Recently at our Women’s Leadership Forum 2010 we had a panel answering questions submitted by attendees. Several past and upcoming posts will address those and try to help answer them. make sure to check out our past Women’s Ministry Questions posts concerning : Team Leader Issues, Childcare, and Leaders with a Clogged Drain!
Today’s question is: What are some ways we can provide opportunities for women to share their story and testify to God’s faithfulness?
2 Timothy 4:2 tells us to “proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching. (HCSB) Other versions say “In season or out of season”, meaning always everywhere we are to tell what God has done!
There are so many opportunities to use ongoing as well as spontaneous women’s activities as doors through which you encourage women to share what God is doing in their lives.
1. Small Groups/Bible Studies: Make it a habit to ask each time you are together, “What’s God been telling you this week?” or “What is God doing in your life today?” I have a women’s leader at my church that never fails to ask this question in each group I am in with her. Usually I am just barely making the meeting and taking a deep breath as I sit down. But this has constantly caused me to be watching for those times He is speaking and sharing those things with other women.
2. Prayer Updates: As you share requests and pray for each other, always make a habit of asking how God is answering. Allow women to share vulnerably (which means you as a leader must also share vulnerably) what they are experiencing. Even the “wait” answers from God are times He is showing us incredible things about Him as we experience what Isaiah 40:31 says: “but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint. (HCSB)
3. Email or Facebook: Set up a group email to correspond during the week. Ask your group members to share what God is saying daily as they are reading devotions, scripture or doing in-depth Bible study. Or you can set up a private Facebook group where this can take place.
4. Your stories: Share your stories and what God is doing in your life on an ongoing basis with the women you come into contact with. Always give God credit for what HE has done that day in your life. Share uplifting lessons as well as the more difficult ones so they see that real life is made up of both and we can praise God in each situation.
5. Story Night: Host an informal coffee chat time and have several women prepared to share a variety of stories. Then at smaller tables of women, have them share among those at their table. Once they hear how easy it is to tell their stories, they are much more willing to do so.
6. Recognizing Stories: A chapter in our soon to be revised version of Transformed Lives will discuss how to help women see how God has truly be present each step and in each milestone of their lives. As they discover their “God” stories that they thought just “happened”, they begin to see how each one has helped them become who they are today. And they see that God has a purpose for creating them that very way…a purpose of walking with Him and sharing Him wherever they are. Often they just don’t see God’s hand on parts of their lives, and helping them see He has used it all for His good helps them share their stories of His faithfulness. (Watch for the release of the book in November 2011)
In the comment box, share with our readers how YOU help women share their stories…of salvation, of joy, of crisis, if walking with God on a daily basis.
