Category Archives: Christian Womanhood

How Older Women Can Serve

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I wrote a post a few weeks ago about Why Older Women Don’t Serve at church in an in-front-of-people way or a “take charge of big things like VBS” way. But even though older women may have physical issues and may not have the energy to serve in certain ways doesn’t mean they should not serve at all. Psalm 92:14a says, “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.” God has given to every member of His body gifts to exercise. Older women are given a specific assignment in Titus 2:3-5.

If you’re “older” and can still coordinate the ladies’ group or cook for 200 members for a banquet or teach active five-year-olds in Sunday School, go for it! A friend of mine had an aunt who still delivered Meals on Wheels at 92. But if you’re not quite up to that, here are a few other ideas of ways you can serve:

1. Prayer. You may not have the energy to “go” and “do” a lot, but you might have more time than others to pray. There is a lot to pray for: your pastor, church, missionaries, young people seeking God’s will for their lives, adjustments for newlyweds, harried moms with young children, older moms in the “taxi years” taking their kids hither and yon, moms facing the empty nest, single ladies at any stage…there is enough to keep any of us busy praying for much longer than we do. This doesn’t mean we necessarily need to spend hours on our knees: we can pray while cleaning the kitchen, driving, resting, etc.

I can’t tell you what it meant to me when, while recovering from a serious illness, an older lady from a previous church in the town we had moved from called me to see how I was doing and to tell me she was praying for me. Some of my favorite missionary anecdotes involve people being prompted to pray for a certain missionary at a certain time, and in the days before texts and e-mails it may have been months before they knew what the specific need was, but as they and the missionary compared dates, the missionary had a specific need just when the individual was prompted to pray.

2. Show interest. As you cross paths with other ladies, ask how they’re doing. “How’s that new baby? Sleeping through the night yet?” “How did that job interview go?” “How’s Johnny liking school this year?” Just having someone take a moment to show personal interest can lift someone’s day. Watch out for new people and making them feel welcome. One lady with multiple health problems whom no one would have blamed if she stayed in bed all day instead came with her husband to every sports event, home and away, of our Christian school even though they had neither kids nor grandkids in the school. That meant a lot to those involved. Even in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, there are those who withdraw and keep to themselves and those who try to smile and brighten others’ days.

3. Word of encouragement. When you do show interest in others, you can offer words of shared joy when things are going well and words of encouragement when they’re not. One of my favorite posts of Shannon‘s was It Gets Easier for younger moms (though Shannon’s not in the category I’d generally think of as “Older Women,” we are all older than someone and can offer encouragement to those in the paths we’ve come through).

4. Offers of help. One older lady I knew would sometimes go and help a new mom after the birth of a baby when that lady’s own mother could not come, or when a pregnant lady was on bedrest. Practical help like doing dishes, laundry, tidying, making a meal can lift one’s spirits tremendously when one can’t keep up. Be alert even to little ways one can offer help: when a mom holding a baby is trying to help a toddler go potty in the ladies’ restroom at church, offer to hold the baby; when a mom is trying to coordinate a baby carrier, diaper bag, Bibles, and two preschoolers from the car to the church, ask how you can help (don’t just swoop in — the baby may cry if anyone other than mom holds her, the children may panic if you just take their hands and offer to take them in: ask, “Can I help you somehow? I’d be happy to take the baby or carry the diaper bag” or something similar.)

5. Sharing what you know. Once a lady told me she’d love to have a ladies’ meeting where someone demonstrated how to bake bread, because she couldn’t get a handle on it, and she could learn it more easily by seeing someone do it and being able to ask questions. But we couldn’t think of anyone who made their own bread. If you know how to make bread, can vegetables, knit, etc., you may or may not want to do so in a ladies’ meeting, but maybe you could invite one or two others over, or go to their houses to show them. I know one lady who went to help another younger mom harvest and put up her produce from her garden, and I know another mom who asked a retired school teacher to teach her daughters to sew, so that they could be influenced by her sweet godliness as well as being taught the basics of sewing.

6. Having one or two women over. I mentioned in the previous post a retired lady I looked up to who found various unique ways to serve. One thing she did was to have a couple of ladies at a time over to lunch at her house. She didn’t do so specifically to Try To Be a Good Influence, but people who walk with God do carry a sometimes unconscious godly influence into the lives of others.

Indwelt

Not merely in the words you say,
Not only in your deeds confessed,
But in the most unconscious way
Is Christ expressed.

Is it a beatific smile,
A holy light upon your brow;
Oh no, I felt His Presence while
You laughed just now.

For me ‘twas not the truth you taught
To you so clear, to me still dim
But when you came to me you brought
A sense of Him.

And from your eyes He beckons me,
And from your heart His love is shed,
Til I lose sight of you and see
The Christ instead.

—by A. S. Wilson

6. Visiting shut-ins. We tend to think of this with shut-ins who are alone, but when they have family nearby we assume the family is meeting all their needs and they’re well taken care of. The lady I mentioned above also brought another lady with her to visit my mother-in-law in an assisted living facility. One of us saw her every day, but it brightened her week as well as ours when these ladies came to visit her.

7. Sending notes. Or cookies. Or both. How many people send hand-written notes any more? Yet we all still love receiving them. You can brighten the day of a college student, military personnel, your pastor, or just about anyone with a little note (or even an e-mail or a Facebook post). And you may not have the stamina for a marathon cookie baking session, but maybe you could bake just a few and send a package to one person at a time.

8. Volunteer. When my dad was in the hospital, the “pink ladies” were older volunteers who kept the coffee pot going in the waiting room, stocked donuts, helped people find which way to go, and just generally made themselves available and useful. Having a sweet, friendly face in that place helped a lot. Similarly, Christian schools are having a tough time of it with decreasing enrollment, and volunteers can help provide services that the school couldn’t otherwise offer. At the Christian school my boys attended for twelve years, one older lady oversaw the library part-time while moms or sometimes grandmothers would handle each class’s library time, checking out books and reading a story to the class. Some helped with class parties, some helped sorting papers for students’ weekly folders, some helped in the lunchroom. And the students seemed to love their grandmotherly influence in the school. When I was coordinating our ladies group, sometimes when we would work on a project like cards and bookmarks for missionaries or favors for a ladies’ luncheon and wouldn’t quite get finished, ladies who took some of those things home to finish helped me tremendously.

9. Blogging. Sharing what God has taught you along the way can be a blessing to others who read.

A younger woman may be thinking, “Wow, I’d love to find an older lady to help me in some of these ways!” Pray about it and maybe take the initiative: they may be suffering from a crisis of confidence either in the loss of some of their abilities or the thought that perhaps they’re not wanted. I think many of these kinds of ministries work together: maybe as you invite someone over for coffee or ask them to show you how to do something, that can spark a relationship where some of these other things can flow.

Not everyone will be able to do all of these things, of course. Time and energy will vary from person to person. But if you’re older (in any way) and wanting to be used of the Lord but don’t know how best to serve, pray, seek His will, and start where you are with a word of kindness here, an expression of interest there, prayer here, an offer of help there. He does have work He wants you to do, and He will guide you to it and enable you to do it.

(Graphics are courtesy of Microsoft Office clip art.)

This post will be also linked to “Works For Me Wednesday,” where you can find a plethora of helpful hints each week at We Are THAT family on Wednesdays, as well as  Women Living Well.

Why Don’t Older Women Serve?

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A lady asked that question some years ago on a Christian message forum online. She was asking why older women didn’t serve within the organized church programs. I don’t remember what I answered in response then, but it is a question that has stayed with me, and I wanted to share a few thoughts.

First, I think we need to be careful of blanket statements. Maybe there truly were no older women serving at her particular church, depending on what she meant by “older,” but that’s not to say no older woman serves anywhere. I’ve known some wonderful older women serving in various capacities, even through daunting physical problems.

Secondly, not all ministry tales place within organized church programs. More on that in a moment. Christians are to live a life of ministry, but that may look different at different phases and among different personalities. There are many ways to mentor.

It is true that sometimes older people can have the mindset that, “I’ve served my time, let the younger people do it.” “Serving my time” sounds like a prison sentence, which is not the joyful service a Christian should exemplify. As “older” ladies (however you qualify that), we do need to remember that we are called to minister to others, to exercise the gifts God gave us, to live out the Biblical “one anothers,” and we’re specifically called to teach younger women certain things. God has a function for everyone in the body of Christ. There is no retirement from serving the Lord, though that service may change as life changes.

But it is true that some of those life changes may indeed affect how we serve. It may not involve standing in front of a class, leading a seminar, or any number of “public” ministries. Here are a few reasons why older women may not serve as they did in younger years:

Physical issues.

There is a wide range of what’s “normal” at various stages of aging. Many of us probably know globe-trotting octogenarians who seem as sharp mentally and almost as able physically as people half their age. But we also know people who are nearly disabled by age-related problems in their sixties.

But even beyond known physical problems, like diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, etc., there may be physical problems an older woman may not want to talk about, like bladder issues or a gradual loss of control of some bodily functions. Forgive me if this is too much information for some of you, but it’s a reality for many women. One dear lady in one of our former churches came to Sunday School and church, but if we tried to persuade her to come to any other kind of ladies’ meeting, she would say, “Oh, I would love to, but I have such problems with gas, I don’t dare.” We went away chuckling to ourselves, but years later when experiencing some of the same problems, it wasn’t so funny. It’s hard to stand in front of a group when you’re afraid you might have to make a mad dash to the restroom, Kegel exercises notwithstanding. I’ve wanted to tell pastors when they make comments about people sitting near the back of the church that some of us have good reasons for being there!

Menopause.

This might be considered a subset of physical issues, but it carries emotional overtones as well. Some women seem to have smooth sailing through menopausal waters while others experience severe storms, either physically or emotionally or both. For some, the years leading up to menopause can be worse than menopause itself. I could give you details…but I’ll spare you.

Diminished capacity.

As people age they generally lose a certain amount of “oomph,” physically and even emotionally. There is pressure in ministry, and some might get to a point where they can’t handle it as well as they once did. Stress can affect the physical and emotional problem mentioned earlier. A woman may feel she is too wobbly and unsteady to take care of babies in a nursery. I’ve also known women who drive less as they get older, first at night and then generally.

Family obligations.

Middle-aged women are often in that “sandwich generation” where they have a parent in declining years who needs increasing care while their children are going through their teens or college years or navigating life on their own or getting married and having babies. I know one older couple who retired partly because all of their adult married children as well as their aging parents lived in other cities, and they wanted to be able to go help their kids when new babies came and they needed to be available to go at a moment’s notice to help their parents.

One wife I knew had a husband who traveled frequently for meetings, and after the kids moved out, he wanted her to travel with him.

Serving in other ways.

One lady used to apologize to me frequently because she couldn’t come to monthly ladies’ meetings. She had an adult son who was disabled physically and mentally, a widowed mother who depended on her for almost everything that needed to be done around the house, and she seemed to be the “go-to” person for anyone in her extended family needing a baby-sitter. Her whole life was a ministry despite the fact that she couldn’t come to “official” ladies’ meetings.

Another older lady whom I’ve looked up to as an example retired from teaching in a Christian school and led a ladies’ Bible study. She did a wonderful job, but she stepped back after a year or two (I didn’t ask her reasons). But I noticed and admired many “behind the scenes” ways in which she served. She noticed a new lady sitting by herself in one church service, greeted her, and invited her to sit with her and her husband. This sparked a friendship which eventually led to both the woman and her husband becoming vital members of the church. She had ladies over to her house for lunch and fellowship, one or two at a time. She and another lady from church visited my mother-in-law and another woman in an assisted living facility almost every Friday for years. For whatever reason she did not participate in public or organized ministry programs other than teaching a children’s Sunday School class, but she had a vibrant ministry.

New opportunities.

As women face the “empty nest,” sometimes they have a new freedom (depending on their family situations, as mentioned above) since they no longer have the everyday care of their children. For some that means taking classes or traveling or doing things they haven’t been able to do for years.

The woman I mentioned in the first paragraph went on to say that she had seen some of the same women who had “dropped out” of serving go on to take craft classes and such, and it seemed to her that if they could take classes they could serve at church. If those women are in “retirement” mentality, letting the younger women serve because the older women have already, she’s right. But it may be they don’t feel they can handle some of the stress and pressure of organized ministry, yet they can be a testimony in a more relaxed setting like a craft class.

“Burnout.”

That’s not really a term that I like, but people do feel “burned out” in the Lord’s service sometimes. And this is another area where we can’t make blanket statements, but for me, anyway, and at least for some other people, we’re more apt to feel that way when: 1) We’ve taken on way more than we should, or 2) We don’t have adequate help, or 3) We’re serving in our own strength rather than the Lord’s. I would encourage pastors and ministry leaders to watch out for the first two. Sometimes we seem to heap more responsibilities on someone who is already serving because we see that they’re doing a good job until they have more than they can handle, and sometimes people do things on their own feeling heavily burdened but not seeking help because they don’t know who to ask or feel everyone else is either too busy or doesn’t have time or isn’t interested. I love our current church’s method of having ministry teams for most areas of service in the church rather than just one person in charge of different areas. The third area, serving in our own strength, is so easy to do: sometimes we start off leaning on the Lord but then get frantic and run out on our own. We need to acknowledge our weakness and appropriate His grace and strength daily, sometimes even moment by moment.

They may not feel wanted.

Some years ago a younger woman confided to me that she and others her age didn’t come to our monthly ladies’ meetings because it was all “older” women (though most of us there didn’t think we were that much older). That was the only church I have been a part of where that happened – in most, the ladies’ group was a joyful mix of ages and life situations and one of the best formats, in my opinion, for us to learn from each other. And, happily, even in that church things began to change: one or two new younger married women started coming (unaware of the prevailing sentiment, I guess), and eventually a handful of younger women started coming. I pray the trend continues. But I have to admit that hurt, and it has created in me a hesitancy sometimes to even interact with younger women because I feel they don’t want me to. Thankfully that’s not the case, and I feel I have some wonderful friendships with younger women, but I have to battle against a fear of rejection.

It may be time to minister to them.

My in-laws were very generous in helping their extended family when they could, but as they got older, my father-in-law retired and was on permanent disability due to injuries sustained at work, and their income diminished. As we noticed some family members still coming to them for help, my husband and I remarked that the family needed to come to realize that things were changing, that we needed to have the mindset of seeing how we could help them rather than expecting they were always going to be able to help us.

That’s true in the church family as well. Long before a “senior saint” goes to live in a nursing home or with family members, they might benefit from church ministrations. One year our church ladies’ group collected items for gift bags for some of the “shut-ins” and older women in church, then we divided up the gift bags and visited the ladies and delivered the bags. The visits meant more to them than the gifts, though they appreciated the gifts very much, and we were blessed in trying to bless them.

We had an older middle-aged lady in our neighborhood whose church came over and painted the outside of her home. It was something she couldn’t do herself and couldn’t afford to pay someone to do, and this was a tremendous help to her.

Even just visiting older neighbors and church members with some regularity might open up areas of ministry: they might need little things done like light bulbs changed that they can’t reach or overgrown bushes in the yard that need a trim. They might be hesitant to ask, they often don’t want to “be a bother,” but if you just happen to be there and notice, an offer to take care of such a problem would mean a lot.

If you’re a younger woman who would love to benefit from an older woman’s wisdom, first of all spend time with older ladies. Go where they are. Ask them questions. Invite them over, talk to them at church, etc. You can ask them if they’re willing to serve in some formal way – some are able and willing. But if they decline, and especially if they’re flustered, don’t press the matter. Pray about it and ask the Lord to change their mind if it is His will or to lay someone else on your heart to ask.

And as “older” ladies, we do have to be careful that we don’t let years of experience turn us into opinionated old biddies who are critical of new ideas and who consistently say, “Well, the way we always did it was…” Holding on to sound doctrine is something we’re called to do, but we can learn to adapt to new methods and styles.

We may or may not be able to do the same kinds of ministries we’ve always done, but we can seek God as to what exactly He would like for us to do. As long as the Lord has left us here on earth, He has something for us to do, some way for us to bless others. Sometimes we can be dismayed by our limitations, but as Elisabeth Elliot once said, limitations just define our ministry: “For it is with the equipment that I have been given that I am to glorify God. It is this job, not that one, that He gave me.”

Two glad services are ours,
Both the Master loves to bless.
First we serve with all our powers –
Then with all our feebleness.

Nothing else the soul uplifts
Save to serve Him night and day,
Serve Him when He gives His gifts –
Serve Him when He takes away.

C. A. Fox

This post will be linked to  Women Living Well.

Update: I followed this us with another post on Ways Older Women Can Serve.

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A Real Home

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I just rediscovered this in my files and thought I’d share it with you. I don’t remember where I first saw it: it says it came from the Yankee Kitchen Cookbook, 1969.

A Real Home

A Real Home is a gymnasium. The ideal of a healthy body is the first one to give a child.

A Real Home is a lighthouse. A lighthouse reveals the breakers ahead and shows a clear way past them.

A Real Home is a playground. Beware of the house where you “dassen’t frolic”–there mischief is brewing for someone.

A Real Home is a workshop. Pity the boy without a kit of tools or the girl without a sewing basket. They haven’t learned the fun of doing things, and there is no fun like it.

A Real Home is a forum. Honest, open discussion of life’s great problems belongs originally in the family circle.

A Real Home is a Secret Society. Loyalty to one’s family should mean keeping silent on family matters–just this and nothing more.

A Real Home is a Health Resort. Mothers are the natural physicians.

A Real Home is a cooperative league. Households flourish where the interest of each is made the interest of all.

A Real Home is a business concern. Order is a housewife’s hobby. But order without system is a harness without a horse.

A Real Home is a haven of refuge. The world does this for us all: it makes us hunger for a loving sympathy and a calming, soothing touch.

A Real Home is a Temple of Worship.

~Author unknown.

(Graphic courtesy of Graphic Garden)

Moms of Boys Blog Hop

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Mothers of BoysThe M.O.B. Society (Mothers of Boys) is having a blog hop in order to get to know each other better.

Welcome! My name is Barbara H. and I am in my early 50s. My husband Jim and I have been married for 31 years. My boys are almost 27, 24, and almost 18 (we’re in the middle of “birthday season” when the odometer rolls over for several in our family). I have one beautiful daughter-in-law, married to my middle son. Only my youngest lives at home and he is just starting his senior year of high school, so I am treasuring his last full year at home and helping him pray about college and majors and such. My mother-in-law lives in a nearby assisted living facility but we bring her over often and go visit her almost daily.

This is our last Christmas photo:

After spending most of our married lives in SC, the Lord moved us to TN almost a year ago. It’s been a year of changes and adjustments, but then, that’s life, isn’t it?

My blog is a hodgepodge. I love to write about books I have read, my family, thoughts from the Bible, encouragement to younger women, and anything else that captures my attention. I love to love as well and I think I have a fair share of humor sprinkled throughout my blog.

Some of my posts that might be of particular interest to younger moms are:

Encouragement for mothers of young children.
Motherhood advice.
Encouragement for homemakers.
A Quiet Spirit.
A mother’s nightly ritual– an original poem.
I Corinthians 13 for mothers.
Parenting teens.
Missing something? No, I don’t think so after all.
The ideal house.

The M.O.B. Society hosts asks us about favorite books of our boys. When they were little they loved Curious George, The Little Engine That Could, Golden Books, The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, Mike Mulligan, Keep the Lights Burning, Abbey, Jesse Bear books by Nancy White Carlstrom, books by Robert McCloskey, P. D. Eastman. My oldest, as he got into his pre-teens, liked Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Encyclopedia Brown, Roald Dahl books, and developed a liking for science fiction.

I hope you enjoy your visit here, and I am looking forward to “meeting” you!

Book Review: Women’s Ministry in the Local Church

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I finished Women’s Ministry in the Local Church by Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt a few weeks ago, but it is hard to know how to condense everything I’d like to say about it. I typed out many of the quotes I marked so I could have them handy to refer to without flipping back and forth through the book, and just those quotes took up almost three pages, which is much too long for a blog post! So I think I’ll just give you a brief overview of the book and then mention a few things I really liked about it and a couple I didn’t like so much.

The authors first set out the need for such a book to help women to teach other women as Titus 2 instructs, to present the Biblical role of womanhood as opposed to the feminist view promoted by the world, and to promote the necessity and nobility of women’s roles. The authors had found resources teaching many aspects of a woman’s relationship to Christ and women’s groups a para-church organizations, but not one integrating the women’s ministry to the church ministry as a whole. Furthermore, in some churches which do have some type of women’s ministry, that ministry is “event-, task-, or personality-driven. An inherent danger is that any ministry that is not Biblically informed will eventually become competitive and divisive” (p. 31). Ligon Duncan has an excellent section on “Why a Church Needs a Women’s Ministry” in pages 37-42.

After discussing the need and motives of women’s ministry, the authors lay out the foundations and tasks of a healthy women’s ministry and the relationship of the women’s ministry to the rest of the church.

The authors promote a complementarian position, the view “that God created men and women equal in being but assigned different — but equally valuable — functions in His kingdom, and that this gender distinctiveness complements, or harmonizes, to fulfill His purpose” (p. 32), and part of that distinction is “male spiritual leadership in the home and believing community, the Church” (pp. 32-33). A couple of quotes I especially appreciated along these lines were:

Submission has nothing to do with status. Submission is about function. Equality of being and differentiation of function characterize the Trinity. The Persons of the Godhead are ‘the same in substance, equal in power and glory,” but each has a different function in the accomplishment of our salvation (p. 73).

Submission does not restrain women. Submission frees us to accomplish our kingdom purpose (p. 78).

Domestic duties are not a hindrance to sanctification; they are essentials of the common life. The family is a context in which to develop godly character that will qualify women for service beyond hearth and home. When love for Christ is the matrix of domesticity, those duties become an aroma of Christ, the fragrance of life (2 Corinthians 2:15-16) (p. 106).

Since I’ve started sharing quotes, let me see if I can pick out a few of the most pertinent from the three pages I gleaned:

When young women learn more about womanhood from TV, movies, magazines, and the Internet than they do from mature older women, they will often make unbiblical decisions. (p. 53)

Christ, not womanhood or the women’s ministry, must be the reference point. Unless a woman’s ministry is an overflow of the gospel, women will become hinderers and nor helpers in God’s Church. Those who plan for and implement a women’s ministry must be intentional in maintaining a gospel orientation in their hearts and lives (p. 58).

Paul put heavy emphasis on sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is the antidote for error. Sound, which is the key word in these letters, is translated from a Greek word that means whole or healthy. “Christian doctrine is healthy in the same way as the human body is healthy. For Christian doctrine resembles the human body. It is a coordinated system consisting of different parts which relate to one another and together constitute a harmonious whole. If therefore our theology is maimed (with bits missing) or diseased (with bits distorted) it is not ‘sound’ or ‘healthy'” (pp. 59-60).

Titus 2:3-5 instructs the pastor to equip older women to train younger women. If this mandate is disconnected from a biblical perspective of discipleship, it can easily become purely a relational model that magnifies relationship rather than God’s glory, or an academic model that elevates knowledge over the application of the gospel into life (p.60-61).

Without in any way discounting the regular pulpit ministry of the church, we should recognize that there are certain matters more aptly addressed and applied in the context of a specific discipleship of women, whether in large groups, in small groups, or in situations of confidentiality, as women minister to women (p. 84).

The goal is not to get every woman to participate in the women’s ministry, but for the women’s ministry to serve and encourage every woman in the church (p. 111.)

Commenting on Psalm 144:12b: “that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace”: These corner pillars were both beautiful and functional. They gave grace and dignity to the structure even as they supported it. If these pillars weakened, the structure was in danger. David considered these corner pillars to be gifts from God…Unless corner pillars stand on a firm foundation, they will topple. p. 138.

At the end of each chapter is a short testimony from pastors or women about some aspect discussed in the previous chapter. One of the most interesting and enlightening to me were a couple from women in reference to being in a church that did not see the importance of a women’s ministry, or, in some cases, did not even seem to love women:

How are women to love the church when they feel unloved by the church? I have found the answer in Scripture’s admonition to women who are married to unbelieving or disobedient husbands. The failure or weakness of male leadership does not absolve us of our responsibility. We are to run to the Author and Perfecter of our faith with our hurts, wounds, and disappointments. We are to see this season as part of our individual and corporate sanctification offered by our sovereign God who loves us steadfastly. (p. 52-53).

When women are scorned and disrespected by the philosophies of ministry that denigrate the design, calling, and roles of women, we are tempted to react with militant defensiveness. Scripture calls us to remember that Jesus, the King of the Church, delights in us. We are not called to defend ourselves but to defend Christ’s Kingdom through prayer and service. (p. 53).

The “militant defensiveness” stood out to me because I know of a handful of women who have that exact tone in pointing out perceived errors in the church and their voices and tone have become so shrill and bitter that they are doing much more harm than good. If the church is a family, a body, then dealing with problems is not best handled by “militant defensiveness.” That doesn’t mean those problems don’t need to be addressed, but there are better, more restorative and Christ-honoring ways to do it.

There are appendices in the back discussing some practical aspects of women’s discipleship ministries and Bible studies.

There were just a few things I either did not agree with or care for.

  • On page 75 a quote from a Dr. George Knight that “”Eve…brought herself into transgression by abandoning her role and taking on that of the man.” I don’t think that was her sin or even what led to her sin necessarily: her sin was simply disobeying God’s clear command; her motives: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.
  • This one is perhaps a minor point, but on pages 102-103 there is a section about widows which interprets I Timothy 5:3-10 as referring to two different groups of widows, those who receive church help and those who are a group qualified to minister to others. I had never heard that before, but I don’t see a distinction between two groups there: I believe it is all one group of widows and the lists actions there show what they have done, what they are being honored for, not what they are signing up to do (not that older women should not keep ministering in some way as long as they are able, but that’s another post I am thinking about).
  • On page 140 the authors say, “Bible studies should equip women to pass on the legacy of biblical womanhood to the next generation and should offer opportunities for them to have hands-on experiences in discipling one another.” I agree, but I don’t think that means Bible studies among women can only cover these topics or the passages that relate directly to women. I think studying books or other topics can be covered and is part of the foundation on which women’s ministry rests, and principles of womanhood can be brought out. Later they warn against a “prideful pursuit of knowledge…that stops short of true discipleship that moves from knowledge to wisdom — to the application of truth into life. They have perfected some Bible study skills, but they do not know how to love as godly, chaste single women, or love their husbands, or care for the sick and oppressed, or support the male leadership of the church…” and more (pp. 140-141). I do think that’s a valid concern.
  • Related to the above point, there is a section where a pastor compliments the women’s Bible study ministry in his church for coordinating with the pulpit ministry. For instance, when he preached a series on “David: A Man After God’s Own Heart,” the ladies’ Bible study ministry did a study on “A Woman After God’s Own Heart.” I think that’s really neat when that kind of coordination occurs, but again, I don’t think the ladies’ Bible study should be restricted to that kind of coordination any more than the Sunday School classes or children’s ministry or men’s meetings should. Sometimes it’s helpful when every aspect of the church is focused on a particular truth, topic, or section of the Bible, but in most cases it is helpful when the different groups study different parts of Scripture: it’s part of studying the whole counsel of God and balancing the different parts of Scripture. I’ve found that helpful even in my own Bible study or reading: if I am in a particular “heavy” section, like Job or the prophets, it helps to read a Psalm or something from the epistles as well.
  • I was surprised to find little mention of hospitality in the book. It’s implied but not really discussed much. As I mentioned in Mentoring Women, I think it hospitality is a primary way women can disciple and minister to each other; I don’t know that Paul primarily had classroom instruction and retreats in mind when he penned those verses, though I think it’s fine to use those.
  • Susan’s writing can be a bit clinical sometimes. I felt this way in her chapters of Becoming God’s True Woman as well (which I thought I had reviewed, but looking back, I just referred to it a number of times.)
  • This last point is one I want to be the most careful with because I don’t want to cause offense. Let me say first that, though I am in my particular denomination because I feel it best represents my understanding of what Scripture teaches, I know no denomination is flawless, and I can get along fine with people from other denominations if we agree on the major points: the Deity of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, salvation by grace through faith and not by works we do, etc. Many blogs and books I read are by people from other denominations than my own. I can understand that good people can differ on some areas of teaching and application and still do everything they do as unto the Lord and be in right standing with Him.

One of those differences in some denominations is looking at God’s dealings with people through either a covenantal or a dispensational lens. This post is too long already to explain those two views and you can easily find them elsewhere, so I won’t go into all the differences. I can actually see elements of both: there are covenants God made with people throughout history that affected people for years to come, and the New Testament does refer to God’s relating to us through a “new covenant.” But, though God is always the same and people have always been saved by faith, there are different times in the Bible God had different specific requirements for His people. For instance, in our day we don’t have the same command as Adam and Eve not to eat of a certain tree, or the same requirements Old Testament Israel did with the ceremonial law. So while I would probably lean toward a more dispensational view, I certainly don’t discount the covenants and can see Biblical history through that lens as well. I can read books and blogs with those differences without a problem at all.

But this book is very, very, very heavily covenantal. Susan uses the phrases “covenantal community” and “covenantal consciousness” multitudes of times throughout the book to refer to the relationship believers in a church should have with each other. Those phrases are probably infused with meaning to her, but to me they just leave me a little cold. Just taken at face value, a covenant is a binding agreement between people. So relating to each other based on an agreement just doesn’t carry the same meaning to me as the Scriptural metaphors of the church being a family and a body, with different parts and functions all working together in a harmonious whole. Those metaphors are mentioned but not emphasized in the book. Susan  urges women’s ministry leaders to use those phrases to remind and emphasize to women their covenant relationship with each other, but the overuse of them in this book seemed to me to be an irritant and a shoving of the concept down the throat. I wouldn’t have had as much of a problem with it if she simply stated her view of the church as a covenantal community at the beginning and then went on without using those phrases so very often.

The time and space to explain all of that might seem to give it more weight than intended: it’s not really a major objection and not even an objection, really: I just think the emphasis of the type of community and relationship we’re to have with each other as believers would be better served with the more Scriptural phrases of the church being a body than the denominational phrases of “covenant community” and “covenant consciousness.” I think Susan probably means the same thing by those phrases, but to someone outside a covenantal type of denomination, it just doesn’t come across the same. Her writing is so heavily denominational, it might be off-putting to those from different denominations, but there is much good to glean if you don’t let that phraseology bother you.

It might look like I objected to more than I agreed with, but that is not really the case: it just took a bit more to explain the disagreements, and I didn’t bring out every single point I did agree with. Overall I found the book to be a rich resource and agreed with the great majority of the teaching and application. I would recommend it to anyone contemplating women’s ministry in the church.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Laudable Linkage

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Here are interesting things I’ve seen around the Web lately: maybe some will interest you as well.

10 reasons to break the sarcastic habit, with action plan.

So Was Jesus.

Thoughts on Modesty, not from the standpoint of causing guys to stumble, though that’s a valid concern, but as a matter of our own hearts before God.

“Dora the Doormat” and other Scary Straw Women of Complementarity, HT to Challies. Deals with some of the erroneous charges some make against proponents of complementarianism, the view that God created the sexes equal but with roles that complement one another.

Confessions of a Conflicted Complementarian, showing how gospel grace applies even in this.

One taxpayer’s response to the potential government shutdown. Heh, heh, heh.

Food:

Double Chocolate Treasures. I am definitely trying these!

Cake Balls. I usually take the easy route of just throwing cake batter in a 9 x 13 pan, but these looks so good.

Resurrection Rolls for Easter breakfast. I’ve posted my version with yeast rolls before, but this one uses crescent rolls and cinnamon. I might just try this kind this year.

Crafts/decorations:

Buttons on display. Really cute card made with buttons.

How to Turn Mini-Blinds Into Roman Shades, HT to Lizzie.

What guys think about modesty:

I can’t imagine all the work behind this:

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage and Fun Videos

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Here are a few things that stood out to me online this week:

Filling my home with the unseen, HT to Lizzie. Both the photos and the sentiments are lovely.

Pray to BLESS. I’ve heard and read a number of acronyms as a help to prayer, but I had never come across this one before. Very helpful.

The New Evangelical Virtues. Tim Challies masterfully discusses “characteristics that seem to pass as virtues today…doubt, opaqueness, and an emphasis on asking rather than answering questions.” “Humility is not found in doubting what is true, but in believing that what God says is true is true indeed.”

Spring Cleaning Your Facebook Account. No, not a discussion of purging your “Friends” list, but rather helpful questions to check our hearts. It’s not that the technology is bad, but what’s in our hearts is going to reveal itself even there.

Why Books Still Matter.

I almost labeled this “Luggage Inspectors,” but I didn’t want to be snarky. 🙂 Let’s just say don’t leave a parked car where there are monkeys:

This is amazing. I could never do this — not only because I can’t play music, but I’m sure I would knock over more than one glass.

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage and a Few Funnies

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Here are some interesting things I’ve seen in my online reading lately:

The Blind Quilter. Amazing. I can’t even do this with sight!

I seem to have marked several about parenting:

Mystery. Enjoying an uncommon moment of affection from a teen son. “Remember this. Remember this.“

Everyday Is An Adventure about raising a son. “My boy was not disobedient, he was all boy, he was made of different temperament-a different mind, than my girls and I. I had an epiphany that day, and chose to embrace the adventure instead of struggle against it.” “Boy work is messy and smelly, but a freshly scrubbed boy in clean p.j.s is a gift from above.”

Moms and Teens. Good advice from a mom who has raised four.

First time obedience, really? I haven’t read any of Sally Clarkson’s books and have only recently heard of her, so I don’t know what her general philosophy of raising children is, but I like what I read here. Sometimes well-meaning parents, in a quest to train children to obey, run roughshod over the very hearts they’re supposed to be training.

I edited my review of One Thousand Gifts to add this, but in case you didn’t see it, in the second comment here Ann discusses her use of language that some feel is too explicit for intimacy with God, saying she wanted to reclaim it for the Kingdom and use it apart from cultural connotations and pointing out that even Spurgeon and Edwards used similar language. I do understand where she is coming from and think she had the purest motives, but I still think as sexually charged as society is today you have to be careful about what pictures words bring to mind. The cultural  connotations are going to be different from what they were in Edwards’ and Spurgeons’ time. But I do appreciate her explanation.

How To Make a Asymmetrical Stripe Buttons. So cute.

Applique with used dryer sheets.

20 tips for selling on Etsy.

The Sacred Sandwich specializes in satire, which I think you have to be careful with because it can be easily misunderstood at times. But they do have some funny things some times:

Cuteness:

Aw, poor doggy.

Funny!

Homemaking meme

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This is another post I’ve had incubating, adding to it a little at a time. Since I have to go run errands in a bit and therefore not as much time to think through some other thoughts, I decided to post this today. Feel free to use it if you like! Let me know if you do and I’ll come see your answers (or feel free to answer in the comments). And, since I created this meme, I’d appreciate a link back. 😀

1. Do you make a plan for the week? The day? Or just go with the flow?

No, I don’t, unless I have some kind of deadline coming up. I tend to work housework in around what needs to be done and when I have time to do it…and, sorry to say, when I feel like it. 🙂 But I feel like it much more often than I did years ago! I can’t stand for things to get too very cluttered or dusty for very long.

2. When is your best planning time?

Usually the night before or first thing in the morning.

3. Do you clean room by room or task by task (e.g., do you dust the whole house at one time, or do you clean the living room completely before going on to another room?)

Task by task for most things. When I have the dusting stuff out, or the vacuum, I like to do everything I have to do with it while it’s out. One exception would be bathrooms: I tend to clean the whole bathroom before going on the the next one, except that I do all the floors at one time after I’ve cleaned everything else.

4. Do you do certain tasks every day every week, like a shopping day, a laundry day, etc.?

No — see #1. I do try to avoid housework that doesn’t need to be done on Sundays, and I have to wash Jesse’s gym clothes some time between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, but otherwise I tend to attack things on an as-needed basis.

5. What’s your least favorite housecleaning task?

Probably cleaning toilets.

6. Do you have a favorite housecleaning task?

I can’t honestly say I enjoy any particular housecleaning task, but I’m okay with most once I get started, and I do like the results.

7. What do other family members do in the way of cleaning the house?

When the boys were younger we rotated different jobs — there were some done every day (dishwasher, garbage, taking recycling out, etc.) and some done weekly (vacuuming, dusting). Now Jason and Mittu take care of the dishes most nights and Jesse does whatever I ask whenever I ask — often taking our garbage and recycling and sometimes unloading the dishwasher. He also takes care of the dog as well. Jason and Jesse help bring groceries in. Since Jim works 60+ hours I rarely ask him to do anything unless I am in a real bind. I figure that’s my work while his is being the “breadwinner” (yes, we’re pretty traditional 🙂 ), but sometimes he pitches in. He takes care of anything outside. That leaves me with the laundry (though Jason and Mittu do their own), dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, bathrooms, organizing and clutter pick-up, shopping, cooking, all the extra little jobs in the kitchen, etc. — enough to keep me busy. 🙂

8. What, if anything, do you do to make housecleaning more enjoyable, (e.g., play music, set a timer, etc.).

When I was first married, I had one friend who liked to spend a lot of time on the phone — and we didn’t have cordless phones then, much less cell phones. It was popular at least in the kitchen area to have an extra-long cord so you could reach the whole room while on the phone. So sometimes I would call this friend or my mom (my mom and I rarely talked for less than an hour) while puttering around the house cleaning here and there. One of my dislikes of newer phones was that they were so small I couldn’t comfortably put them between my head and my shoulder so I could talk and use my hands for other things. These days most of us don’t talk on the phone that long any more, and many phones have gotten “hands-free” anyway.

But usually I turn on the Christian radio station or play a CD. I don’t have an iProduct. I don’t know if I’d like either headphones or earpieces. I need to borrow one of the kids’ devices and try it out to see, because sometimes I do think it would be nice to listen to an audiobook or something else. I don’t like to just sit in front of the computer to listen to anything there without doing something with my hands, so being able to take some of those things with me while I work sounds appealing.

9. What things make a room seem messy or unclean to you?

Clutter. Picking things up and establishing a sense of order does wonders for making it look cleaner.

And dust.

10. What are particular areas that are standouts to you that other people miss?

The area around the faucet on the sink. It can pretty quickly get gunky stuff around it, and in our area, even pink or black mold. Once my sister was staying with us and surprised me by cleaning the bathrooms while I was out. I think the first thing I noticed was that little gunky black line around the faucet, and it took a great deal of effort to just say thank you and not mention that.

11. How do you motivate yourself to clean when you don’t feel like it?

The biggest thing is just to get started. “Once begun is half done” as the saying goes. Another motivation is having been embarrassed a few times when someone popped in unexpectedly and the house looked like a disaster area. But then I felt really guilty one time “cleaning for company” when I thought — doesn’t my family deserve a clean home, too? Wouldn’t it help motivate them in their future to keep things clean if that’s the habit they’ve grown up with, rather than a frenzied, pressured marathon cleaning when an event is coming up? Plus I’ve learned that I just feel more peaceful and orderly in my thinking when my environment is fairly orderly. When the house is cluttered and chaotic, I just feel the same way (not to mention time and energy wasted not being able to find things when needed, etc.). And then, I have learned over the years that it is less work and takes less time to keep on top of housework than to let it slide and build up.

But probably what should be the biggest motivator for a Christian homemaker is that we’re representatives of Christ. I don’t think that means we have to keep things museum quality and can’t let our families relax in their own homes. We shouldn’t become more Martha than Mary. But “Let all things be done decently and in order” (I Corinthians 14:40), though the context is church services, surely applies in principle  to every area of life. And then of course I Corinthians 10:31 applies to all areas: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” If a non-Christian walked into my house unexpectedly, would a messy, unclean house or a basically clean and orderly house be a better testimony? And shouldn’t that testimony be before my own family as well, not just unbelievers? Now, I admit, I don’t think through that every time I need to clean, but every now and then getting the right perspective helps.

Sometimes collecting quotes about homemaking encourages me, too. I put several in an older post titled “Encouragement for Homemakers.” A few other homemaking-related posts are:

Wanting things to be “perfect.”

I confess: I really don’t like to cook.

Two views of housework.

Cooking style.

“Thy list be done.”

ABC Homemaking Meme.

(Graphic courtesy of Fotosearch)

Laudable Linkage and Videos

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It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but here are some things around the Web that I’ve found interesting — perhaps some will interest you as well.

Mercy in a Dustpan about practical ways of ministering to others in a crisis.

What If I’m Not a Gifted Evangelist? HT to Challies.

Someday Is a Liar and a Thief, good thoughts on not waiting to offer hospitality as a single person, but applicable to all of us who hope to be more hospitable “someday.”

The Vanity of Loveless Prophets.

Writing:

Novel Editing Tips.

A Showcase of Inspirational Writing Quotes.

Craftiness:

DIY Sweater Pillows, HT to Lizzie. I have an old sweater coming apart at the seams and sleeves, but the design is beautiful, and this would be a great way to preserve it.

DIY Photos on Canvas, HT to Lizzie again.

16 Crafty Bulletin and Memo Board Tutorials.

Kid’s Classroom Valentines. Cute, simple ideas for giving a different kind of Valentine.

I wouldn’t want things really to happen this way — because I’d be on the receiving end sometimes, I’m afraid — but it is funny.

And this is why I am glad I don’t live up North!

Have a great Saturday! I’m not sure yet what our plans are. If hubby doesn’t have any, I think I’m just going to putter around getting a few things done here and there. Love those kinds of days!