Walking by F. A. I. T. H.

How God led us to start a ministry to women @ FBC Elk City

Video link here

Recently I was asked to sit on a discussion panel with other women leaders to talk about how we have launched (or re-launched) a women’s ministry in our local churches. When Amy Cordova, the women’s ministry specialist from the BGCO offices in Oklahoma City, asked me to do this I had to take a step back and think, “how did we really get here?” I just talked to the Lord and said “what is it that you’ve really had us do on this journey?!”

As I began to write in my journal, I remember thinking that the first thing that our team ever did was fast and pray. We committed to each other to fast 2 different times over the next 30 days as we sought guidance from The Lord. We committed to pray “together” at 5:30am every morning for a month. So I wrote that down & I a skipped a line and I wrote down what I remember us doing next. I wrote down accountability…. we held each other accountable for doing the fasting & getting up every morning at 5:30 AM to pray.

Then I realized the next thing that we did was invite others to join our group. We looked at who was on our leadership team at that point and who we were missing and still needed. So we invited others. God has provided different women across four generations to be on the leadership team. Our ages range from women in their 30s to those in their 60s. I started to see a pattern of an acronym developing as I wrote this out. God was clearly revealing this to me as I prayed, reflected and journaled.

Next I realized that we just sat and talked about things that we knew our church needed and things that we needed to create in order to provide a foundation for the structure to do ministry out of. We talked about the vision for ministry to women & the mission that we thought would be consistent with our church’s and which biblical values that we hold to be the most important Gospel truths. So we wrote out a vision, mission, and values statement. We also created a flow chart of how different ministry teams will operate within the church structure.

Once we had all of this structure and the foundation in place, we knew that it was time to host an event to share all of this!

At this event we shared our hearts, we shared our confessions & failures, and we crossed the generations with the women of the church. We casted a vision for them about what women’s ministry can look like and paired every woman that attended with a prayer partner. It was our hope that this could begin to provide a deeper and meaningful connection with women so they can get to know each other better. We hope that it would begin to connect women on a more spiritual level.

As I was writing and journaling all of this, I realized that every action we did began with a letter that spelled out the word faith.

F. A. I. T. H.

Fasting & Prayer

Accountability

Invite others

Talk about Vision, Mission & Values

Host a kickoff event

Just as we began with fasting & praying back in January, we have now circled back around to that very specific act again. Of course there’s always prayer with everything we do, but you add fasting to that with a deep yearning for guidance & clarity from God, it’s a different level of prayer life. We’ve hosted a kickoff event, have casted a vision and started fall Bible studies and now are back earnestly seeking the Lord for specific acts of faith for what’s next; for how we move forward. We feel engaged with the women of the church at large; we feel equipped to move forward with God’s leading; and we try to elevate Jesus and the Gospel in everything we do.

And so…. how did we start a ministry to women? We started by stepping out in faith. I truly & wholeheartedly believe that if you do nothing else but seek the Lord and build relationships with others along the way, God will lead you and guide you to a ministry that is better than you could ever create on your own.

Just step out & walk in F. A. I. T. H.

Shannan Cloud, M.Div.