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4 Markers of Unchurched Women

By: demingglobal15 Comments

4 MARKERS OF UNCHURCHED WOMEN {Hive Resources}Last week, I shared my story and passion for discipling unchurched women. I won’t rehash it here, but will simply say God has repeatedly planted our family in places with hard soil – places where it is difficult for the gospel to take root.

But regardless of where you live – whether it’s the Bible belt or beyond – the condition of the fields in which our churches are seeking to sow and grow the gospel are rapidly changing.

WHAT IS AN UNCHURCHED WOMAN?

Western culture is becoming increasingly unchurched – comprised of individuals who aren’t affiliated with any church.

Graphic via Barna Research Group

Graphic via Barna Research Group

 

Consider these stats from the Barna Research Group concerning American adults. In 2014, it found that 45 percent of Americans were unchurched. That figure is up from 33 percent in 2003 and 30 percent in the 1990s. So, the number of unchurched individuals in America is increasing and this trend is only gaining momentum as we shift farther and farther from our nation’s Judeo-Christian roots.

Specifically, women are a key component of this cultural shift away from church or Christianity at large. Ten years ago, more men were unchurched than women. Today, the gender gap has closed from 20 points to 8 points.

What does unchurched mean? {Hive Resources via Barna}

In fact, Barna says a large number of unchurched women are actually “de-churched.” The majority of unchurched women (85%) haven’t attended church in 6 months or more.

So, it’s not simply that these women are unreached – that they haven’t heard the gospel or been exposed to it – but somewhere along the way they decided church wasn’t for them and unplugged altogether.

WHAT DOES AN UNCHURCHED WOMAN LOOK LIKE?

Unchurched women are not a monolithic group. Depending on where they live and what they do, they will look differently. But as I’ve traveled speaking and working with different women’s ministries, I’ve discovered that unchurched women commonly share many, if not all, of these four markers:

(1) No Church Home

Lacking a church home means more than simply not attending church, it also includes the concept of lacking a church background. Unchurched women are very often from families who have remained unchurched for generations. Their home life offers them little to no support for spiritual realities and often they have few to no life examples that model healthy relationships or wise living.

How this impacts discipleship: Because the chances are high that unchurched women are from broken homes, believers from an unchurched background will need help grounding their identity in Christ rather than their roles, successes, failures, works, affiliations, acclamations, preferences, or personalities.

Additionally, they will need help finding their place in the church, understanding how the body of Christ operates, and what constitutes heathy and fruitful living. They will need to be challenged to count the cost of Christian service. They will need to taught kingdom realities and what part their lives play in bringing that kingdom to bear through the church.

(2) No Bible Knowledge

Unchurched women have neither studied the Bible nor read it at any length for themselves. Even more likely, they do not own their own copy of the Bible.

I met a 70-year-old woman, who despite growing up in a non-evangelical church, never owned a Bible. She was bright and funny and full of life, but lacked any sort of Bible knowledge. When she first opened the Scriptures, she couldn’t find Genesis 1:1. For this reason, when she started studying the Bible, she had to learn how the Bible was put together, not simply what it said.

The seismic transition from paper to the digital world makes this loss an even greater reality. Many individuals simply use their phone or google to look up information. If pressed to look up a Bible verse, they will have no framework for the unity of the Scriptures or the underlying story it presents.

How this impacts discipleship: Discipleship, then, cannot consist solely of best-selling Bible studies. It must include more than what the Bible says about certain topics, specifically how to view the Bible, how to read the Bible, why the Bible is trustworthy and important, and how the different parts of the Bible fit together.

Churches will need to go back to the basics and explain the gospel and its implications for daily living as if they are speaking to someone who doesn’t share their heart language. The biggest discipleship obstacle you’ll find when facing biblical illiteracy is the assumption that a disciple understands what they are learning.

(3) No Biblical Worldview

Another hurdle churches will face in discipling unchurched women is their lack of a shared worldview. Instead of a biblical worldview, unchurched women will possess one of the following worldviews (or a synthesis of them).

–universalism (all religions lead to God)

–secularism (life devoid of God)

–pantheism (God is in all things)

–humanism (man is God)

–relativism (man can determine truth apart from God)

–traditionalism (man can earn his or her way back to God)

How this impacts discipleship: Individuals who lack a biblical worldview will have a loose understanding of creation and sin. Discipleship, then, cannot begin with the story of the cross; it must begin where Scripture begins and explain how sin came to be and the full range of consequences sin brings. Churches will need to disciple according to the entire story of the Bible (creation, fall, redemption, and restoration) to shape a disciple’s worldview around the Bible.

Probably the biggest change churches or women’s ministries can make right now in how they disciple unchurched women is to throw out all those to-do lists that comprise most discipleship material (go to church, title, pray, read your Bible, etc.).  Those activities are important, but they place emphasis on the fruit of salvation (behavior) before a new plant has firmly taken root (heart transformation because of Christ).

Instead, churches must help guide believers as they filter their current beliefs through the prism of the Scriptures, allowing the Spirit to convict their hearts, prompting true and lasting heart change. True discipleship seeks to bring the gospel to bear on a person’s total life. This is particularly true for women who come to Christ from a legalistic or tradition-based religion. This doesn’t mean we set aside obedience – far from it! It simply means we are careful not to neglect the gospel in lieu of works. 

(4) No Gospel Exposure

Because these women lack a church home, a church background, Bible knowledge, and a biblical worldview, they will also very likely lack gospel exposure.

Even if a woman grew up in a non-evangelical tradition and knows about Christ, her understanding of the gospel very likely will prove incomplete. She might have heard the good news and rejected it on multiple occasions. If she is from a pluralistic religion, she will consider Jesus to be a good teacher among many religious figures. If she is from a secular background, she will have been taught that parts of Christ’s story are myths (such as his virgin birth and resurrection).

How this impacts discipleship: Lack of gospel exposure will most certainly mean unchurched women will be surrounded by layers of strongholds and sin, perhaps even generational sin since she is very likely to come from an unchurched family. Discipleship structures will need to address the reality of the spiritual battle ahead of these women when they commit their lives to Christ. They will need to learn how to bring the gospel to bear on each area of darkness in their lives and how the gospel frees them to live in Christ.

Discipling unchurched women starts with the gospel and continues as they are increasingly rooted in its truth.

Traditionally, discipleship emphasizes the bearing of fruit – the transformation into the image of Christ. Spiritual fruit, then, is the evidence that God is changing us into the healthy creation we were intended to be from the very beginning through his Spirit.

However, discipling unchurched women looks differently from those who have grown up in the nutrient-rich soil of a churched culture. Discipling unchurched women is first and foremost, a root-building ministry. When we disciple unchurched women, we must first ensure they are firmly rooted to the church and the gospel. If we do not adequately address the roots of their faith, their fruit will be short-lived. After their first initial growth spurt, the heat of life will scorch them and they will wither away.

If you are a women’s ministry leader, very soon you will have to consider how your church or ministry team can best engage unchurched women with the gospel. Next week, we will look at the root-building discipleship process for these women so they might remain securely anchored in the hope of the gospel. I hope you’ll join me!

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Discipling Unchurched Women 101: A New Series

By: demingglobal17 Comments

Discipling unchurch women 101 {Hive Resources}This April, I traveled to some of my favorite places talking to some of my favorite people about my favorite topic.

At the beginning the month, I led a women’s retreat for the Western Region of PA. Having lived and loved alongside these women for four years, it was a joy to return and spend some intentional time encouraging them to deepen their roots in Christ. Then, mid-month I attended the Missional Women Conference in Denver, where I lead a breakout session titled, Discipling Unchurched Women 101.

Discipling unchurch women {Hive Resources}

In both places, I was reminded of the hard work of discipling unchurched women, because both of these regions offer living illustrations of Jesus’ parable of the rocky and hard soil in Matthew 13. And in both of these places, a relatively small number of women are doing the hard work of cultivating healthy disciples in hard soil.

“20) But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21) yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.” Matt. 13:20-21

Growing disciples in rocky soil is much harder than your average discipleship efforts. In fact, discipling a woman who is unchurched looks differently than discipling someone who has grown up in nutrient-rich soil of a church culture.

That’s because in areas with hard soil, discipleship is first and foremost a root building ministry. When you disciple an unchurched woman, you aren’t just concerned with positioning her to listen to the Spirit’s leading so she may bear fruit, rather, you are concerned with helping her develop deep and healthy roots from the gospel.

The reason many churches fail at seeing disciples with unchurched backgrounds thrive and bloom is because growing roots is a hard and time-consuming process.  And much like a real garden, producing healthy roots in hard soil almost never happens without intentional efforts to provide a disciple with the right conditions where she might grow and bear fruit.

This is a lesson that God has taught me time and again, particularly as he keeps planting our family in places with hard soil.

The Story

I first became aware of this identifier “unchurched” when my husband and I moved to Southeast Asia for a work opportunity. We had no missionary designs upon arrival, but God continued to bring young women to me who desired to know about him. I found myself scrambling to discover how to disciple these women. Imagine trying to introduce Jesus to someone who had no framework for God, sin, or the spiritual world! I had to throw out all my “church words” and instead learned to share the story of the Scriptures – Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration.

Then, about five years ago, God moved our family to the difficult soil of Pittsburgh, where only 7 percent of its 2.5 million people are affiliated with any evangelical church. In the steel city, we teamed up with a North American Mission Board church plant – Living Faith Community Church – our family’s biggest faith-building adventure so far. It was in this church plant that God solidified his call on my life to unchurched women, because one of the largest demographics that came to our church were women – many of whom could be described as radically unchurched.

When these women decided to follow Christ, their walks looked very familiar to that of my international friends. Despite being bright and intelligent, they were starting their journey of faith from scratch – learning that the Bible had two testaments and each book was divided into chapters and verses.

Ultimately, the need for discipling these new believers became so great, I began to piece together a discipleship strategy for women who had no Bible background – not simply to provide them with much-needed Bible knowledge, but to help them become fully-formed disciples of Christ capable of replicating themselves.

In the coming weeks, I’ll begin to share some pieces of that strategy and the principles behind it. I’ll also share some of my biggest discipleship mistakes, and of course, stories of God’s biggest successes in hard soil.

The Series

Here’s what you can expect in this series:

–What is an unchurched woman and how can you spot her?

–Roots, shoots, & fruit – creating a discipleship strategy for unchurched women

–3 keys area for growing healthy roots among unchurched women

Are you ministering to unchurched women or struggling to know how to reach unchurched women in your area? Discipling women who have no shared worldview, Bible background, or church home is my passion. Join me in this series, and we’ll grow together in learning how to better engage this growing demographic in our churches and beyond.

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3 Ways To Foster A Discipleship Focused Ministry

By: demingglobal1comment

Picture

There is nothing Satan hates more than women on mission – Christ’s mission. But the more ministry fat you have, the more places Satan has to feed, engendering discouragement and distraction in the body.

Keeping your ministry “trim” is a good organizational principle for a healthier women’s ministry, and it’s a smart way to starve Satan out.

I’m continuing my series: Making Women’s Ministries Missional over at Missional Women. Recently, I shared these three ideas for keeping your women’s ministry discipleship-focused. Click to view full article. 
Also, I’m speaking at the Missional Women Conference this year on creating a discipleship strategy for unchurched women. I hope you’ll join me! Click on the button below or click here to register.
Missional Women Conference
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Easter gifts that inspire

By: demingglobal1comment

Inspiring gifts for easter {Hive Resources}

Whether your family fills Easter baskets or not, Easter offers parents a special opportunity to inspire your children toward resurrection living.

Easter is more than a bunny, more than new dress clothes, more than candy, and more than even attending a special service with the whole family.

Easter is about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Easter is about victory over death and sin. Easter is about the new kingdom and new life Christ makes available to us…right now.

To help the twins connect those dots, we try to downplay the commercial trappings that come with the season and try to focus on elements that inspire them to love Christ more deeply. We have fun decorating the house, doing fun activities that picture our new life through Christ, making fun and symbolic foods, and sharing special devotionals.

We don’t “do” the Easter bunny, but we do fill baskets with gifts meant to inspire their minds. For my boys, this task can be harder than it sounds considering that most books and activities produced during Easter are pastel or depict baby animals.

Action Bible

If you have the same problem, you might consider adding some Bible-based graphic novels to your son’s Easter basket this year.

Last year, we gave our boys the Action Bible – a visual timeline of about 200 Bible stories in chronological order.

The artistry is amazing and the editors do a pretty good job retaining the overall message and point of each Bible story – making sure they form one cohesive narrative of redemption.

Now, it comes in a 52-week devotional, a Bible dictionary, and a recently-released ESV study Bible edition.
Faith filled books that inspire Easter {Hive Resources}

Just a warning: as with most graphic novels, the artwork is very realistic and doesn’t shy away from the biblical story. So, Ezekiel’s dry bones take on more a zombie feel and the crucifixion of Christ can be a lot for young eyes. Those facts didn’t deter my boys, but if you have younger children, previewing the books is always a good idea.

The Pilgrim’s Progress

By chance, I stumbled across the graphic novel of John Bunyan’s literary classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, at a LifeWay store. The graphic version is split into two volumes and is abbreviated and retold so that younger readers can take in this treasure.

Not sure if the twins would like this book, I only bought the first volume and packed it for an upcoming trip to visit our other boy cousins. Between the six of them, this book was so well-read and fought over that we left for home missing several pages.

Each boy was mesmerized by the story of Christian and his loyal friend Faithful. The artwork is nothing short of amazing and emotional. The boys were so invested in the storyline, rooting for Christian to sidestep the various temptations along his journey, that I ordered the second volume while we were still on our trip and had it shipped to we were staying.

I still find them curled up on the couch or in bed with this book in their hands when they have a quiet moment.

If you have boys ages 6 and up, this gift will surely inspire them to faithful living in light of the resurrection.

A similar note of caution: the artwork is very realistic, so depictions of Satan could be scary for young readers. Similarly, some of the ladies are drawn in particularly sensuous ways. If that worries you, previewing a copy is wise.

Kingstone Comics

The success of the Action Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress with the boys, sent me on a mission to find more material for the twins.

I discovered that Kingstone Media also produced their own comics line, with graphics similar to today’s comic books.

In addition to slim comic books that retell Old Testament stories – like King David and Joshua, Kingstone also produces longer books like how the Bible came to be in the Book of God.

Each of these resources have opened the door to interesting conversations with the twins about faith, God, the afterlife and more. We’ve used them as quiet reading material as well as fun family read a-louds before bed.

Easter gifts that inspire kids {Hive Resources}

How do you inspire your children with the message of Easter? I’d love to hear what you’ve used in your home, so share your ideas in the comments!

This post contains affiliate links.

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Branded: when personal branding dissuades us from Christ

By: demingglobal11 Comment

when personal branding can dissuade us from Christ {Hive Resources}With the advent of Caitlyn Jenner, Rachel Dolezal, and the US Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, Dictionary.com announced that the 2015 word of the year was ‘identity.’ As one of its top trending words, the website said it chose ‘identity’ because of the “increasingly fluid nature” of the conversations surrounding gender, sexuality, and even race.

What was once considered static is now believed to be malleable according to culture, desires, and more. This confusion is evidence of the deepest cries of the human heart. But when a culture is confused about identity, women usually pay the heaviest price.

A heart-wrenching video of UFC champion Ronda Rousey went viral after she admitted to talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres that she had contemplated suicide after her surprising loss to female competitor Holly Holm.

At the heart of her despair, she said, was her confusion concerning her identity. “What am I anymore if I’m not this?” she told the popular talk show host, referring to herself as a champion. She teared up over fears about her future and her personal worth. “No one is going to give a s— about me anymore without this” she told Ellen.

New Bible Study {Hive Resources}Helping a woman understand her personal identity is why I wrote Crowned: Created For Glory, Called By His Name, a five-week discipleship book for unchurched women. More than any other issue, new believers around me seemed to struggle the most with their personal identities – who they are and for what reason they exist. While I was busy teaching these women about the importance of tithing and church attendance, they were still trying to climb out of the well-laid pits of fear, inadequacy, and personal worth. I’m still haunted by how I missed those signs of despair, signs I see held by every day women in our church and culture. Crowned came out of my desire to see believing women hold fast to their intrinsic worth as beloved daughters of the King.

Alongside general confusion concerning their personal identities, the way in which women are asserting their identity is changing, too. According to the world, our identity includes not just how we define ourselves, but how others to view us as well.

Borrowing a trend from the consumer world, personal identities have become synonymous with “personal brands” or self-marketing. With the onset of social media, heralded by the advent of the mobile phone, women are the ones now doing the branding, curating how we package and sell ourselves to the public.

Let us be branded for Christ {Hive Resources}
Not a day goes by when my social media newsfeed isn’t littered with workshops or articles such as “7 Ways to Brand Yourself” – demonstrating the great lengths we go to carefully craft an online persona worthy of garnering attention.

But this power shift isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Too often, women get caught creating personas that make promises we can never hope to fulfill.

This power shift is manifesting itself earlier and earlier. Other than the fact that I have obviously aged out of the current generation, I’m often left wondering why the tween girls in my Instagram feed pose for pictures with “duck faces” and over-exposed bodies.

No doubt, these young ladies are lovely, but they are also unwittingly (or not) branding themselves in the modern sense. And their posts are making clear statements about themselves – promises, if you will – that package themselves as ‘desirable.’

Ironically, when we seek to “brand ourselves,” we end up being branded as commodities – items useful for a specific purpose and exploited for personal use.

Tethering our value and self-fulfillment to the slippery anchor of usefulness (i.e. how many likes did I get on Facebook today? Why did that person unfollow me?) is not only a tiring task, it is also a futile one. Because as usefulness or attention fades, we must constantly reinvent, remake, and now “re-brand” ourselves to prove our value or worth.

There will be some, especially among my friends with daughters, who will read this post and decry it as old-fashioned or out of touch. They will say, “A woman shouldn’t have to censure herself simply based on how others take it. A woman should be able to dress and do what what she wants!”

I get that, and I agree to a point. After all, both mini skirts and denim jumpers can lead to forms of slavery, each no less despicable than the other. My purpose in writing this is not to shame or complain; my purpose is to encourage women to tie themselves the unmoving anchor of Christ instead of tying their hope to the changing tide around them.

In creating our online personas, let’s lead our daughters (and sons) not to treat ourselves or others as commodities, or brands, or anything other than sisters and brothers in Christ. Let’s reinforce their beauty and worth as bearers of God’s image, of the God who IS beautiful.

 “For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty!”  Zech. 9:17

Hear me clearly! I’m not saying selfies are bad or advising you to stop taking them. I love taking pictures with my family and friends to document a good day, celebrate a hard-won victory, or laugh together over silly moments and silly faces. What I am saying is, let’s keep our lives in perspective. In other words, let’s not publish a 445-page book about them. Let’s not order our lives around packaging ourselves for public consumption.

This type of encouragement is called discipleship. It starts when older women in Christ lovingly encourage younger women in the art of wisdom. Ultimately, however, it starts with us –  mature believers who have allowed themselves to be branded for Christ.

We, mature women, must first commit to guard our hearts against creating public personas that do nothing to elevate Christ in our lives and in the public sphere. Only then can we hope to disciple other women to view the whole of their lives – whether offline or on – to reflect the joy and purpose of being united to Christ, the stalwart anchor of our personal identities.

“But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me…”  Jer. 9:24

He is the one who makes us worthy by sharing his worth with us.

He is the one who gives us value by sharing his person and work with us.

He is the one who loves us by inviting us into the eternal fellowship with the Father, who is Love.

He is the one who makes life joy-filled and satisfying by sharing his kingdom destiny with us.

If we are to brand ourselves, let us be branded for Christ. His work on the cross and over the grave brands us for eternity, and his mark alone is edifying, liberating, and loving. All other marks – whether self-inflicted for forced upon us – brands us as slaves.

I don’t know what the word for 2016 will be. It seems our culture is more confused than ever on our personal identities. But in Christ, I can make a promise to you that will never fade or break: Christ is our Hope, our only answer to the world’s despair. Young disciples will only take this message to heart, however, if they’ve seen it lived out by strong and hope-filled women who have gone before them.

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