by Betty Brock

How many cookbooks do you have? I dare say we all have many of them; some are general purpose in nature, and some zero in on a particular style of cooking. For instance, I have a Betty Crocker cookbook that is very general in nature; and I can find recipes and helps on anything from appetizers to breads, to desserts, to shellfish, to beef, and the list goes on to poultry, salads, soups, vegetables, and much more. In that book, I would expect to find the basics of cooking a wide variety of dishes for a wide variety of tastes. On the other hand, I also have a new cookbook entitled How To Grill that my husband just bought me. (I wonder if there is a message there.) In it I have also found a fairly wide variety of foods being discussed, yet the book has one central core or thread running all the way through it—everything is cooked on the grill! Needless to say, grilling creates a rather distinct flavor, no matter what we fix—it is all grilled.

You and I would be very surprised to find recipes in the How To Grill cookbook for preparing pasta or blueberry muffins.  Pasta and blueberry muffins are desirable foods; they are just not cooked on the grill.  You might be asking, “How does this apply to women’s ministries in the local church?” Just like you wouldn’t grill muffins, some women’s ministry ideas don’t belong in every church. There are many great ideas regarding women’s ministries, but not every idea would be effective in every church. The key is consistency. In plain English, the women’s ministry in each local church must be consistent with the philosophy of that church and its leadership.

Some churches have written mission statements and philosophy of ministry documents, and some churches have not; but regardless of whether or not purposes and philosophies are written down, there are two easy ways to discern what the philosophy of your church is. The first is to simply go to the pastor and ask him how the women’s ministry can stay consistent with what the church is trying to do. You will find that the pastor of a church who has a very active evangelistic outreach philosophy will be more comfortable with a women’s ministry that has an evangelistic aspect and goal in mind. A pastor whose church has developed a strong missions program would find a women’s ministry aimed at communicating with or meeting the needs of missionaries to be supportive of what the church is doing as a whole.

The second way to discover the main theme or philosophy of a church is to observe how things are done in your church.  If your church has social gatherings and fellowships often, church leadership would most probably appreciate a women’s ministry that would organize and carry out that service. But a group organized for such gatherings would have nothing to do if fellowship is not a high priority of the church and its leadership. Watch your church and figure out how you can better help it do what it is already doing. The worst thing you can do is to try to use the women’s ministry to try to correct a perceived weakness or lack in a church. The only time that will work is when the pastor is behind the correction and will publicly support it and encourage it. When you go to your pastor with a new idea, go with a well-thought-out plan so he can evaluate whether it “fits” with the philosophy of the church.

My How To Grill cookbook has instructions for all kinds of food, but all the recipes are to be cooked on the grill. A women’s ministry can address the many issues and interests of women—her special needs, her unique questions, her fellowship desires, and the use of her spiritual gifts—within the context of the particular philosophy and comfort zones of the local church. Be as consistent with the women’s ministry in your local church as you expect your cookbooks to be.  Muffin grilling just doesn’t work.