmbrook Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin. For many years we have been nurturing the dream of sharing our experiences in women's ministries through a book such as this one, in the hope that many women will find themselves encouraged, challenged, and called by God to establish vibrant and life-giving ministries in their own churches. Over the last two decades we have seen God use our ministries to meet the needs of women, to train and equip them for leadership, and to lead many into new relationships with him. As witnesses of the great things that God has accomplished through and in women, how could we keep silent about all he has taught us?
This handbook is our combined effort to introduce to you the Elmbrook Church Women's Ministries as one model of ministry to women. We are not proposing that you adopt our exact model. Ours is simply a model of growth, not of perfection. Our hope, rather, is that our ideas and insights from the last twenty-five years of ministry will help you catch a vision for what God can do through a ministry to women. He transforms lives; he builds deeper relationships; he stretches us and teaches us, building into us the character of Christ. And we believe that the church as a whole can be built up as women are built up through women's ministries that are designed to meet their real needs.
Whether you are organizing or reorganizing your ministry to women, we invite you to window shop among the pages of ideas in this book. Our successes and failures will be shared in hopes that the former will inspire you and the latter may prevent you from repeating some of our mistakes! Program ideas, philosophies, structures, and principles which we have found helpful will be presented for your consideration. This book is intended to be a workbook. The wide margins make it convenient to take notes, brainstorm and put down ideas. If we can assist you in determining the needs and desires of the women in your church and community and serve as a catalyst for vital, vibrant ministries, tailor-made to address those needs and desires, then our purposes for writing this handbook will have been accomplished.
Women are creative, innovative, sensitive, gifted, nurturing, resourceful, and resilient! God knows that's true because he made us. We wish you all the joy and excitement we have found to be a part of ministering to women in his name.
Acknowledgments
It takes a certain type of woman to invest her life in the lives of her kind. It takes a woman with a heart for the Lord and for women's well-being to start with. It also takes a commitment to follow through, see to all the details, and deal with all the discouragements along the way.
The people who have contributed to this handbook are such women. This work reflects only a fraction of their expertise. God has developed a ministry that has touched hundreds of lives over the years, and we have learned in the growing to look first for his 'well done' at the end of the day. It is fitting, however, to affirm and appreciate each other as well, and so we thank the loving friends and fellow 'givers' and 'doers' for having such a vital part of this big project. We trust it will be a catalyst in other women's lives.
The following women have contributed to the content of this handbook: Lisa Kinakin, Jennifer Johnson, Dell Jansen, Cindy Greenup, Carma Bowerman, Jean Robinson, Deb Hackbarth, and Janet Keddie.
Special editors have shaped it: Ann Lawton, Iva Johnson Danielson, and Shauna Perez.
Project support has been given by Elmbrook Women's Ministry board, and typists Laura Hintz, Ruth Dalbey, Rosie Nieznanski, and Debbie Briscoe have committed it efficiently to type.
Above all, we have all had a part in praying that the kingdom may come in many women's hearts because of their self-giving dedication and their delight in service---and their love for the Lord.
Jill Briscoe

Table of Contents

Contents Prologue Acknowledgments Part I: BEGINNING A WOMEN’S MINISTRY 1. The Best Way to Begin Is to Begin 2. Start With What You’ve Got 3. Designing a Ministry Through Brainstorming Perspective: Are You a Doer or a Dreamer? 4. Put It All Together Part II: MEETING WOMEN WHERE THEY LIVE 5. Morning Break Perspective: Commitment to the Same Faces 6. Moms and More Perspective: Quiet Times in Noisy Times 7. Evening Edition Perspective: Women Wearing Many Hats 8. The Widow’s Might Part III: DEVELOPING YOUR LEADERS 9. The Coordinator’s Board 10. Looking for and Leading Your Leaders 11. Effective Leadership Retreats Part IV: REACHING YOUR WORLD 12. Breakaway for Renewal Perspective: Ask No Quarter 13. Reaching Out through Special Events Perspective: Between Your Own Two Feet 14. Women on a Mission Part V: ENERGIZING YOUR MINISTRY 15. Being Women of Prayer Epilogue: Women Who Change Their World Appendix 1: Caring for a Speaker Appendix 2: Surveys and Forms