Women's Ministries Ideas:

I'm doing what former English majors do best: research.

There are a ton of pages online concerning women's ministries -- unfortunately, nearly all of them try to sell me on Beth Moore video classes. I admit it's a better fare than women's classes tend to get, but it's still not good. I think we can do better. Much better.

There were some useful things out there, however. One church in particular listed some of the ministries it offers specifically for women which, if modified, could apply to my home church. The first is something they call "Heart-to-heart." It's a once/month evening for women. Our church has home groups that meet on the first Sunday evening of every month. Maybe a modified version of this -- homegroups for women in similar life stages and special groups for adolescent girls with an older mentor(s)/facilitator(s) -- that met on the third Sunday evening of each month or another convenient night.

I think it'd also be a neat idea to match up younger women with older female mentors who are already in the direction the younger women are headed: i.e. mothers/wives mentoring those who know that's their calling/gift/interest/whatever, college age women mentoring teens, older professionals mentoring younger, etc. Just similar intergenerational matching -- for encouragement and mutual learning. Also to develop friendships among the generations. Could also work for accountability.

They also have a women's retreat, which would be a nice way to unite the various groups set up by other aspects of the ministry. Even though a large focus of the ministry may be a mentoring model, it'd be a great thing for all the women to get together at least once a year (fall? spring?) and have a day or two to mingle -- and experience relevant speakers and topics. Other "group specific" retreats could be organized, too.

Bible studies that aren't Beth Moore, Kay Arthur or any of the others I've run into so far. Prayer groups.

Outreach. If women knew there were places for them in our churches, women would respond. Meeting needs opens doors. Women's shelters, high schools, etc. Volunteering.

Just thinking out loud...