Is Your Women’s Ministry Prepared For Battle?

Today is a great day to take stock of your ministry’s priorities, goals, and vision. Are you equipping the saints to fight battles, or are you teaching women to be lazy and apathetic?

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I’m sure you are thinking I am crazy. “Why would my women’s ministry need to be prepared for battle?” you say. “Don’t be so dramatic!”

“We meet once a month, and someone does a devotional. Whenever someone is sick or has a baby, we all prepare meals for that person, we have Bible study every quarter, and we even have a retreat each year that people love. Why are you talking about a battle? Our women’s ministry is fine.”

Hey, that’s great, looks like you’ve got a good thing going. I’m glad you are fine and that would be fine if you didn’t have an enemy seeking to systematically destroy your ministry.

It’s lies like “We’re fine” that he loves to hear Christian women saying.

If you’ve been around church any length of time, you’ve probably heard the following verses. Enough that it doesn’t really bear any weight any longer. But have you ever just stopped to take a second and listen to them as an actual warning?

Like the “Wet Paint” sign or the signs around a construction zone. They are there to get your attention and change your course of action. These two verses might as well be printed on big orange signs and posted by the door as you go out.

1 Peter 5:8, ESV: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

John 10:10a, ESV: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”

If you take these at face value and as truth (which they are), they should change your course of action.

We in America live a very comfortable lifestyle, and our churches are set up to be just as comfortable. We keep the realities of the rest of the world at arm’s length so as to not ruin Sunday dinner or get in the way of our fun. We’ve grown apathetic and lazy in our approach to life and to the world around us.

We have given Satan the keys to our homes, churches, and families to do with what he wants because we are not awake or aware of what is truly at stake, what is truly going on. What is going on is Satan dismantling our defenses brick by brick while we sit by watching him do it. It would make sense that he would disable one of the richest countries in the world.

It makes sense that he wants us asleep at the wheel.

If you have been called or decided to be apart of a women’s ministry don’t think for one second that your ministry and your leaders are any different. Disabled leaders disable their followers. Discouraged leaders spread discouragement like wildfire. Weak leaders clone their wimpy backbones. Relationally poor leaders breed bad relationships. This is exactly the position our enemy wants us in.

When we give the enemy license to destroy, he uses his number one tactic, deception. He says the same thing to us that he said to Eve. “Did God really say….?” What’s worse is we take the bait hook, line, and sinker.

Did God really say we should disciple? Did God really say He was good? Did God really say we should live in unity? Did God really say we are called according to His purpose? We get lost in the “Did God really mean it when He said…” and forget that we need to be fortifying our lives and our ministries with the truth.

Just to be clear, God meant it when He said it.

If you are leading a ministry, you need to be prepared to battle. Your ministry needs to be prepared for battle. Your followers need to be prepared for battle.

The decorations at your women’s event are important, but they don’t rank over prayer. The gifts you give away are tools, yes, but they don’t outweigh discernment. The t-shirts you sell with your logo are nice, but they don’t trump powerful truth spoken over us. Don’t get bogged down by the things you can see. There is a battle waging in the unseen, and you have been given gifts to use to fight in that battle.

I’m not saying all this to scare you but to hopefully wake you up to the importance of your ministry and the importance of your role. Today is a great day to take stock of your ministry’s priorities, goals, and vision. Are you equipping the saints to fight battles, or are you teaching women to be lazy and apathetic? Are your leaders strong enough to withstand the flaming arrows of the devil, or are they running around complaining and spreading discord?

Does your ministry have a solid foundation of prayer and the word, or are you bowing to the trends of Christian culture?

I would encourage you to take stock. Ephesians is a great book to read to understand first the gifts God has given us and then how we should use them. While you are reading, make a list of the gifts God gives those who believe in the first three chapters, and then, make a list of what He wants us to do with them in the last three chapters. I would encourage you, then, to look at this list in light of your current ministry. What needs to change? What needs to stay the same?

Ephesians 6:10-12, ESV: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

 

Written by Holly Cain

 

 

This is an updated edition of a post originally published on hollycain.org

Featured Image by Priscilla Du Preez

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