Church Planting Movements: Points of Engagement for Women Part II
►A
Porthole of Needs Expressed
A female missionary confided in me, “I
sometimes wonder if it really matters that I have a plan for spending time in
the Word. I have very little training to share Christ with my focus group
friends and just feel stuck. I also find myself not having had any training or
deliberate equipping by other Missionary women here. We all just kind of exist
in a reproduction of our own home culture norms for pursuing God.” She
has since left the mission field. No national female CPM-equipped laborers
were trained to take her place.
Another missionary woman confided in me, “I
came to the field longing to be used of God. However, whenever I want to
discuss the possibility of getting further training and being more intentional
in how I spend my time here. I get such confusing messages from women in my
missions organization. Another female missionary corrected me for wanting more
than just being content to support my husband’s calling and to see him
fulfilling God’s leading on his life. I passionately love my husband and kids.
But somehow this either/or paradigm of ministry doesn’t feel like what God
called me to when we both came to the field. I honestly feel stuck.” She
has since left the mission field. No national female CPM-equipped laborers
were trained to take her place.
►Addressing
the Needs as Related to Church Planting
Movements
“If you aim at nothing, you hit it
every time.”-anonymous
While it can be said that many female missionaries sense the
Lord calling them to the field to engage
in the process of Church Planting Movements, many women discover a level of
disconnect upon arrival to their field of service. In most cases, they come to the field under
male leadership. And quite frankly, by virtue of being male and not female, the
average male leader may not know how to best utilize the women on his team.
Ladislao Leiva, an international leader in Campus Crusade
for Christ, emphasizes the need for reconsideration of the contributions of
women in Kingdom efforts, writes, “Building movements of spiritual
multiplication will require that both men and women work in partnership,
bringing their uniqueness and skills toward this common goal. Just as both are
required to bring a new life into this world, movements will not be built
without the active involvement of men and women in our ministries.”[1]
I have also observed through years of being involved in the process
of initiating Church Planting Movements, that female missionaries with whom I
have interacted want to pursue excellence. No matter the season or phase in a
woman’s life it has been my observation that most women come to the mission
field to live eternally impactful lives.
I assume my readers will be varied in the seasons in life: my words have
equal application to single women, women who are empty nesters, married women
with no kids, mothers with small kids, mothers who home school, as well as
grandmothers.
My approach will be to take the Church Planting Phases model
developed by Dick Scoggins[2],
then look at how women can more specifically contribute in each phase. In many respects, though initiating Church
Planting Movements (CPM) may be the desire, the
consideration of Church Planting Phases helps bring clarity to the
cross-cultural missionary’s distinct opportunities along the way. My attempt
here is to list a smorgasbord of activities for each phase.
I’m not in any way implying that women should do all of
these activities. I simply want to help
women at whatever stage of life that they are in to think creatively about what
they can do to be more integrated into Church Planting Movements.
Lest I be misunderstood, let me express myself: being a wife
and mother is one of the greatest privileges that I have. This article will discuss points of engaging
in possible Church Planting Movements activities for women but I’m not for
a second suggesting that women neglect these God given roles of being a wife
and mother. For me, life is
integrated. It is more of a woven
tapestry rather than a compartmentalized orientation
mindset.
The original document by Scoggins lists what I will call the
mainframe target activities to which the reader may refer. Those Church
Planting activities are applicable to both male and female. The following
activities, however, are what I will refer to as female specific suggested
activities (points of engagement) that could help spur us on to greater
effectiveness in our walks as missionary women. I trust that these suggested points of
engagement in the CPM process would be beneficial to both male and female
missionaries.
While each of the following section titles has been taken
from Scoggins Church Planting Phases, the specific activities and suggestions
are original to the author.
[1] Ladislao Leiva , “The Value of Women in My Ministry”
6-14-2008 (CCC Website) https://www.mygcx.org/GlobalStaffWomen/file/819/TWR-2008June
[2] Dick Scoggins & James
Rockford, Pioneer Church Planting Phases,
version 3.0 copyright June 2005, see www.churchplantingphases.com
for related papers.
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