I didn't grow up any where near a Christian environment. So, now that I am walking with God it creates interesting conversations every time the family and I get together. One of the most common things that I hear...

And, let's be honest, from the outside looking in it could look like that. But the truth is, following Jesus is the furthest thing from easy. Walking obediently into the dark where you don't know the outcome... that's anything but a crutch. It's scary. It's rough around the edges. It's messy. 

Show me someone who is willing and obedient to what God has for them and I promise you'll see someone who isn't happy all the time, who is scared, who is for the most part, just trying to do the right thing that day. 

Our ultimate destination is Heaven, but here on earth the goal is becoming more like Jesus. Reflecting Him. Surrendering our desires and taking on His.

It's the process called sanctification. ​The process of being slowly changed by God to look, act and think more like Jesus. 

​For a lot of us, that is our prayer: "Lord, help me to be more like You!" We sing songs with lyrics like, "Break my heart for what breaks Yours!"  Or songs like Oceans or Captain and ask God to bring us to something amazing--pledging to follow Him where ever. 

Ministry is about service. Service to the Kingdom, to the women you minister to, to the people on your staff team or to your families. Serving others. We serve because Jesus served first. 

So, if our prayer is to become more like Jesus (and it is!). We can't be surprised when we are treated like a servant. 

When we feel used. When we feel discouraged. When we feel like a servant, we are feeling like Jesus felt. And while it doesn't always seem like a good thing, it truly is. If you're feeling like a servant it means that you've probably acted like Jesus recently. 

So put your shoulders back and look forward with ambition and determination. Jesus will come along side you, He will help you every step of the way. And take the feeling of being used and turn it into a sign to keep running in your lane.
​ 

​Jacque is the Missional Women Intern and a college student in Denver, CO who balances her time between trying to go to class and learning about His saving grace and perfect love as much as she can.  She is a twenty something, DIY attempting, Jesus loving, Denver living, small town rooted, Colorado sports fan.  She loves black coffee, long conversations and watching people do what God created them for. You can find her Christian Twenty Somethings blog at Desperately Dependent. ​

Have you ever had a light bulb moment that radically changed your life? That phrase, "changed my life" is drastically overused and I tend to get a little squeamish when I hear people say it because the reality is, not many things actually change our entire life. All that to say that when I say something changed my life, I'm not even a hint exaggerating. Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me tell you about a light bulb moment that changed my life. I was at a friends house and he made a comment about how he was unteachable. That's it. I'm sure he wasn't trying to be used by God and I'm not even totally sure he was walking with God at the time. But there it was, this statement that hit me in the chest. A short little sentence the Holy Spirit used to convict me deep. I didn't want to be unteachable. I wanted, desperately wanted, to be teachable. For years after that moment I prayed and asked God to make me teachable. God used that moment to change me. He birthed a desire in me, He drew me to talk to Him about it and then He produced the fruit of the prayer. Before that moment, I was unteachable. I was unreceptive to correction and thought I knew an awful lot. I had a hard heart. But God, in His gracious way soften it and made it soft and pliable in His hands. He turned my hard ground of a heart into good soil. (Mark 4)

Have you had a hard heart?
How did God soften it?

Did you know when the Lord tells us we are the salt of the earth that it means we are heart softeners? It does! "According to specialists in environmental science and soil chemistry, salt has been a major method of fertilizing soil for centuries." So when Jesus was talking about us being salt and light in Matthew 5, He was speaking more about the agricultural use of salt rather that the addition of flavor. The fertilizing salts in Jesus' day were not like our modern table salt (sodium chloride). Instead they were mixtures of chlorides of sodium, magnesium, and potassium, with very small amounts of calcium sulfate (gypsum). Some salts would dissolve faster than others, while others withstood the elements much better. These hardier/saltier salts were generally more valuable agriculturally because their benefits would last longer.

So when Jesus talked about salt losing its saltiness, He's referring to a process where the salts naturally disintegrates over time as it loses a small amount of gypsum. This change in saltiness makes it a less effective fertilizing agent. Basically, the salt looses it's ability to soften and enrich the soil.

Anthony B. Bradley in an article for Christianity Today, discovered and wrote, "not only did the ancient Hebrews use salt in this way, but so did the Chinese and early Romans. Salt was used in arid places to help soil retain moisture, destroy weeds, make stubborn soils easier to till, and make sour grass sweeter and more appealing to cattle. In some soils, salt keeps rust from wheat, and blight from potatoes. When applied properly, salt will kill surface weeds while allowing more deeply rooted plants and grass to thrive. And when rain or irrigation allows salt to permeate soil, the salt chemically frees vital minerals and nutrients in the soil, allowing them to nourish plants.

While this may be a foreign concept to us in the West, it is still well-known in other parts of the world. For example, the Philippine Coconut Authority recently released a technology guide sheet for farmers titled, “SALT (Sodium Chloride): An Effective and Cheap Fertilizer for High Coconut Productivity.” The guide notes that salt accelerates crop growth and development, increases crop yield, minimizes damage to plants, and promotes environmental sustainability. According to the guide, between 1991 and 1997, farmers who fertilized with salt had a yield increase of 125 percent over unfertilized coconuts." 

So as we think about salt softening soil, it makes me think of when Jesus compared the human heart to soil. He describes our hearts in four different ways. 
 
1. Hard heart like soil along a path, where the seed of truth comes but is immediately snatched up by birds. There is no time or ability to absorb the seed.

2 Rocky, a heart that hears truth and immediately receives it with joy but because there is no root, when pressure or persecution come, they immediately stumble.

3. Thorny soil. These are the ones who hear thee word, but worries of this life and desires for wealth
and other things in this life choke out the truth.

4. Good soiled hearts that hear God's Word and produce a crop of 30, 60, and 100 times what was sown. 
​
The more good soiled people, the more fruit we will see. How awesome to be investing our life and time into good soiled people. (That's another topic covered in the discipleship/mentoring series- choosing the right people to invest in). But how can we help people with hard, rocky or thorny soiled hearts get a little bit softer, good soiled hearts? 

If God calls us to be heart softeners, how do we partner with Him in this impossible task?

6 Ideas of How to Soften Hearts

1. Pray for them. Only God can change hearts but He desires to use us in peoples lives. Many times in Scripture we see Him wait to move in people lives until people prayed. And the incredible thing about prayer is that He not only changes other peoples hearts through us talking to Him about them, but He changes our hearts. When we pray the best things we know how for people, He begins to align our heart to His. As we delight in Him/yield to Him, He gives us the desires of what to pray for and then we get to see Him answer them. 

2. Communicate. It's just way too easy to assume things. And that little easy thing to do can bring about so much pain and frustration. Yet on the other hand, asking questions brings so much health and perspective. it is wisdom to draw someone out, to pursue their heart. Asking questions and getting to know someone shows care and love and softens hearts. When was a time you felt cared for? I wonder if it can be traced back to someone pursuing/drawing you out and asking you questions and then did something about it. On the other hand, do you have an example of how someone assumed something and did something about it. How did that affect your heart? Probably the opposite of softening.

3. Love the way they understand and experience love. The book, The Five Love Languages talks about this and how we miss people when we are loving them in a way they receive love. It takes being intentional to figure out how someone feels loved. But when you do love someone in a way to can experience it, it's a home run in terms of seeing hearts softened.

4. Use your gifts to serve.
God created you unique, with a contribution to the world that only you can give. Others may have the same gift as you, but they don't have the same combination of personality, gift and relationship with God that you have. You are a unique salt crystal that has a part to play in softening hearts. The way you serve others doesn't have to look the same way as everyone else. What has God given you and how can you use that to serve others around you? By giving of yourself, it is an example, a testimony to the world of what God can do and what He loves.

5. Do what's right. It doesn't necessarily feel like it, but the world is watching. So when we do what's right even when it seems like a loosing battle, even when we look silly and know that it will bring persecution, it speaks volumes. When others look at us and see something different, when they see people willing to do hard things, uncomfortable things, it sparks curiosity and gives room for God to work in hearts.

6. Yield to the Holy Spirit. The last and yet the very most important is yielding to the Lord. The beautiful fruit of the Spirit; like gentleness, patience and self-control are not a fruit of trying really hard to produce them in our life. They are a result of yielding to the Lord and letting Him produce His fruit through us. And the fruit of gentleness, grace and truth and patience is perhaps one of the most beautiful things there are. When you are on the receiving end of grace, of truth spoken with great gentleness, it softens. And since this thing the Lord says we will be, heart softeners, can only be as we walk dependent on Him. Here's a video explaining how you know if you're walking in the Spirit.

Once in awhile (most recently a couple weeks ago) the thought, "Why am I even doing this!? They are not learning." completely discourages me. This time it was in context of my strong-willed kiddos. They have heard and been trained and disciplined for the same thing over and over and then over some more. I'm talking years here. And yet, they still do the very thing I said not too. 

And though this time my frustration of lack of growth was with my kiddos, I've also thought and felt the same thing with people involved in our ministry in the past. Sometimes it's been something I've been trying to teach that is just not getting through. But then someone else will say the same exact thing and the person will come up to me and say, Guess what so and so said...! and it's the very same thing. (This is something called third person credibility. A very cool thing really but at times it can be discouraging when you're perspective is skewed). Other times it's when someone is caught in sin or just wont take a step of faith no matter how much you cast vision and take them with you. Not seeing growth can be very discouraging.

Investing in people is hard. It has brought about some of the most rewarding and also some of the most painful experiences I've ever had. And not only that, but investing in people has no end. It's not like the mailman who has his bag of mail which he delivers door to door and then his job is done. Investing in people can be very slow going and completely out of our hands, for the Lord is the One who brings growth, not us.

Then I remember years and years ago a time when God whispered to me as I was standing at the drinking fountain of a new church, I'm going to use you here. And He did. He used me to play a significant role in seeing the church grow from 30 older people to about 200 in a very short amount of time through many young girls coming to Christ and getting plugged into the church and bringing their families. But the thing is, HE used me. And HE is the One who changed lives and drew girls to Himself. I couldn't even choose the time or the place. Now that I have moved back to the very town where that church is, 10 years later it is thriving and I'm overwhelmed with what God is capable of. His plan is so much bigger than our present day worries.

We don't need to get discouraged because God will complete the good work He started (Phil. 1:6). And He tells us that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor.15:58). 1 Corinthians 3 talks about how some people plant and some water but God is the One who brings the growth. So though we might go through seasons where we do not see the kind of growth we'd like to, that doesn't mean it's not happening. God's growth is often slower than we might expect.

So for those seasons when you feel like it's not worth it, hopefully these 4 things will help:
4 Things to Remember When you Feel Like it's Not Worth it.
1. It's Not your Job to Change Hearts. It is so freeing when it sinks in that we can't change peoples hearts and that God doesn't expect us to. But not only is it freeing to us, it frees the other person. We can begin to accept personalities rather than make them who we want them to be. 


2. Enjoy the Lord in the process. CS Lewis once said, "Stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of life" This is crazy hard for me, a lazer focused person. I want to accomplish and be effective in everything the Lord has put on my plate (and things I've put on my plate). 

I once read a story of a man who every morning would get up and say, God what do you want me to do today? And each morning the Lord would say I want you to push on the big rock outside. I want you too push with all your might. So day after day the man would push the rock and finally he got so discouraged that he had been working so hard and the rock hadn't even moved an inch. He finally broke now to the Lord feeling completely defeated. The rock hasn't even moved and inch, I am so sorry! I am such a failure! But God lifted his head and gently said to him, I never intended you to move the rock my son. Puzzled and a little frustrated the man asked why in the world God had told him to push the rock every day. Then God said, Look at you. You are strong. Your muscles have grown as well as your perseverance. My intention all along was for you to get stronger, not for you to move the rock.

The Lord is wanting to shape us through this in a variety of ways. At times it could be to grow in compassion, perseverance,  or even the ability and skill to do the things He wants us to do.  This was what He was doing in the Israelite's but didn’t really enjoy their testing in the wilderness. They grumbled and complained. They even talked about going back  to being slaves in Egypt thinking it was better than what they were presently experiencing. They did not delight in the Lord through the process. The regarded the unpleasant desert as an interruption. How often I do the same! Ugh.


3. Be willing to not see the end product. My personality is one that keeps focused on the end result and checking things off the list until I get there at the expense of delighting in the Lord on the way there.

The builders of medieval cathedrals knew what it meant to work their entire lives to please God without ever expecting to see their work completed. Many cathedrals would take more than a hundred years to build! One hundred years! Can you imagine! Talk about slow going and never experiencing the blessing of accomplishment.  

The Lord wants us to keep focused on the end result-the end as He sees it, not the end of where the list is crossed off. He wants us to fix our minds on things above, on eternity, living for then all the while walking with Him till then. Another way to say it is to keep your mind fixed on the things to come in heaven but walking by the power of His strength till them. This will allow us to enjoy Him through the process, though it might be difficult.


​4. Taking initiative in the power of the Holy Spirit and leave the results up to God. Just because we can't change hearts, doesn't mean we shouldn't make effort in people. Or just because it's hard or because it's a very slow process often times that dowsn't mean we shouldn't make effort and plan and prepare for helping others grow. it just means we need the Lord who gives wisdom. We can not do this impossible task by our own strength. 

Often times when meeting with girls I would feel inadequate or unsure of what they really needed but as I would go to the Lord and ask Him (sometimes before hand when preparing what I was going to do with them, and sometimes in the moment), He would put an idea in my mind and if it didn't contradict Scripture, then I would pursue it. And so often it was just what the girls needed to hear. There was absolutely no way I would have known. But we have God who knows His people and wants to interact with them. A generous God who can lead us as to how to teach and disciple. 

Though we can't change lives or hearts, God can and wants to use us. Our part is to live dependent on Him. To take initiative in the power of His Spirit and leave the results up to Him. 

For everything we do, is for God. For His glory and His pleasure. As crazy as it sounds, my goal is not them learning and changing, though I hope they will. My goal is to please God. I am not in charge of making them learn. I just need to be faithful to teach the best I can by the power of His strength. 

​Laura, the founder of Missional Women is married and has six kids, two of whom are adopted. Laura and her husband have been missionaries to college students for 14 years serving with Master Plan Ministries where she is the Women's Development Coordinator. Laura has authored 5 books, including an award winning 12 week Bible Study on First Samuel, Beholding Him, Becoming Missional, Reach; How to Use Your Social Media Influence for the Glory of God, A Devotional Journey through Judges, and Discover God's Calling for Your Life. Most recently her resource for Bible studies, The Connect Cards was released by Cru Press. You can find her on facebook, twitter, pinterest, youtube, instagram, periscope, blab and her author site.

If you'd like to read more from this contributor, type her name in the search box on the top right.

Sharing this over at these awesome blogs.

​Nearly every weekend this last year, our daughter made her way over to her friend Carol's house. Carol lives in the neighborhood, and the two of them played board games, colored in new coloring books (my favorite is Megan's, called "Unicorns are Jerks") and ate fruit snacks. Sometimes I got the feeling Megan would rather spend time with Carol than me. That's normal for a 14-year-old, right? But see, Carol is older than me.

Carol and Megan's relationship began because Carol is a gifted musician who graciously agreed to teach Megan guitar. After awhile, she started inviting our girl over to play outside of lessons. At first, I thought, "I hope Megan isn't a bother," and, "I can't believe she wants to give up her free time to spend time with my teenager!" But I have come to see that Carol is simply a woman who loves well. She loves our daughter, and enjoys spending time with her, and that is precious to me.

Reflecting on this, one night I asked some women who were over for dinner if they had a "Carol" in their lives growing up. What followed was stories of grandmothers, aunts, neighbors, family friends, Sunday school teachers - women who chose to invest in us for the simple reason that they loved Jesus and loved us.

My “Carol” was a woman named Marsha. She was our high school Sunday School teacher. In her job as manager of a women’s clothing store, she intentionally hired people who did not know Jesus so she could share with them. When I came to her with issues, she showed me how to take them to Jesus. She asked me about my relationship with God, and shared hers with me. She showed me what it looked like to be a woman who walks with Him.
These women transformed us, through teaching us life skills, being silly with us, praying with us, modeling a love for Jesus, building us up. They invested in us wholeheartedly.
​
Carol convicts me. She says she adores Megan and absolutely delights in spending time with her, but I know that it is an investment of her time, a sacrificial pouring out. She makes me want to look around and ask, "Who is God calling me to build up? Where could I invest more?"

Recently, I've had the opportunity to begin pouring in to the lives of a few young leaders in our church. I am amazed not only at how open and trusting they are, but also how encouraged and energized I am after spending time with them. It's a joy to pray for them regularly and learn specific ways I can help them in their journeys. We've talked about everything from leading well to dating, from the lies we believe to how we hope God will use us. I'm excited to see what He will do in them in the next few years, and that I will hopefully be able to witness and participate in it. 

One of my favorite verses as a young leader was Hebrews 13:7, "Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith." Wherever we are in our walk with God, we can ask Him who in our lives He wants us to disciple. We can all be a "Carol" to someone - a person who invests wholeheartedly into the life of another, loving and leading them on their journey. 

​Gina Butz has served in full time ministry for over 20 years. She and her husband planned to spend three or four of those years overseas, but stayed for 13 instead. They are currently raising two third culture kids and an imported dog in the exotic land of Orlando, Florida, where they serve in global leadership for Cru. She blogs about being wholehearted at www.ginabutz.com and you can follow her on twitter @gina_butz

Prayer is perhaps one of the most powerful things we can do. Yet it is so hard to make time for, especially alone. However, when there is something set up to pray with other people and I have to find a babysitter for, afterward I am left thinking that was the best few hours I've ever spent!

A few hours may seem like a long time to pray, but when you're moving from station to station with different things to do and pray for, it goes by super fast and you think you could just keep praying for another few hours.

This is the prayer mosaic we did at the Missional Women Conference. I had many, many women say how much they loved it and wanted to be able to set one up themselves, so here it is. By clicking on the picture above you can download all the cards for each of the stations. I've included the pictures below to show you how we had it set up, but you can decorate it any way you'd like.  By clicking on the very last picture you can download the Leaders Guide describing what you will need for each station.

If you'd like to hear about other things like this, subscribe to our free newsletter where I regularly share resources and tips. (And you'll get our free ebook Ministry Resouces for Women!)

​And check out the Leaders Notes at the bottom. (Just click on the Leaders Notes picture)
​
Enjoy!!

Laura, the founder of Missional Women is married and has six kids, two of whom are adopted. Laura and her husband have been missionaries to college students for 14 years serving with Master Plan Ministries where she is the Women's Development Coordinator. Laura has authored 5 books, including an award winning 12 week Bible Study on First Samuel, Beholding Him, Becoming Missional, Reach; How to Use Your Social Media Influence for the Glory of God, A Devotional Journey through Judges, and Discover God's Calling for Your Life. Most recently her resource for Bible studies, The Connect Cards was released by Cru Press. You can find her on facebook, twitter, pinterest, youtube, instagram, periscope, blab and her author site.

If you'd like to read more from this contributor, type her name in the search box on the top right.

Sharing this over at these awesome blogs.

There is nothing Satan hates more than women on mission – Christ’s mission. But the more ministry fat you have, the more places Satan has to feed, engendering discouragement and distraction in the body.
 
Keeping your ministry “trim” is a good organizational principle for a healthier women’s ministry, and it's a smart way to starve Satan out. 
 
Consider these ideas for keeping your women’s ministry discipleship-focused:
 
1. Ensure all activities align with your church’s vision Your women’s ministry should be an extension of the overall vision and mission of the church it serves. If the women of the church are doing their own thing, Satan can keep women isolated from the greater body of Christ. Many women already struggle with finding their place in church, and many more women are leaving the church altogether. Trimming ministry fat has as much to do with keeping women’s ministry in step with the church as it does keeping it from overextending itself to the point of exhaustion.
 
2. Put a ‘new projects policy’ into place Women’s ministries can do a lot of “good” things, but miss out on doing the “best” thing. A new projects policy helps ensure your ministry doesn’t become unfocused or fractured in your discipleship mission by trimming existing ministry fat.
 
The policy should outline what projects your ministry is working on and specify how those projects produce disciples. Any new women’s ministry project should be able to demonstrate fruitfulness and how it falls into line with the church’s overall mission. 
 
3. Evaluate often Key leadership should be tasked with regularly evaluating women’s ministry projects, events, and even policies. The evaluation should use the church’s overall definition of fruit. The women’s ministry team of our church plant looked for fruit in terms of reproducing disciples. Staying in line with our overall church mission, we stayed away from the temptation of catering to temporary fruit of meeting felt-needs, encouraging women, or attendance records.
 
Careful evaluations should also identify where fruit is being produced and where it isn’t. Particularly for small churches, evaluations should also look for the amount of fruit produced in proportion to the investment it requires in terms of financials, time, manpower, energy, and more.  If a ministry is proving unfruitful in terms of not producing new disciples, leaders should prayerfully and creatively explore possible alternatives.
 
Evaluations should also examine what groups of women remain unengaged - singles, new moms, working moms, widows – and survey these groups to determine the best way to assimilate them into the body through discipleship.  
 
Here are some good tools for evaluations: 

• Survey monkey and PollDaddy both offer free survey apps crossing all social media platforms to maximize your reach. They also come with some great analysis tools.
• For asking simple questions (like the best time for a meeting or Bible study), Facebook groups has an “Ask a Question” tab you can use to poll group members.
• Email list applications like Mail Chimp have easy-to-use survey templates that allow you to target certain segments in your email subscription list. This is a great feature for larger churches, particularly if you only want to get feedback from different groups of women in your ministry.
• Simple questionnaires in the form of a flyer should be passed out at the end or final session of each Bible study and event. These surveys should ask a woman how clear the study was, how the event/study impacted her, and how comfortable she feels repeating what she learned to someone else or how the event equipped her to make disciples.
• Include evaluations in your regular leader’s meeting to get key feedback about what’s working or what’s not.

 
If you have trouble getting women to respond, offer a free gift or enter respondents in a giveaway when they complete the survey.
 
Does your women’s ministry regularly evaluate what’s working and what’s not? How do you trim the ministry fat?

Country life was foreign to us. We had come from Seattle; tall buildings, cement sidewalks, everything from derelicts to business people passing us by, daily.

That first winter on our property, a blizzard came. The snow covered the ground for weeks. When it melted, we realized we lost a few trees, while other branches hung lifeless.

We expected no fruit after such a terrible winter of snow and wind. 
But quite the opposite happened. 

Fruit flooded our trees that spring like red and green Christmas ornaments, overtaking the sky after that long, cold winter. Apples, pears, and cherries even surprised us, showing up on trees we hadn't even anticipated bearing fruit. 

And I think we can be like that while living missionally, judging fruit-bearing potential by how hard our season has been; thinking hard winters destroy potential, when quite the opposite can happen, if we let it.

I got online after our five acres had so much fruit we couldn't pick it all that spring. I learned the harder the winter, often the more abundant the blossoming, come spring.

And although we pruned away the limbs that didn't survive, we found the good limbs produced more than a hundred times as trees that might not have endured such a rough winter. 

Maybe today you are stuck in a hard season, experienced deep wounds, a dormant season, or endured a time in ministry where it seems nothing good could come from it...

But friends, the weather is warming. The fruit of what you have been investing in is just about to reveal the truth of your sacrifices and faithfulness, hard work and diligence.

John 15:2 tells us, “Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit [that stops bearing] He cuts away (trims off, takes away)...”  Scripture goes on to say, “He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit.”

Either way, if we are a true disciple, God is not going to just let us keep living the way we are living, without Him pruning us.

After that hard winter, I learned a lot about fruit trees. I learned that a good pruning is actually a blessing to a tree, and that a tree un-pruned eventually will produce only weak saplings, or possibly no fruit at all.

And yet, somewhere false doctrine has mistakenly taught us that if it appears God has been pruning us, then God must be angry instead of loving, we deserve punishment instead of blessing, we should experience barren-ness instead of fruitfulness.

When I was little my dad would discipline me when I was bad. Every time before, He would tell me, “I am disciplining you because I love you.” At the time it didn't make sense. 

Yet, the Bible says over and over again, “God disciplines those He loves.” (Prov 3:12, Heb 12:6, Rev 3:19)

Contrary to some thinking, bearing fruit is not an option. John 15:5  says, “Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit”. How do we determine a follower of Christ? Matthew 7:15-20 says, “we judge them by their fruit.”

Maybe your questioning if you are disciple, a fruit tree that belongs, or even one that has continued to abide in Him after a long season, but seems to see nothing.

Don't get discouraged. John says if we keep His commands, and abide in love and live on in it, we will bear much fruit. (John 15:10)

Spring is almost here. Stay rooted, and don't be surprised if the field's of your life are filled with blossoms you haven't seen yet, come spring.

Though born, raised, and still living only miles from where she grew up, Jen's heart lies in the nations. Jen loves the beautiful tapestry found in the wide diversity of people, different cultures, and all nations.  Jen and her husband have been married twenty years, and have parented fifteen kids and counting; twelve foster, one adopted, and two bios.  Her multi-racial family reflects her passion for unity, desire for faith without walls, and missional mindset to share both the gospel and the power of redemption to a world desperately needing the hope found in Jesus Christ. Jen and her husband have led in a variety of ministries; including prayer, small groups, children's, and women’s.  Jen advocates for the orphan as a board member for the non-profit, A New Song; and loves doing missions work internationally, along with her family.  You can find Jen writing about faith, while challenging her readers at her blog, Rich Faith Rising, as well as at tweeting faith-filled messages @Jen_Avellaneda .  Jen is also on facebook.  ​

There is nothing Satan hates more than women on mission – Christ’s mission. But the more ministry fat you have, the more places Satan has to feed, engendering discouragement and distraction in the body.
 
Keeping your ministry “trim” is a good organizational principle for a healthier women’s ministry, and it's a smart way to starve Satan out. 
 
Consider these ideas for keeping your women’s ministry discipleship-focused:

1. Ensure all activities align with your church’s vision
Your women’s ministry should be an extension of the overall vision and mission of the church it serves. If the women of the church are doing their own thing, Satan can keep women isolated from the greater body of Christ. Many women already struggle with finding their place in church, and many more women are leaving the church altogether. Trimming ministry fat has as much to do with keeping women’s ministry in step with the church as it does keeping it from overextending itself to the point of exhaustion.

2. Put a ‘new projects policy’ into place
Women’s ministries can do a lot of “good” things, but miss out on doing the “best” thing. A new projects policy helps ensure your ministry doesn’t become unfocused or fractured in your discipleship mission by trimming existing ministry fat.
 
The policy should outline what projects your ministry is working on and specify how those projects produce disciples. Any new women’s ministry project should be able to demonstrate fruitfulness and how it falls into line with the church’s overall mission. 

3. Evaluate often
Key leadership should be tasked with regularly evaluating women’s ministry projects, events, and even policies. The evaluation should use the church’s overall definition of fruit. The women’s ministry team of our church plant looked for fruit in terms of reproducing disciples. Staying in line with our overall church mission, we stayed away from the temptation of catering to temporary fruit of meeting felt-needs, encouraging women, or attendance records.
 
Careful evaluations should also identify where fruit is being produced and where it isn’t. Particularly for small churches, evaluations should also look for the amount of fruit produced in proportion to the investment it requires in terms of financials, time, manpower, energy, and more.  If a ministry is proving unfruitful in terms of not producing new disciples, leaders should prayerfully and creatively explore possible alternatives.
 
Evaluations should also examine what groups of women remain unengaged - singles, new moms, working moms, widows – and survey these groups to determine the best way to assimilate them into the body through discipleship.  
 
Here are some good tools for evaluations: 

• Survey monkey and PollDaddy both offer free survey apps crossing all social media platforms to maximize your reach. They also come with some great analysis tools.
• For asking simple questions (like the best time for a meeting or Bible study), Facebook groups has an “Ask a Question” tab you can use to poll group members.
• Email list applications like Mail Chimp have easy-to-use survey templates that allow you to target certain segments in your email subscription list. This is a great feature for larger churches, particularly if you only want to get feedback from different groups of women in your ministry.
• Simple questionnaires in the form of a flyer should be passed out at the end or final session of each Bible study and event. These surveys should ask a woman how clear the study was, how the event/study impacted her, and how comfortable she feels repeating what she learned to someone else or how the event equipped her to make disciples.
• Include evaluations in your regular leader’s meeting to get key feedback about what’s working or what’s not.

 
If you have trouble getting women to respond, offer a free gift or enter respondents in a giveaway when they complete the survey.
 
Does your women’s ministry regularly evaluate what’s working and what’s not? How do you trim the ministry fat?

If you'd like to read more from this contributor, type her name in the search box on the top right.

Sharing this over at these awesome blogs.

Have you ever wondered why some Christians grow super fast in their relationship with God and others seem to stagnate?  Just like our food pyramid to keep us healthy and growing, God also set up certain elements that would help us grow strong and healthy in our relationship with Him. And when just one of the elements is missing, it will affect our growth just as if not having protein or vegetables in your diet would.

5 Factors that will enhance your relationship with the Lord

1. Prayer- Prayer, spending time talking to God can easily become the thing we turn to last in situations thinking, "Well, what else can I do but pray?" But there is an amazing thing about prayer that is so often overlooked. It changes our hearts and minds.

Years ago I had some pretty major conflict with someone in the church I served at. This other person also served there and one Sunday morning the first words spoken to me after walking in the door were crushing and mean. It had actually taken me quite awhile talking myself into going because I had been so hurt by this person and a handful of other people but I finally convinced my self with, "I go to serve, not to be served" and I laid down my right's of being treated well. But when those words struck my heart I couldn't take it, I walked out.

For the next two hours I went on a giant walk and prayed, "God, you tell them what you think of me!!" (Not in the a sweet gracious tone, but a, sick em God! tone). My heart was angry and bitter and I wanted them to get it from God. I wanted them to hurt like I was. But as I continued praying the Lord told me to pray for him. To really pray for him, to pray the hardest thing for me to pray. It took what seemed like an eternity to get to a place I was even willing to pray the best for him but with the Lord's help, I did. Not that I actually wanted the best for him, but I was willing to pray it. So I did. I prayed for God to bless his ministry someday. For me that was the hardest thing to pray because in my mind he didn't deserve to get to serve the Lord (as if anyone does! Silly Laura). But the craziest thing happened when I prayed for him for real. My heart changed. My hate and bitterness and anger toward him began to dissolve. The following week, this guy who had never said sorry to anyone in his entire life came up to me and apologized and gave me a hug. Prayer helped me yield to the Lord and gave room for Him to do the impossible.

2. God's Word-The other thing that changes our hearts and minds is God's Word. The more we are around someone the more we become like them. And the more we spend time we someone we know them more and can recognize things they would say and do easily. When we read God's Word, our daily bread (our grain and carbs), it gives Him room to make us more like Him-loving what He loves and hating what He hates. I would dare even say that spending significant amounts of time in God's Word will cause the fastest lasting growth as I have seen this over and over in peoples lives.

And a beautiful thing about God's Word is growth is not the only benefit. Each of the following comes from a specific verse in Scripture:

3. Community/Fellowship- To be honest, the word fellowship always makes me cringe a little inside because I think it carries with it something far from what the Lord intends "fellowship" to be. It seems "fellowship" often translates into eating or hanging out together and sometimes completely void of anything having to do with God. So I like to use the word community since I think it is more accurate of a description of the Acts 2 church. But that's just semantics and I'm not going to make it a major issue when it's not.

Hebrews 3:13 and 10:24 are such clear explainations for us on what fellowship (do you mind if I use the word community? Thanks!) community really is. It's encouraging, spurring, prodding, pushing each other to run after the Lord and use our gifts for building His kingdom rather than our own. It's speaking truth in grace. It's coming alongside each other and helping each other through temptation, exposing lies and it's calling out greatness in each other. It's serving alongside each other for God's glory.

When this kind of community exists, it's beautiful. There's authenticity and vulnerability. Iron is sharpening iron and the world can see that Jesus is Lord.

4. Evangelism It's kind of weird to think that we grow by sharing the Gospel, but get this, "I pray that you will be active in sharing your faith that you might know every good thing you have in Christ." Philemon 6 When we step out of our comfort zone and trust the Lord to do what only He can do in changing hearts we get to see Him use our faith. The more we trust God, the more we trust God. When we step out and do scary things for God's glory He comes through and we get to be wow-ed by Him. Evangelism is pretty much one of the scariest things we can do on a regular basis. And ironically it's one of the easiest disciplines to justify our way out of doing, "share with actions and if necessary use words", "I don't know enough", "I don't want to push people further away", "I need to befriend someone first". All these are contrary to Scripture but can be so easy to hold on to.

Reality is, we can't really grow much in our relationship with God if we aren't willing to talk about the most important thing in our life with people. If we are disobedient in this thing, it spreads like gangrene to other parts of our heart and mind and poisons our faith and feeds our doubt.

5. Reliance on the Holy Spirit- And I saved the most important for last. This one is the crucks to all the above. Without this one, the rest quite honestly are worthless. We can do a lot of things that look great on the outside but "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it." Psalm 127:1 We can do nothing of eternal significance, including manufacturing our own growth without remaining dependent and yielded to the Lord.

The way we depend on/rely on the Lord is really pretty simple. It take a giant formula or doing a bunch of things to earn the Holy Spirit living through us. It's also not a feeling or experience we have with the Holy Spirit, rather it's a choice. A simple heart act of confess and surrender, the same way you surrendered your life to Christ in the first place. A simple, "I know I need you, please do this through me" or "I can't do this without you, help Lord." I just love how blatant Paul is in describing the Spirit-filled life, "Oh foolish Galatians who has bewitched you? Having begun in the Spirit are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" Galatians 3:3 Here's a helpful diagram that talks more about the Spirit-filled life and can help you explain it to others.

When we allow the Holy Spirit to empower us and intentionally give time to these four essential growth elements the Lord brings about beautiful life transformation.


Here's a helpful diagram that can help you explain this to others watch below.

Laura, the founder of Missional Women is married and has six kids, two of whom are adopted. Laura and her husband have been missionaries to college students for 14 years serving with Master Plan Ministries where she is the Women's Development Coordinator. Laura has authored 5 books, including an award winning 12 week Bible Study on First Samuel, Beholding Him, Becoming Missional, Reach; How to Use Your Social Media Influence for the Glory of God, A Devotional Journey through Judges, and Discover God's Calling for Your Life. Most recently her resource for Bible studies, The Connect Cards was released by Cru Press. You can find her on facebook, twitter, pinterest, youtube, instagram, periscope, blab and her author site.

Recently, I asked a group of women's ministry leaders: "What is the biggest obstacle you face in women's ministry?" 
 
They repeatedly cited apathy as a key problem in cultivating disciple makers; the women in their church don't care to invest in a discipling relationship - neither as disciple nor discipler.
 
A 2015 Barna study revealed women are unplugging from church at an unprecedented rate. The study found that about four in 10 women have not attended church in the past six months. For various reasons, more than half of the women surveyed said attending church wasn’t a priority to them.
 
It seems discipleship is being chased down the drain by the competing demands placed on women, and many churches are pulling the plug altogether. 
 
If you are striving to see your women's ministry become discipleship-focused, consider these ideas for conquering apathy.
 
1) Pray for the Spirit to soften hearts
Apathy is the result of a spiritual battle laying waste to our churches, and the foundational weapon in this battle must be prayer. Quickly enlist some troops from both inside and outside your ministry for prayer back-up in this endeavor!
 
What should you pray for? Pray for the Spirit to move in the lives of your women, softening hearts and opening eyes to the power of the gospel. Pray for discernment in understanding the root issue of their apathy, and pray for courage to speak the truth boldly. Last, begin praying for God to call up leaders with whom you can share your discipleship vision.
 
2) Understand the root issue
 Survey your group on their view of discipleship to pinpoint the reason they feel apathetic. Keep your surveys short and easy to return.
 
Questions about time commitments may reveal women feel guilty about not attending church regularly and overwhelmed at the thought of investing more time outside their home or work responsibilities.
 
Questions about previous discipleship/mentoring relationships could reveal bad experiences that are possibly influencing their view of the significance of the church.
 
Questions about their comfort level with discipling others may reveal your women are under-trained and feel inadequate to the task. 
 
Surveys will help to determine which ladies feel apathetic toward Christian living because of the lack of proper discipleship training. They will also quickly identify wrong beliefs concerning the purpose of the church and their role in it.
 
3) Establish a discipleship vision
Women's ministries are great at many things, but many lack a clear discipleship vision. If your church already has a discipleship vision, work with your church's pastoral staff to translate that vision into a simply strategy for women's ministry. Once you have it planned out, share it - over and over again. Repeat the vision and strategy until everyone can articulate it...and then repeat it again. Never assume that everyone gets it or even has heard it.
 
4) Institute accountability in one-on-one relationships
As more women catch the vision, team them in accountability groups based on their needs mirroring the heart of Titus 2. What happens in these groups is up to the mission and methodology of your church; but Bible study should be a key component. 
 
In our home church, we were already meeting weekly to study the Scriptures. So, I asked our pastor to list three discipleship activities he wanted to see grown in our church. He asked our women to pray together, eat together, and meet each other needs. These discipleship activities aided older women when a new believer joined our ranks. They taught the women to pray, demonstrate hospitality, and serve each other in practical ways. And as each believer grew in her walk, these three activities became increasing missional as each sought opportunities to pray for the lost they knew, share missional meals with them, and serve their community.
 
Does your women's ministry struggle with apathy? I'd love to hear what worked for you as you encourage your women to grow in Christlikeness.

If you are looking for help on how to disciple women try looking at the free Thrive Discipleship Packet printable.