I just implemented ladies night in my church once per month and a bible study once per month. Can you all give me ideas for what to do for ladies night besides eat. We can eat, but, I do not want eating to be a big focus of the night. This 1st time we went out to a local restaurant.
Depends on what kinds of ladies you have in your church...if you have a lot of quilters, perhaps a quilting "bee" of some sort. That is totally NOT something I'd come to, lol, but I do recognize that some women go totally nuts over it!
A spa night would work well - I've always wanted to do a mother/daughter spa day (girls in grades 4-6), where I bring in a Mary Kay rep to teach them about skin care, etc. Or you could do it as a "leave the kids at home and get pampered" kind of deal...
Find a community theatre or high school production that is going on near you...the acting is not going to be Broadway caliber, but it's still a blast! Plus, you will totally make their night if you just show up to see the show even though you're not related to any of the cast members!
Why not do an activity that is traditionally for guys - but make it "ladies only"? Paintball...football in the park...going to see a game...
One thing I have really missed since moving away, is open house at my friend Mary's home. It was every thursday night, 6-whenever. She would cook the main meal, we brought desserts. We sat around talking about homeschooling,all but one were homeschooling moms, and church/world issues, breastfeeding, the next visit to the obgyn....just whatever came up. There would be about 8-10 moms, and about 20-30 kids. The bigger ones looked after the little ones so the moms could talk for a couple of hours in peace over desserts and tea....it was really nice. Mary had an 18 foot long dining room table....a saving grace. I am trying to start this here. Have fun with it! Love, Lori
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...... Then they came for the Catholics, and I was a Protestant, so I never said anything. And then, they came for ME, and there was no one left to speak up. Martin Neimoller, German Pastor, WW2
My women's ministries is not of the "quilting" variety - far from it. We're sort of a wild group. One of our favorite things is our pajama party. We have it at someone's home who has a large home. (We kick the guys out for the night and take over the house.) We have something simple (pizza, etc. so that nobody really has to do a lot of work as this is a relaxer for us) and after eating we settle in for the night and have a total blast. We talk for hours, play games, last time we did salsa until 3 am. Watch movies, laugh our heads off. I have a very contemporary group to say the least. In fact my feet are hurting right now because today I did about 4 hours of salsa with them and this is NO EXAGGERATION. We pastor an international church and so many of our people are spanish, cuban, puerto rican, etc. and so we do a lot of things that are a part of that culture. It's so fun.
As far as "night's out" we have done everything from a pajama party to going to the outlet malls, to going out to dinner. But the thing I enjoy most are the ministry nights we have. Last evening we had one called, "Bloom Where You're Planted." The decor was all flowers, in fact we even had a picket fence constructed across the stage. We had favors that were flower packets with scriptures on them. We had a dinner to start the evening, then gift giveaways and some other special things, some intros from me and then my friend Tammy who is a women's pastor here in FL came and preached on the theme of bloom where you are planted. It was about making it through transitions, and then flourishing where God has you. It was really great. Next month I'm having a mother/daughter/friends victorian tea. The next month (june) is our princess luncheon outreach. These are really the things I enjoy most.
I would love for you to come sometime. I live for WM's.
Okay, the princess luncheon...you can see some pictures of it on the "WM Help" link. This will take me a while to explain and I really can't totally do it justice by a message board post but I will try. We call it the princess luncheon because each woman who comes is treated like one. We plan this for a year to do it properly...takes all of our women working together...
We have our women hostess tables. They deck them out with their personal things from home. They bring their tablecloths, centerpiece, china, etc. If they don't have these things, somebody in the church will loan them some. For instance, I myself am so into this stuff, I have four sets myself at home that I use. Our visitation pastor's wife Judy is the same way, she has so many sets I couldn't begin to count. Anyway, we have other ladies like this too and they loan theirs out to those who have a heart to hostess but not the things or the money to buy the things. The ladies hostess tables and furnish everything for them so it does not cost our wm's/church anything. Each hostess also provides a small favor for each guest. They invite their personal friends to fill their table. We try to reach as many unchurched ladies as possible. Some ladies who work outside the home invite all the ladies in their workplace/office. Whole "tables full" of ladies have been saved! It's amazing!
All of the women at our church bring the food. This day is TOTALLY FREE to our guests. Only our church ladies bring something. Each woman is assigned a dish to bring. We do salads and desserts, every kind you can possibly think of. We have two humongous buffets on either side of the banquet room. Both identical. We serve iced tea. And lots of it - it's hot in Florida although we are well air conditioned! Some of our men from the church come and serve the ladies during the day. All of our men wear black pants, white button down shirt and black tie. When the ladies approach the building, they are promptly met by one of our men in a tuxedo who hands them a long stemmed rose and escorts them down a red carpet into the banquet room. When the ladies enter it's decorated beautifully. Not only are there 20 absolutely stunning tables decorated by our hostesses, but our visitation pastor's wife, Judy has decorated the outside of the church and the stage with things. The outside of the church she puts white "columns" with ferns, and the red carpet. We also plant fresh flowers in our beds at the front of the church. Okay...
So the ladies come in and we have the mood set with some very classy jazz music playing that makes you feel like you just walked into a 5 star restaurant. I'm usually personally at the door greeting each guest. My ladies work hard to bring their friends and I don't let even one of them leave without meeting them. (Usually I don't eat at this, if I am to meet and greet each guest, which is a priority to me) Once the ladies are seated, our men begin to serve them drinks. The men serve drinks, a selection of breads from breadbaskets, and the men clear the plates, etc. at the conclusion of the meal.
The luncheon opens with a powerful song, usually something totally upbeat to let them know it's starting. Something contemporary. After which we pray and eat. After the meal, my leadership team helps with things like announcements, and special presentations. I take the last year worth of pictures and videos and have a special "DVD" commercial made for the day to promote our ministry. Last year it was done to "She's Not Just a Pretty Face" by Shania Twain and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. This year it will be to "This One's for the Girls" by Martina McBride and "We are Family" by Sister Sledge. One of the I.T. guys in our church puts it together for me. It has clips of our previous women's nights, loads of pictures, clips of me preaching, etc. etc. he even puts bloopers on there. All of my ladies I have ministering from the platform whether it be announcements or things are very good at being up front. Some did not begin that way - I trained them and gave them greater responsibility and opportunity as time went on.
After announcements and about 2-3 very quality special music numbers featuring our ladies, one of our ladies introduces me. They always do because half the audience has never met me before that day. I always choose someone different to introduce me, one of our leaders. I plan a very powerful illustrated message that I work on for several months. The message is the theme of the day. Each year is different. Last year was "Free to Be". This year my theme is, "Power to Change." Everything, the music, etc. is centered around this theme. We have programs that my assistant, Lindsay, does. They are BEAUTIFUL. We use specialty papers from paper direct and designer papers. com. Each program has everything in it from the order of the day, to a letter from me, to announcements about our upcoming events, to info about our church, to introducing the staff, our wm leadership, etc. then our sponsors are listed at the end, but more on that later...
I give the message - it is always salvation oriented, and also usually concerns inner healing. I usually do two altar calls, one for salvation, one for healing. For salvation the hostesses generally pray for their friends at their tables. They are the ones that bring them - they personally lead them to the Lord. For healing, I have my altar workers at the front and the ladies come forward for prayer. We have an altar time. It's not unusual for 25 ladies at a time to get saved. I always work the altars during the healing prayer time. With all of these unchurched ladies coming out and investing absolutely nothing, being treated like a total queen, believe me they are very receptive to what we have to say. Some of them break down crying before I even preach, they are so touched by everything that they receive. They are amazed at the love and concern of our women.
After that, I seat the crowd. I personally introduce our gift team. All year long our "gift team" has been collecting gifts: corporate donations, church donations, and local business donations. We have anywhere from $15-25 THOUSAND dollars in gifts. (yes thousands) My ladies work hard all year collecting everything from gym memberships, certificates to spas, manicures, pedicures, hair cuts, dinners out, to you name it. We have given away everything from a persian carpet to a Gold's Gym Membership. All of these gifts are personally wrapped and placed on the stage. The ladies see these from the beginning. They fill out a guest card upon arrival. they are told they must stay until the very end to get their gift. Each person gets at least one gift, possibly 2 or 3. All the gifts are valuable. We don't have any cheesy ones. The "gift team" are the heroes of the day. Once all the ladies are seated from the altar time, I have some very pumped music come on. I introduce them like people would be introduced at a football game or miss america. I mean, I totally get the crowd pumped. The gift team comes forward as I call them up to the stage. After I have the crowd honor them for their year of work, I sit down and my gift team leaders take over. The ladies who have worked hard all year are the ones that personally give the guests their gift and hug them as they come to the stage. My gift leaders pull names from the guest cards. The music keeps playing and keeps the mood going...the leaders excitedly call out the winners. Everybody claps and screams for about a solid hour. It's amazing! At the end I come up and dismiss the day.
The first year, I topped the day off by rolling out a red carpet and unveiling 200 crowns and bringing each woman up and officially crowning her a princess. Most of the ladies still have the crown sitting in a prominent place. I did not repeat that particular message which is why I haven't done that ending again. Each year is different. I like to keep them guessing as to what will happen.
My leadership team meets all year long to plan this out. I am finally to the point after four years here where I am able to run the team meetings, plan my message, the music and turn the rest loose to my leaders. My hostess director has a hostess manual I wrote and she personally trains the hostesses. My gift giveaway director also has a manual I wrote and she trains her team. Our visitation pastor's wife coordinates prayer and altar workers. I have team leaders who coordinate food, child care, etc. Of course when I came here I had to work like a dog to train everybody the first year or two as to how to do it but finally i have leaders in place who can do all this and train everybody. It takes time.
This is about it off the top of my head. I have to go eat dinner, so that's it for now! But if you would ever like to come to this, just let me know. I'll be happy to seat you at my table. Our event this year is Saturday, June 3rd. It's going to be blockbuster! Keep us in prayer for a harvest!!!!!!
