I love planning events and take pride in decorating and crating cute ideas and I won't lie Pinterest is a big help and feeds my passion for things like that. The world gives us so many GREAT ideas, but we don't need this.
We should be desiring authenticity, community, and vulnerability not life hacks from Pinterest. We are suffocating in cute tablescapes and bright crafty things and drowning in the desire for real community with one another.
We show up to these fun ladies events and we leave grasping for more, or we leave feeling a little empty and it's the same event after event.
The women of our world aren’t looking for a safe place to cry about housework and ooh-and-ahhh over centerpieces. Not all are mothers, some of us work outside the home, some of us have kids, and others don’t or won’t or can’t. Womanhood is not only about wifehood and motherhood. We’re not all in the same season of life. We are – or should be – diverse image bearers of a Perfect and Holy God.
We need Jesus. We are seeking deep spirituality. We are seeking women to walk beside us. We are hungry for true community, a place to tell our stories and listen to another, to love well. But above all, point me to Jesus–not to the sale at the mall.
Are we sharing what the one true God has to say or are we sharing what we read in the latest blog post on a topic. Do we head to our Bibles to find true counsel or do we Google and Pinterest the topic the first?
You know what I desire for women's ministry instead of crafts or a new recipe? I would like to see women pray together, not just at an event but on the phone in the middle of traffic. I would like to see the women of the church share their stories or wisdom with one another when another lady is struggling not just offering up an "I'll pray for you," or "it will be ok, have faith, trust the Lord." Stop right what you are doing and pray, help her work through scripture and studying the Bible TOGETHER!
I would love to wrestle with some questions that don’t have a one-paragraph answer in your study guide. I want us to sign up to take a meal to the elderly or make care packages for a new baby or be informed about issues in our community where we can make space for God to allow us to reflect His image. I would like to organize and prioritize, and to disturb the peace of the rest of the world on behalf of justice, truth, beauty, love and what the Word of God says we should stand against and not accept. I’d love to hear the voices of women in our church, not just mine constantly.
Please let's stop treating women’s ministry like a safe club for the ladies to play church.
We are smart. We are brave. We should want to change the world. Let's run marathons to benefit our sisters, not so that we can lose weight. We have more to offer to the church than our decorating skills and our ability to use Pinterest and Google. I look around, and I can see women who can offer strategic leadership, wisdom, counsel, and even, yes, teaching. We need to give and serve and make a difference. We should desire to be challenged. We should read books and talk politics, theology, and current events. We need to listen to each other. We should be worshipping, we should be interceding for our sisters and weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those that rejoice, to create life and justice with intention.
Let’s be a community of women, gathered together to live more whole-heartedly, to sharpen, challenge, love, and inspire one another to then scatter back out to our worlds bearing the mandate to be women that love. Idelette McVicker wrote:
Let us RISE to the questions of our time.
Let us SPEAK to the injustices in our world.
Let us MOVE the mountains of fear and intimidation.
Let us SHOUT down the walls that separate and divide.
Let us FILL the Earth with the fragrance of Love.
Let us be women who Love.
Don't worry I'm not giving up Pinterest.
