Covenant News

CWM Coordinators Summits Focus on Unique Ministries

SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN (May, 2000) - A total of 60 women from 21 Canada Conference churches took part in the first Covenant Women Ministries Coordinators Summit recently. Some women drove 12 hours or more to attend the event, according to Ruth Hill, CWM executive director.

Coordinators Summits seek to help churches design ministries unique to the women of a particular church. The most significant of six sessions is a course entitled "The ABCs of Women Ministries," which addresses three components - assessment, building, and confirming. The assessment phase seems most practical because "it helps the participants understand that there are generational differences that affect ministries," Hill said.

"We try to ask churches (when they schedule an activity), 'If you're going to plan something, who is going to come?' It forces them to recognize the diversity in their own church in terms of employment, marital status, age, ethnicity, and family situations," she said. "And it highlights the need to state the purpose and target group of each ministry. We give them a skeleton (model) and they take that model and flesh it out in their local church, she continued.

"The ABCs of Women Ministries gave them tools they were longing for," said Hill. "Those tools will allow women to return to their churches to design ministries appropriate for their churches without discarding precious traditions and giving freedom to develop diversified ministries."

The Northwest Conference will host a CWM Coordinators Summit April 28 in Minneapolis in conjunction with the conference's annual meeting. For more information, contact Toni Schwabe, director of women's ministries for the Northwest Conference, by telephone at 651-462-3311 or by e-mail at totomania@aol.com.

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