I used to be very insecure. Still am at times.

But while my insecurities used to have the final say in my life, they no longer do.

For as long as I can remember, I struggled with feeling insecure.

My birthmom was raped and I was the result. Growing up, that translated into, You should have never been born. You weren’t just unplanned, you were a woman’s worst nightmare!

As a child I couldn’t help but notice my mom seemed to cater to my brother. He was her son by birth, I was her daughter by adoption. And although I knew my mom and dad loved me and my mom always told me I was selected, not just expected, I couldn’t shake the feelings of insecurity that haunted my heart and made me wonder if she was happy that she had adopted me.

From the age of 3 until I was 12 or 13, I was sexually abused by 2 different people in my family. Those consistent abuses skewed my view of life and love and all things in between and left me wondering if I was worth anything at all. Feeling like a throw away girl whose life didn’t matter, I wrestled with feeling like I had no value and was born to be used and abused.

As a pregnant teenager who was married at 17 and a single mom by the time I was 19, I couldn’t help but feel like the decisions I made would mark me for the rest of my life and those feelings of insecurities wreaked havoc on my heart.

Never feeling smart enough, good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, likable enough, lovable enough, strong enough, popular enough or wise enough, I kept making the same mistakes over and over never realizing that I had allowed my past to define who I had become.

But when Jesus saved me and changed my life in 1987, He began chipping away at those old insecurities. 

I remember when I first became a Christian being struck with the realization that I didn’t have to prove my love to anyone, I just had to accept God’s love for me. That if the God of all creation loved me enough to die for me, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought about me.

But that didn’t mean I was done dealing with my own insecurities. It just meant I didn’t have to be defeated by them any longer.

We all have insecurities.

Some more than others.

Some have strong ties to abusive backgrounds and destructive decisions.

Others just can’t get past feeling like they don’t measure up.

But as God started peeling back the layers of His Word and revealing what Scripture says about who I am in Christ, it began to slowly revolutionize the way I saw myself.

No longer was I that little girl that had lost her innocence and had no hope or no voice. I was now a child of God, loved by my Heavenly Father who saw me as completely pure.

I was treasured by the One who created me and His Word says He not only delights in me, He longs to hear my voice and He is my hope.

I don’t know what your insecurities are. I don’t know what you struggle with or why.

But I know you struggle with something.

We all do.

For the next three posts, we are going to learn to PUSH PAST OUR INSECURITIES.

Today, I shared with you what some of my insecurities are and why.

Let today be the day you begin your journey to freedom from insecurities by identifying what  insecurities you struggle with and why. This is the first step to learning to push past them. In our next post, we’ll get a glimpse of the damage our insecurities can do and start unpacking the process of how we can push past them.

QUESTION? Do you struggle with insecurities? 

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“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 Amplified

It’s the longing that lingers in the heart of every person who has ever walked the face of this planet.

A pursuit to know and worship God.

Ecclesiastes 3:;11 tells us why. God placed eternity in our hearts.

He created us for the CHASE to know Him with the ultimate goal of fulfilling that longing through a personal encounter and eternal relationship with Jesus Christ.

A quick read through our history books will give us a glimpse at the pursuit of the human heart. Since the dawn of man, every nation, tribe and tongue sought out something or someone to worship.

From Ba’al to Buddha, from the son to the moon, from Nu to Thor, and from cats to cows.

The list is painfully endless.

But as you look at many of mans misguided attempts at worship, you find their ancient beginnings paved with parallel stories of Creation.

For the Egyptians, the concept of creation parallels the Genesis account. Unfortunately, while the stories are unmistakably similar, the facts are as erroneous as the names of their gods.

Each civilization has been fascinated with fiction in its quest for facts. Each archeological dig a new discovery of a people with parallel stories of creation and the flood. Longing to know God yet conjuring up stories that focus on the created rather than the Creator.

God put eternity in our hearts so He could fulfill that which our hearts long for!

Doesn’t that make your heart smile big time?!

But the unfortunate reality is that in man’s pursuit of worship, we often choose that which can’t satisfy the longings of our hearts.

We make gods out of that which can only bring fleeting fame, fortune and fulfillment. We believe lies of conjured up fables rather than the truth of the Word of God. We complicate the message of the Gospel rather than simply trusting that Christ is enough.

In our Chase for God, we fall hook-line-and-sinker for every imaginative story while the love of God is beckoning us to trust what He says is true.

I don’t know where your chase for God has taken you, but I want you to know, sweet friend, that unless it has led you to the person of Jesus Christ, you are on the wrong road, worshipping what cannot satisfy and still wondering why your heart

Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.

Our chase for God was meant to lead us straight to Him. Nothing else will satisfy. Nothing else will do.

Where has your chase for God led you? How can I pray for you today?

Sometimes I wonder what happened to the days when we were able to hang out with our friends and enjoy a casual conversation without cell phones ringing, text messages buzzing in and Facebook posts dinging into every conversation.

But the blessings of all things tech is that we can reach others with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that weren’t possible ten years ago. 

The world wide web has made it possible for us to reach the world for Christ and teach the world the principles and precepts of the Word of God like never before…to minister to the hearts of the hurting, to encourage those how are struggling, to reach out to those who are wandering…this is a brand new age of making an impact on this world for Christ and I’m so thankful for it all!

So, today, I wanted to share with you some doors the Lord has opened to allow me the opportunity to minister to others.

Recently, I was at Encouragement Cafe, sharing a post to minister to the hearts of moms who are experiencing the transition years of the EMPTY NEST with an article entitled, Created to Soar. (I’d be honored if you’d pop over there and share your heart in the comment section!)

Today, I’m over at Mom Life Today sharing an article about how to deal with things When Life Is Hard and Hormones Rage.

For the past several months, I’ve been working on DAD WEEK AT THE M.O.M. INITIATIVE and the Lord has blessed us with a line up of pastors, authors, speakers, and dads who are bravely entering into our world of women where we talk about all things MOM and these men are sharing some amazing articles that share a fathers heart and are challenging, encouraging and powerful posts for dads and moms, alike!

CHECK OUT THE LINE UP OF MEN GOD HAS BLESSED US WITH!

Please take a minute and pop over there and leave some comment love to let them know how appreciative we are for their words of wisdom in our M.O.M. world!

I’M ALSO PLANNING A CHERISHED CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN NICARAGUA in August! LOTS OF GREAT THINGS HAPPENING WITH THAT.

I’m raising the sponsorship funds for the ladies who will be attending the conference and my goal is $2,000. If you’d be interested in sponsoring a woman for the conference, please email me and I can give you the details of how you can give a tax deductible contribution through Hear 2 There Ministries.

Oh…I’ve also been working on some other video, writing and ministry projects I can’t wait to share with you!

But for now, I want to thank you for joining this journey with me! You ladies are precious to me and I appreciate each of you!

I covet your prayers, sweet friends! Ministry can be daunting and the enemy is real. Your prayers truly make all the difference in the world! 

I just want to be happy! 

We hear it all the time. Maybe we’ve thought it or even said it ourselves.

And so we chase after the illusive happy heart that keeps a smile on our face and our lives free of pain.

But unfortunately, the road to happiness is paved with heartache, heart break, discouragement and despair.

The quest for happiness have left people broken and feeling empty at the bottom of a bottle, in the arms of someone who wasn’t their spouse, in pursuit of an unhealthy relationship, in bankruptcy court after spending what they didn’t have for things they didn’t need, in rehab centers where those addicted to drugs wrestle with being held captive to the very thing they were hoping would make them happy.

What have we sacrificed in our search for happiness?

Unfortunately, far too much!

So the questions we are faced with is What really brings happiness? And Does God really want us to be happy?

Could it be that the desire to pursue happiness was placed there by the only One who could make our hearts truly happy?

You may have heard the saying, God doesn’t want us happy, He wants us holy.

But a journey through Ecclesiastes will shed a different light on that saying.

God wants us to be happy, but not at the expense of holiness and not instead of holiness… rather girded by the foundation of holiness.

In essence, true happiness can not be found apart from a relationship with God. Oh, we can laugh, and we can have a good time, but the kind of pure, unfettered happiness our hearts are hungry for is the kind of stuff the abundant life is made of…it’s what Jesus said He came to give us.

Abundant life. Happiness. Joy beyond measure. It’s what we long for. But we search for it in ways that can never make it ours.

Does God want us to be happy? Absolutely!

A quick look at the Psalms reminds that He does.

“Blessed is the man
 who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.” Psalm 1:1-2

Blesses means happy and the Psalms are filled with references to how to be BLESSED and HAPPY…and every reference points us back to living according to God’s plan and principles and living in a thriving relationship with the Lord.

I’m not sure where where your chase for happiness has taken you, but I know that your search ended the moment you gave your life to Christ.

How many of you would say AMEN to that? How many of you are still looking for the happiness that only Jesus can bring?

When I was a little girl, my heart longed for acceptance. Somehow, I never seemed to fit in. For years I worked hard at wiggling my way into one group or another only to find I didn’t belong in any of them.

We all chase acceptance.

When we are kids, life is hard and acceptance is illusive. So we try to achieve that which should be freely given.

Cain was a man who wanted acceptance. But he wanted to go to God on his own terms…and so he did.

Abel, with a willing heart and a ready sacrifice offered to God what he knew He required. Cain, on the other hand, with a haughty heart and a foolish sacrifice offered the works of his hands.

“The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” Genesis 4:6-7 (ESV)

Cain’s desperate attempt to find acceptance left him dejected and despondent.

When we seek to be accepted on our own terms, we will wind up wondering why we aren’t good enough ~ we will end up missing the point of the chase in the first place and the only acceptance that really matters…just like Cain.

Peter was another who longed for acceptance. In Acts 10, Peter had a rooftop encounter of the Divine kind and with a vision in his head and the Gospel in his heart, he heard the clear call that salvation was not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles, as well.

Unfortunately, Peter’s personal prejudice’s kicked in when he made acceptance his pursuit rather than making Jesus known to the nations.

And in true Paul-fashion, Paul put Peter in his place…

“Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.” Galatians 2:11-13

When we try to please others, we lose site of who we are and what we are called to.

As a child who was the result of a rape, who suffered through a decade of sexual abuse, who spent many of her teen years with a skewed view of life and love and all things in between, I understand what it’s like to chase after acceptance.

Looking through the rearview mirror of a broken life, I know how much a heart longs for acceptance after experiencing divorce, betrayal, life as a single mom and years of trying to find love in all the wrong places.

Every step a quest for acceptance. Every foolish choice part of the chase.

The chase for acceptance has a way of messing with your mind and perverting your perception and it can lead us to:

• Do things we would never do
• Think things we would never think
• Neglect to love those we love most
• See a fictitious future rather than real consequences
• Forsake what we know to be true in pursuit of what is really a lie

But maybe our chase for acceptance is designed to lead us to the only acceptance we truly need?

For me, my race for a relationship drove me straight to the feet of the One who gave His all for me. The One who who loved me more than I could imagine. The One who accepted me just like I was. The only One who could help me become who He created me to be. One who knew the depth of my despair and the extent of my sin and shame and loved me anyway.

YES…I chased hard have acceptance and found that all that I was longing could only be found in a real relationship with Jesus Christ.

Not a religious assent to who He is, but a radical transforming, born-again surrender to who He is for me, to me and in me.

My chase led me to my Savior.

“to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Galatians 1:6

Where has your chase led you? Are you longing to be accepted by others when what your really need is to know you are accepted by God?

Peace. Every human heart longs for it. Every family desires it. Every community thrives when they live in it. Every nation needs it. And only God can give it.

Recently I was talking with a woman whose heart was tormented by something she was going through. What she was longing for was peace.

As I joined a dear friend who was sitting on the bathroom floor, painfully plagued with a passion for a man that was not her husband, I heard the cry of her heart as she searched for how to make it stop. What she was desperate for was peace.

While listening to a woman who had come to my office for some advice share the tales of her difficult and dysfunctional family, I could tell how frustrated and heart-broken she was. What she was looking for was peace.

When I turned on the evening news and watched the obvious political division of our country, the crime ridden neighborhoods looking for solutions and the local school board at war with one another, I couldn’t help but notice a theme. They are all craving peace.

The nation of Israel has longed for peace throughout its history. 

World leaders have sought peace through the ages.

The human heart is desperate for peace and many times doesn’t even realize it.

We have all worn ourselves out pursuing peace.

But peace is only found in Jesus Christ.

Peace with God and the peace of God.

PEACE WITH GOD:

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Romans 5:1 (NKJV ~ Emphasis mine)

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation” Ephesians 2:13-14 (NKJV ~ Emphasis mine)

PEACE OF GOD:

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 (NKJV ~ Emphasis mine)

We all chase after peace. But Jesus came to not only give us PEACE WITH GOD, but to BE our PEACE and to enable us to experience the PEACE OF GOD that gives us the rest our souls so desperately needs.

We all deal with anxious and empty hearts. We all grow restless and weary as we chase after peace. But the very need we have for peace is exactly one of the things that drives us to the foot of the cross where we find Jesus, the Prince of Peace, ready to not only give us peace with God, but to be the very peace we are looking for.

I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but if you’re weary, worn out or overwhelmed…if you’re worried, worked up or ready to give up…Jesus is there for you…waiting with His arms wide open…ready to give you the peace your heart so desperately needs.

How can I pray for you? What is your heart wrestling with today? Has today’s post helped you see the peace of God and peace with God any differently?

What dream do you have tucked deep within your heart? What do you long to do with the days you are given on this planet?

We all have a dream of doing something big, of making a difference, of changing the world.

Dreams are engrained within the human heart…and so is the desire to pursue them.

When my hubby and I made our way to the mission field, it wasn’t a random journey on the way to nowhere. We were chasing a dream to go global with the Gospel.

When I started The M.O.M. Initiative to equip and enable the church to make mentoring intentionally missional, it wasn’t a flippant attempt to find something to do. I was chasing a dream to reach the moms of this generation so that we could reach the heart of the next generation.

Catherine of Siena once said, “Be who God created you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

and William Carey once said, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

We were created to dream and to dream big.

But no matter how good or God-given our dreams are, if we chase them without chasing the One who gave them to us first, we will find ourselves empty handed and broken hearted.

Moses was a man who had a dream. 

He was to set his people free.

But have you ever wondered if the Exodus of God’s people from Egypt might have happened earlier had Moses sought His Father’s face before he killed the Egyptian soldier?

It was during a time when wickedness reigned and babies boys were being slaughtered. Jochebed gave birth to a son, and like any mother, she was desperate to save his life.

In an extreme act of faith, she placed her baby boy in a basket, tucked him in the reeds along the Nile River and waited in hopes that God would somehow intercede and save her son. 

No one knows for sure…we aren’t told in Scripture, but perhaps Jochebed hoped the momma-heart of the childless Princess would prevail over the political proclamation of death.

Jochebed’s daughter maneuvered her way to the Princess as she lifted the baby from the Nile. Offering the ideal breast-feeding provider, the wise little girl devised a plan that would enable her momma to continue raising the tiny tot that was already hers.

After years of holding her son close and pouring her life and her faith into his heart, Jochebed returned her boy to Pharaoh’s daughter.

The Princess named him Moses because his name means, to lift up. She had lifted him out of the water and was looking forward to day when she would be able to lift her adopted son to a position of power.

But as her boy became a man, his Jewish roots became more deeply rooted and he longed to see his people set free. 

Exodus 2:11-12 tells us,

“Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.”

Moses may have dreamed about how he could somehow set his people free…and it may have even been a dream God had tucked deep within his heart, but instead of first seeking the Father’s face, Moses set out to fulfill his dream on his own.

His knee-jerk reaction sent him fleeing into the wilderness where he would spend the next 40 years trying to forget that he was called for so much more than tending sheep.

But it was there, on the back side of the mountain, that He would find the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was there, at the foot of a burning bush, that God would confirm his call and define his dreams.

Yes. The dream Moses had to free his people was not only a God-given dream ~ it was to be his destiny. But before Moses was to chase his dreams, he should have first chased the One who had tucked that dream in his heart in the first place.

We all have been guilty of chasing a dream before pursing the One who placed it there.

But there is nothing promising about reaching a Promised Land without the power of God’s presence. It was a lesson Moses learned the hard way, but it was a lesson he definitely learned.

After crossing the Red Sea with the children of Israel, Moses said to God…

“If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.” Exodus 33:15

We all chase after dreams. But the goal is not to see a dream come true, it is to chase hard after the God who gives us the dream.

Our service for God can never be a substitute for our relationship with God.

Moses chased after a dream, but in his own pursuits, he found God.

Don’t you love knowing that God will even let us make a mess of things and stray from all we know, yet He will reveal Himself to us in burning-bush-fashion to remind us that what we are looking for is only found in Him!

So, should you dream big dreams? ABSOLUTELY! Chase GOD and dream BIG!

What dream are you chasing today? Have you sought to fulfill the dream or are you seeking the One who tucked that thing in your heart in the first place?

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Hey sweet friends! Today, I’m starting a series called The Chase!

We all chase a myriad of things. If you’re a momma, you know all about chasing things! You probably spent an hour this morning chasing down your kids and chasing after them to clean their rooms and put their toys away.

But everyday, we all are chasing something.

We chase dreams,

we chase peace,

we chase purpose

we chase hope

we chase love

we chase acceptance

we chase joy

we chase God

we chase fame

we chase fortune

we chase satisfaction

and we even chase lies

We are all chasing something.

Join me on this six post journey as we discover that the very thing we are chasing is designed to drive us to the arms of God.

What are you chasing? Right now…what is it that your heart is pursuing?

“For who has despised the day of small things.” 

Zechariah 4:3

We hear messages from well-meaning preachers and passionate speakers about how God calls us to the grand, the prominent and the substantial. And our hearts begin to beat with a desire to go where no one has gone before and accomplish the impossible.

And sometime He does. But God’s will is not only found in the great big, mountain-size dreams that He tucks in our hearts. Sometimes, His perfect will is smack dab in the middle of the mundane.

So, do you sense God has called you to bigger and better things? Has He given you a vision for a ministry that is beyond you, yet you know it is for you? Are you stuck in neutral as you are waiting for it to unfold?

Sometimes we want the prominent before we walk through the petty; we seek the splendid instead of the small. But serving God is seldom a battle for position rather an aligning of our will to His. How, where and to what extent we serve is entirely up to Him.

While it’s part of our DNA to desire to accomplish more, the goal is not to do more. The goal is to know Him more each obedient step of the way and let Him define the extent of our accomplishments.

This has been a hard one for a girl whose favorite quote is, “Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God.” ~ William Carey. But the ultimate purpose in attempting great things for God must always be motivated by a heart that knows Him and desires to make Him known.

It’s an odd phenomena, but those who have been called into the ministry must be very careful that their work does not become the object of their worship. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the grandness of the call and neglect to focus on the greatness of God.

Small things may be where He choses to leave us because we’d crumble under the weight of something bigger. But small things are just as important to God as the big things.

He gives significance to extending a cup of water in His name, to serving dinner to a stranger, to comforting a hurting heart. These are small things, but in the grander scheme of things, God gives them significance.

Yes, small things may be stepping stones to bigger things to come. But He reminds us that our faithfulness to fulfill His call to small things is a determining factor to His willingness to call us to bigger things. He doesn’t call us to bigger if we haven’t been faithful to the small things first.

‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’Luke 19:17

Have you missed God’s call to the small things because you can only focus on the big things? Are you content to know that our faithfulness to fulfill His call to the small things is as important as accomplishing the big things? Do you know you’ve been called to something bigger than yourself, but you’ve struggled with each small step on the way? 

I’m so blessed to be able to travel and meet women in different towns, states and countries and I LOVE not only meeting the precious women in each place, but to get a bird’s eye view of how their women’s ministries are doing. Some are thriving. Others…not so much.

Women’s ministries are as unique as the churches they function in. Some seem to have it all together. Others are falling apart at the seams. But the unraveling of a women’s ministry doesn’t normally happen over night.

Time and circumstances  have a way of bringing out the best and worst in all of us. Some ministries stand the test of time, others don’t.

Some aren’t actually falling apart, they just weren’t sewn together right in the first place.

SO…how can a seemingly thriving women’s ministry become a mess? What are the signs and symptoms of a ministry gone awry?

Here are 12 ways to ruin a women’s ministry:

1. Don’t get it started well in the first place ~ Good women’s ministries aren’t just thrown together, their prayerfully and carefully sewn together. They are thoroughly thought through and prayerfully planned out. The right time, purpose, place, people, strategies and structure are an important part of all successful women’s ministries. If you want to ruin yours, don’t get it started right in the first place.

2. Be a domineering leader ~ Good women’s ministries are lead by women who understand that we lead best when we serve. Others aren’t drawn to demanding, demeaning or domineering leaders. If you want to sink your own ministry ship, be a bossy leader and you’ll discover you are the one creating holes in your own ship.

3. Don’t pray ~ Prayer is where all good things begin, including good women’s ministries. Without prayer, there is no power, no true wisdom and no dependency upon God. If you want to ruin your ministry, don’t pray about the decisions you make or the people you are ministering to.

4. Be more concerned about the task than the people you are ministering to ~ Good women’s ministries focus on those they are there to minister to, not an event of a task. If you want your women’s ministry to fail, forget about the needs of the women you minister to and set your sites on the event you are planning, the meeting you are having or the goals you are setting.

5. Be exclusive ~ Good women’s ministries are really good at including everyone and about seeing those on the fringe who long to be involved but tend to feel excluded, or maybe never have found where they fit in. If you want to mess up your women’s ministry, make it like a social club, where only the strong survive and only a select few are able to be involved.

6. Don’t consider the women’s natural abilities or spiritual giftedness ~ Good women’s ministries encourage women to discover and use their spiritual gifts by inviting them to join in various activities and events. They notice who is good at what and help them find the joy of serving by asking them to be part of something using the areas of their giftedness. If you want your women’s ministry to take a nose dive, don’t allow women to discover their giftedness. Don’t allow them to strengthen their spiritual gifts. Just throw women into areas they aren’t suited for and watch them fail.

7. Be a drama queen ~ Good women’s ministries minimize the drama that is sure to happen in a high-estrogen environment with a variety of different women who have different personalities, different love languages and are in different seasons of their lives. If you want your women’s ministry to be plagued with problems, stir up a hornets nest and watch the women in your ministry respond to your lead by making a big deal about every little thing.

8. Cleverly disguise your gossip as a prayer request ~ Good women’s ministries not only minimize the gossip, they deal with it well. The Bible calls us to build each other up, not tear each other down. If what you are getting ready to say doesn’t need to be heard, then just don’t say it. And if you want to destroy your women’s ministry, cleverly disguise your gossip as a prayer request and then don’t wonder why things begin to fall apart at the seams.

9. Make it all about you ~ Good women’s ministries are lead well, by humble leaders who love well. They have no agenda to make the ministry about themselves. They sincerely want to point people to Jesus and to minister to the hearts of the women not only in their church, but in their community. If you want to see the walls of your women’s ministry come crashing down, build a house of mirrors, where you make it all about you…where everywhere everyone turns, all they see is you…where you are large and in charge and everyone knows it.

10. Don’t be ministry minded ~ Good women’s ministries are lead by a team of women who get ministry. Just because someone does ministry, doesn’t mean the really get it. Ministry is hard. It’s painful. Those you desperately try to minister to will hurt your heart and time and time again you will find yourself the target of words that wound, misunderstandings and even lies and insults that bread dissension and hurt the cause of Christ and the body of Christ. If you want to mess up your ministry don’t be ministry minded and either buckle under the weight of it all or allow yourself to join in the chorus of discontentment.

11. Have no purpose statement ~ Good women’s ministries filter everything through their purpose statement. They don’t try to do everything and be everything. They know that they have specific goals, as a ministry, to achieve and they don’t think they have to do everything every other women’s ministry is doing. If you want to blow it as a women’s ministry, do what ever comes along or sounds good and don’t have a purpose statement through which you filter all you do.

12. Stay so busy or be such a control freak that you don’t nurture your own relationship with Jesus and you try to do everything yourself ~ Good women’s ministries are lead by those who treasure their time with Jesus and guard their relationship with Him well. They know their ministry is to be an overflow of their relationship with the Lord, not a substitute for it. They don’t try to control everything or stay so busy that they can’t or won’t spend necessary time with God. If you want to ruin your women’s ministry, neglect your relationship with God, try to control everything and stay so busy that you wind up doing everything yourself and you have no time and no true fellowship with the Lord.

So, there you have it. Twelve ways you can ruin your women’s ministry.

Have you found yourself guilty of any of these? Do you see any of these areas that need to be adjusted in your current women’s ministry? What did I miss?