Equipping women to mentor: Women’s Ministry
“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” This was the theme for the Women’s Ministry Conference held in July. Approximately 350 women from around the country met at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Mequon, Wis., to be encouraged and equipped through God’s Word.
The conference explored how Christian women serve as mentors to those around them. Marilyn Miller, chairwoman of WELS Women’s Ministry, says, “Women are natural mentors and do it without even thinking about it. This conference helped Christian women realize how their words and actions reflect Christ wherever they might find themselves. It is our prayer that women will intentionalize their mentoring, letting God use them to shape the character and transform the thinking of everyone with whom they come into contact. God is in the business of changing hearts, and I know he will do just that through some of the women who joined us.”
Presenters led Bible study sessions examining how Christ is the ultimate mentor and how to model one’s mentoring after his.
Dawn Schulz, a member of the Women’s Ministry Committee, led a study titled “Jesus—A mentor for me.” “As a mentor my identity, purpose, priorities, words, and actions are all determined by the fact that I am God’s child because of Jesus,” she says. “Jesus not only shows me how to live in this grace, he teaches me how to mentor it to others by understanding their individual and diverse needs, giving them time to grow, and living transparently in order to set before them a living picture of a life patterned after Jesus.”
The conference also included time for networking, brainstorming sessions, and opportunities to share mentoring experiences.
Su Hansen, a conference attendee from Redeemer, Tomahawk, Wis., summed up the conference with one main word: “Encouragement.” She says, “It’s a very godly way to gather together sisters in Christ and grow together and encourage one another in our various callings.”
WELS Women’s Ministry, part of the WELS Commission on Adult Discipleship, holds a conference every three years; the next conference will be held in 2019.
Learn more about WELS Women’s Ministry at wels.net/women.
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Volume 103, Number 10
Issue: October 2016
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