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Does Your Church Have a Ladies’ Ministry?
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Tonight was our church’s ladies’ ministry meeting. We only meet a few times per year, but I always love going because of the good fellowship with the older ladies there.
Our church is pretty small, averaging about 40 people in attendence on Sunday mornings. I began attending shortly after the church was founded in 1987, so that would have meant I was 5 years old (I’m almost 26 now). It is pastored by my Uncle Ronnie, my mother’s eldest brother. There has never really been anyone my age at the church, but I have always loved attending because the folks there are like an extended family to me. In fact, the one time someone my age DID show up, he actually became my family. :) You see, in August of 2005, during a revival one Tuesday night, I met Kevin. (We were married in June of 2006, in the same church).
I wasn’t feeling too well today, so dinner tonight consisted of leftovers. We also introduced Jack-Evan to a “vegetable” for the first time - peas - and had a blast laughing at his cute self, enjoying his meal. It was even funnier trying to get the green pea glob out of the edges his poor little nostril. I really wish I would have a camera for that one….you know, for posterity’s sake.
At 6:15, I packed up Jack-Evan in his car seat, kissed Kevin goodbye, and then headed to my parents’ house to pick my mom up. Our church is a 20 minute drive from there, and the meeting started at 6:45.
On the way we joked that we were going to the “Ladies plus a Baby” meeting since Jack would be there. It’s the first time they’ve had the meeting since he was born, so it was going to be fun to have him around our church friends outside of a “church service” setting.
The meeting is held in our church’s small fellowship hall / kitchen area. There were twelve in attendence, with my Aunt (our pastor’s wife) presiding over the meeting. Normally we have someone do a voluntary devotion that they’ve prepared, but the one who had volunteered was unable to make it so we just did some prayer time before getting down to the business part of the meeting.
Now, I don’t know about your church, but in our church, the Ladies’ ministry is responsible for the traditional womanly stuff. That includes things such as decorating for special events, arranging various parties and activities (like the fall festival), providing the food for church events, organizing volunteers, etc. Tonight we talked about a new class that is starting up for the preschoolers in our church - a sort of mini church for the two to five year olds during the normal worship service (11 AM on Sunday Morning). We already have a teacher in place, but we needed to set up a schedule of volunteers as well.
I enjoy working with the preschool age children, but unfortunately, I was unable to volunteer for anything this time. For one, I am already committed to stage presentation of our praise music - it’s my duty to ensure the songs are displayed during singing using the powerpoint slides. This takes up the first 20-30 minutes of the service (Our services usually have 1/3 singing and 2/3 preaching). Also, after singing, I return to our pew and hold Jack-Evan. I personally feel that training him to sit and listen to the preacher is better than arriving at church and dumping him immediately into the nursery. I would feel like I’m neglecting my parental duties if I allowed myself to do that! I know that not everyone is able to keep their child with them during preaching, but being together “as a family” during service is something that my husband and I feel really strongly about for our family. Jack’s always done pretty well too. He loves sitting on my lap and looking around at everyone. Once in a while he gets vocal and I take him out to nurse if he doesn’t quiet within a minute or so, but otherwise he does fine in the service. Now, granted, he’s only 5 months old right now, so it is yet to be seen if we will be able to handle him in service when he’s a bit older. I hope so though! We hope that by training him early to sit on my lap through preaching, it will develop better discipline for later on.
So….. that’s why I wasn’t able to volunteer for the new preschool class. I would have loved to though. Sometimes I feel like I should be doing more for the church - but not at the cost of leaving my own family during service.
Anywho, after discussing the new preschool class, we determined a time for our annual Christmas banquet. This is always a fun event, filled with good fellowship - especially when we play the “white elephant” game! For those of you who aren’t familiar with that game, it’s where everyone brings a wrapped gift marked “man” or “woman” (women bring woman gifts, men bring man gifts). Then, we all sit in a huge circle and draw numbers, usually ranging from 1-60. The lowest number starts first and gets to choose a gift from the pile. Once the gift is unwapped, the person sets it in front of them and the next person can choose whether they want to get a “new” gift or “take” the gift from the previous owner. If your gift gets taken, you can then choose to get a new gift or take one from someone else. It gets really funny when people start (in good humor) “fighting” over the best gifts! If you have two gifts taken, the third gift automatically becomes yours and you retire from the game. It’s all good fun, and everyone goes home with a nice gift in the end.
My other Aunt had already secured a date for the rented community building where we usually hold our Christmas banquet, so our only duty was to determine a time (which we did). Next month we’ll determine the food list and who’s bringing what - sometimes we have an italian themed Christmas banquet (speghetti, lasagna, etc.) and sometimes it’s traditional ham and turkey.
After business was settled, we said a closing prayer and began the “fun” part - eating! :-D We always have some sort of finger foods to eat afterwards. While we were eating, I pulled an exercauser bouncer from the nursery, into the kitchen beside the tables, and put Jack-Evan in it. He had a great time, especially with all the women doting on him, and trying to make him smile! However, around 8 pm, as we were cleaning up, he became a bit fussy and fell asleep in the arms of one of the ladies. It’s cute how predictable Jack is when it’s his nap time…he always falls asleep near 8 pm, no matter where we are!
It took about 10 minutes to get the kitchen cleaned up and the food cleared away (most of us made plates for our husbands at home), and then we all said our goodbyes, and parted ways. 
I really miss when we don’t have these meetings (such as during the summer when not a lot of holiday activities are occuring). Even though we don’t do too many fancy projects or outings, we do have a good time talking to each other and just getting to know one another.
What about you? Does your church have some sort of women’s fellowship program? If so, do you take part in it?
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One Response to “Does Your Church Have a Ladies’ Ministry?”
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October 8th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
We do have a ladies ministry, but I don’t attend. I usually have a schedule conflict, plus it’s a 30 minute drive one way, so I tend not to do extras at church. I do lead a ladies Bible study during the week though, so I feel like that keeps me in touch with the older women. Between music practices, Bible study, and staff meeting, we are at church 4 days/week, not including Sunday!
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