Well, live and learn. 🤓
Did you know this, about Grace and our women's ministry?
Good news - you can listen to this one!
With our spring workshop on the horizon, we thought it might be a good time to send out a quick refresher on the various ministry offerings to women at Grace.
The core values at Grace Bible Church are frequently summarized as "gather, grow, go, and give". We desire to create environments where people are:
- invited to gather in large groups and be formed by the Word and in prayer+worship
- equipped to grow in the likeness of God through small group learning/discipleship
- inspired to go and live intentionally on mission
- convinced to live and give generously to kingdom work
Grace Women's seasonal events are geared towards "gather" environments.
We work to prayerfully create spaces where women can interact with the Word, spend time in prayer, and be formed through communion with one another, Biblical teaching, and interactive praise and worship.
Over the past five years, we’ve fallen into some beautiful traditions and some unique expressions of gathering to worship Christ Jesus.
Three years ago, we introduced an immersive night of prayer and worship to the rotation. This fall gathering features multiple different ways to worship the Lord (song, prayer, communion, intercession, and more) and has become beloved by so many.
Our traditional Christmas gathering kicks off Advent with all the hope and sparkle and coziness of the season, as we invite multiple voices to speak on the four themes of Advent. One year we included a short series podcast as part of this offering, which is still available here! The year before, we hosted an online book club and read through The Seed of the Woman together on Instagram.
Over the last five years, it’s been our spring and summer gatherings that have seen the most creativity and reforming!
In 2021, as people began to cautiously gather again, we hosted a panel conversation on the faithfulness of God. Five women from five different seasons of life weighed in on trusting God through difficulty and after so much “social distancing”, over 275 women happily joined us for that gathering!
In 2022, we hosted the IF:Gathering and nearly 200 women from around the community joined us.
In 2023, we created what amounted to a double-header: our spring worship night on campus featured author and Bible teacher Stacey Thacker, who brought a powerful word of encouragement.
The same year, we hosted our first-ever off-campus retreat, where over 200 women gathered in homes around the community and we live-streamed our own retreat content, engaging the idea of what it means to redefine hope in light of the gospel. That retreat content is also still available here.
Here is the deal:
We know that it is no small thing that you choose to spend time with us in these gather environments throughout the year. And even though we’re not about the numbers, it’s meaningful to us that literally hundreds of women are choosing to set aside time to worship and celebrate Jesus in these corporate gatherings! (Not to mention that even more of you are engaged in small group grow environments both on and off campus.)
We also know that our respective preferences, tastes, and expressions of personal worship are all different. Your presence at these gatherings over and over demonstrates to us that you believe in the gathering of the saints, even if (especially if?) that gathering doesn’t tick all the boxes of your ideals.
This is what we’re asking:
As we continue to be prayerful and creative about our gatherings, would you tell us what you love and what you’d love to see?
We are a small band of volunteers across many seasons of life and we are led by a trio of volunteers. Our capacity is, admittedly, somewhat limited — but Christ’s vision and capacity are not!
We want to see Jesus Christ magnified every time we gather.
And we would love to know what’s encouraged you about our gatherings over the last five years and what you’d want to ask us to prayerfully consider including in our gatherings.
We’re thankful for you, women of Grace.
You really are the dearest and best!
