A couple of weeks back I was asked to write my view on the role of a woman in connection with covenant community for a Q&A panel that I was asked to be a part of. These thoughts are very strong on my heart and it is still something that I am processing. But the Lord is good to me so I wanted to share what I feel He has laid on my heart. Here are some of my notes:
I have spent much time these past few days in prayer and thought about the role of the woman in Covenant Community. The part that is strongest on my heart for women of my generation is being a mom and raising children with a counterculture mindset. Most mothers in my generation see the older generation and hear of how they raised their children but when it comes to practically applying it to their family and their own patterns they aren’t quite sure on how to implement them and with the times changing quickly they are falling behind.
I have found that women are quick to say that they want help, that they want encouragement, and that they need guidance as they look for a spouse/career/education, being a wife or mother. But when it comes down to it they never really reach out for it. I believe the reason for this is that our culture says that women are to be strong, independent, intelligent, and self-sufficient, which then prevents us as women from looking for guidance from an older, wiser generation within our covenant community. It is all about changing our mindset that we look to the body of Christ to meet our needs and help us make decisions instead of looking to ourselves or to the world for their ideas.
In regards to young, single ladies I believe that it is extremely important for them to be completely engaged in covenant community. My generation is a generation that is looking for guidance because of the lack of fathers. I work with single, young girls on a daily basis who desire the deeper things of the Father, yet they don’t know how to relate to a Father because they don’t have an earthly father. Covenant community plays such a crucial role in the development and future of these women. The world says that we follow our heart, live for the moment, live for me only, you can be anything you want, and that we are free to live, as we want. However, this could not be more of a contradiction to how the Word tells us to live. 1 Peter tells us that we are God’s people and with that comes the responsibility of being a part of a family, we are not responsible only to ourselves but we are towards others as well. It is important for older women to be engaged so that younger women can be mentored. Younger women need to look to the community for love and support during these years not the world. They need to be taught how to look for a godly husband, how to be a godly wife, how to raise children that will serve the Lord all of their days, etc. We must look to the community to find these things; the world can’t provide that for us. The community is a safe place to make mistakes, be accountable, to grow, and to learn the ways of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is community and in order to live the Kingdom we must be in community. Practical application of covenant community to a young, single girl is to build relationship with those within your community, look for a mentor who is older than you within your community, serve the community, rely on the community for love and acceptance, help strengthen the community, look to the community to teach you how to be a good student/wife/mother/employee, etc. Our mindset is that if we don’t do it on our own then we are a failure, but the truth is that we can’t do it on our own. There is potential for my generation to fail because we are trying to do it on our own. We must rely on the Lord and His way of doing things is through community. We must change our mindset to a team mindset and not an individualistic mindset.
As a young mom, I feel the need to show my generation that you can be in ministry and be a successful parent. We have had so many people say to us that we are to busy in ministry and that one day our kids will resent us for it. We have also had people say to us that they don’t get involved in ministry at all because it would get in the way of their family time. I see it as it is my responsibility to completely engage my entire family in the ministry that the Lord has called us to. The ministry the Lord has for us is not just for Brant and me. It is for Brant, me, AND my children. I want my children to grow up loving the community, loving the ministry and always completely engaged in it. I believe the biggest part of planting that love in them is to have them completely surrounded by it. Our family time is spent together ministering and meeting the needs of those around us. I believe that through meeting the needs of others my children are gaining a mindset of community and not a mindset of selfish ambition.
In pondering the covenant community, these are the things that are the strongest on my heart. I am so desperate to see my generation grab hold of the next generation and not lose them to the mindset of our world. I know the only way to do this is to live in covenant community. We must look to each other within the community to accomplish this. The Son only worked in community with His Father and the Spirit. This is something I am extremely passionate about, I had an incredible example set for me in both of my parents and now I am living it.
