I Used to Lead This Way: What I Missed About Biblical Women’s Ministry

A confession from a former women’s ministry leader

For a few years, I led women’s ministry at a church I dearly loved. I planned the events, booked the speakers, chose the worship, and sometimes stood up front myself. If I’m honest, my goals sounded something like this: make it inviting, make the worship sound good, keep the talks funny, and send women home encouraged.

There was another goal underneath, one I never said out loud. I wanted to be viewed as an engaging speaker. Maybe even a bit of an influencer.

It’s embarrassing to write that. But I’m writing it because I don’t think I was unusual. I think a lot of us who love women’s ministry have drifted the same direction without noticing, and biblical women’s ministry needs us to notice.

None of it was wrong. It just wasn’t the center.

Wanting an event to be welcoming isn’t sin. Good worship, warm hospitality, and a speaker who can make a room laugh are all gifts. I’d still rather walk into an event where someone thought about the details than one where nobody did.

The problem was what sat in the middle. When the main goal is for women to leave feeling good, everything quietly bends toward that goal. Scripture gets picked because it encourages, not because it’s the passage that needs teaching. Sin gets mentioned in passing, if at all, because nobody wants to bring the room down. Repentance starts to feel like a mood killer.

Nobody plans that. It happens one small decision at a time. You pick the uplifting verse. You soften the hard part of the talk. You book the speaker everyone already loves. And one day you realize the gospel has been trimmed down to whatever comforts us most.

Why that kind of messaging reached me

I understand why this approach is so appealing, because it reached me first. I came to faith as a young, confused woman with a difficult past. Words like worthy, loved, and you’re not alone felt like water in a desert.

Somewhere along the way, I was told my main problem was shame. I read the books that were recommended to me. I listened to Brené Brown and defended her to anyone who raised an eyebrow. She isn’t a Christian, I’d say, but she teaches some truth.

And she does. She’s right that shame grows in hiding. But her answer is vulnerability and empathy, because that’s as far as her foundation can go. Scripture goes all the way down. Jesus endured the cross, “despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). He didn’t just help me talk about my shame. He carried it. I had settled for half an answer when the whole one was sitting in my Bible.

Rooted, but not deep

Looking back, I don’t think my roots were in the wrong place. I loved Jesus. I read my Bible. I wanted women to know Him. My roots were in the right soil. They just weren’t deep yet, and I was still drinking from other sources.

Paul describes believers as firmly rooted and now being built up in Christ and established in the faith (Colossians 2:6-7). Rooted is the starting point. Built up and established is the growth.

In the parable of the sower, Jesus describes seed on rocky ground. It springs up quickly and receives the word with joy, but it has no root, so it withers when affliction comes (Matthew 13:20-21). Shallow roots can look healthy for a long time. The heat is what exposes them.

That’s who I think about now when I think about women’s ministry. Not only the new believer, but the woman who’s almost there. She’s in church. She’s reading her Bible. She might even be leading the ministry. She’s also soaking up whatever is popular, and none of it feels like compromise because none of it sounds obviously wrong. I know, because that was me.

What changed

What changed wasn’t a new ministry model. It was the Word. As I spent more time studying Scripture in context, book by book and verse by verse, I started noticing what was missing from so much of what I’d loved. Not false statements. Missing ones.

The gospel Jesus preached began with “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). In Scripture, comfort comes after conviction, not instead of it. Being chosen and loved means the most when we understand what we were chosen out of (Ephesians 2:1-5).

I also noticed that Titus 2, the passage we love to quote for women mentoring women, doesn’t start with mentoring. It starts with “speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). In biblical women’s ministry, warmth flows from truth. It doesn’t replace it.

Encouragement is a gift, and I’ll never argue against it. But comfort can’t be the whole meal.

A better question for biblical women’s ministry

So here’s what I’d ask, whether you lead women’s ministry or simply love going to the events.

When you plan a gathering, pick a book study, or press play on a podcast, don’t stop at “Will this encourage women?” Ask a better question: “Will this deepen their roots, or just keep the surface green?”

A few more to carry with you:

• Was Scripture explained in context, or just quoted to support a point?
• Was sin named as sin against a holy God?
• Was the cross central, or just assumed?
• Did I leave pointed to Christ, His Word, and my local church, or just to the next event?

I’m not writing this as someone who figured it out early. I’m writing as someone who stood on the stage, booked the funny speaker, and stuck the sticky note on her bathroom mirror. God was patient with me, and He’s still deepening my roots. That’s what I want for every woman who walks into a women’s ministry event: not just to leave encouraged, but to leave more rooted in Him.