Titus 2 Women Wanted
I am officially done with my classes at Criswell for the Fall semester!!!I am still taking two classes over the winter break at the community college, but it in no way measures the 18 hours that I had crammed into my schedule these past couple months. Friday I got to email in my last set of papers that were due and what a feeling of relief I felt!
Friday I got to accompany my women’s professor to Crossroads Christian Church for their women’s dinner. It was a pretty cool experience with over 500 women coming together around festively decorated tables and holiday music. Ashely did an amazing job as she went through all of the moms of the old to new testament. Getting to talk with Ashley about how ministry, and family, and even personal struggles of the semester and past events reminded me of this longing for older women in my life. Throughout the semester I have had to do several reflective essays on ministry, marriage, life, anything and everything. Ashley is such an amazing woman who has been so real and encouraging this past semester. I hope that one day I can expound on Scripture and become much of what she has taught me to be this semester.
Yesterday morning our student ministry got to have Sunday school in the sanctuary since our gym is being redone. I was in desperate need of some coffee so I poured a glass and then read that it wasn’t allowed in the sanctuary. I looked to my left and there was our beautiful wise women’s class full of old and seasoned women of the church, so I decided to sip coffee with them and chat. They had no clue who I was, and vise versa, but even in the short time of 15 minutes before Sunday School I was able to chat and hear some interesting stories.
Later in the afternoon a friend and I went to the mall and was about having always wanted an older woman in my life to learn from and that could teach me about ministry and being a mom and wife. I told my friend that to set up a mentoring program is almost impossible these days. People are busy. To try to squeeze in a set time each month is asking for some family member’s soccer game to be ignored, or an added stress to a back to back day.
It is funny how we take certain parts of the Bible and not others. We will take the commands that we deem more important or more vital, and then slack on others. God clearly states that the older are to teach the younger. They are to train them up in a way where they learn biblical manhood and womanhood instead of learning it from society and media. We don’t like to admit that when we don’t carry out this mandate the church is failing at one of their commands.
I wonder why we shy away from it so much. Maybe we are too scared to get real with people, or maybe there just isn’t a lot of accountability anymore in the church, or maybe we have no spiritual depth to even share with others because we aren’t where we need to be spiritually.
I don’t know the reason or reasons to this, but I do know that older women are wanted. So this is my unofficial ad for an older woman to mentor and disciple and love me in my ignorance and in my growth. Someone to lovingly rebuke and encourage, someone to counter the hundreds of alternative messages that are thrown at me each and every day.
Kathy Wilshire said,
December 11, 2007 at 3:52 am
Jacki,
Is your friend/women’s professor Ashley Smith? If so, I heard her give the same talk at the WRBC Ladies’ Christmas Dinner last Monday night with my M-N-L. There were about 400 women there, and it was really nice too!
On the mentoring issue, I know one issue with many women, me included, is that we don’t FEEL like we are an example to anyone! We have this false notion that to mentor someone we have to be perfect. While I know in my head that this is not the case, and that learning from mistakes is part of what grows and matures and changes us into more of what Christ wants us to be, it just seems almost prideful to come out and say, “I’ll be your mentor!” While we never really had a formal mentoring program, just being in many women’s Bible studies with older women where we discussed what we have/were learning during studies was a great blessing in my life. I’ve done every Beth Moore study so far, and I can say those small group discussions were extremely beneficial to me in seeing that these older women, some of whom I had known since Jr High, have had some of the same struggles and issues that I have, and that they grew and learned and got closer to Christ and/or their husband/children encouraged me immensely. (That was a really long sentence; I hope it makes sense!) Anyway, with all that in mind, I would love to spend some time getting to know you better and sharing with you and vice-versa. Even if it was just once a month, with some e-mail correspondence in between, would be a blessing for me.
Let me know what you think; we won’t be in church this Sunday: Mandy, our oldest son, Andy’s, long-time girlfriend/soon to be fiancee (we hope) is graduating from OU Sunday afternoon. E-mail me any time, and I’ll touch back with you next week.
Still Learning,
Kathy
Jacki said,
December 16, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Kathy,
I look forward to coffee dates, emails, smiles in the hall and so much more. As I have told you before, you are an amazing mom and lover of Jesus and I know there is much to be learned for your stories!
Love ya!
Jacki
Tonya Canada said,
March 9, 2008 at 7:53 am
Jacki,
Interesting that I started reading on your blog today. (BTW, wonderful post about granny. I look forward to more) I am in the process of working on a survey to give to the women of our church about what types of events they would like to see added to our Women’s Ministry this year in our church. Mentoring is one of the choices but we have seen very little participation of any kind from our women in the 20-40 age bracket in the past several years. They are not attending any of the Women’s Bible Studies or fellowships. We had 5 come to our retreat and we were thrilled.
I know part of it is busyness and taking care of their families needs but we are not feeling like there is an interest in “learning from the older women” We are trying to figure out what we might do differently to meet their needs. Any suggestions from a “younger woman?” –Tonya C.