A Message of Worth, Belonging, & Purpose
As we embark on yet another year with Women in Community, we want to take a moment to share our hearts with you and provide a picture of the beautiful vision God has given us. A friend remarked recently, “Wow, you guys are certainly busy. It seems like you always have something going on.”
This is true. So, what is the heart behind all we do?
In our Community, we have four C’s through which we try to summarize our vision:
Championing Women
Creating Community
Cultivating Leaders
Confronting Injustice
Instead of walking you through these four, I would like to shed light on them through three words that capture the rich, meaningful life God created us for: worth, belonging, and purpose.
As a woman, you have been exceptionally made in the image of God. Every woman was meant to have a deep sense of worth at her very core because she has been uniquely designed for dignity. She was designed to have a deep sense of being seen, valued, and delighted in by God. A major value in Women in Community, this points to our first C – Championing Women. When a woman feels overwhelmed by demands, hurt by lies, or injured by abuse, we want to be a voice of truth and love affirming her value and calling as God’s partner. Sometimes the church has given women a message that leaves them feeling less than worthy, alienated, and restricted. We want to reveal the Biblical and historical witness of women’s full inheritance and participation in the gospel mission.
Many women feel disconnected and long for someone to really see their truest self. Through our second C – Creating Community – our desire is to provide a sense of belonging. Our need to be known and to know in a safe place goes oh so deep, for the communion of the Trinity is woven into the very fabric of our being! All of us in the leadership team know what it means to feel defeated, confused, left out, and betrayed. We also know the healing of transparency, total acceptance, and liberating truth. We embrace the value of being a compassionate witness to the grief and hurt of each other. We recognize the importance of each other’s stories and offer a safe place to grow and thrive.
Our last two C’s – Cultivating Leaders and Confronting Injustice point to the purpose we hold in our hearts and hope to impart. Being stamped with God’s image means that wherever you go, you go in the name of God as His ambassador. These are not just words, but God’s irrevocable imprint and the essence of your deepest core. In Women in Community, we yearn to see women walking in full awareness of their divine design. Women are often assigned limited roles and can feel alienated and disconnected from what is stirring inside. In the first level of our mentoring program, we endeavor to lay the foundation of understanding and experiencing our union with Christ and all its ramifications. We learn to shed old narratives and lay a hold of God’s true story for our lives. On that foundation, the second level of our mentoring program helps women into a true sense of self and the personal agency needed to walk out their divine design. We learn to lay aside obsolete coping mechanisms and take steps of action into greater freedom and fulfillment.
Our last C – Confronting injustice – takes place when we become a voice of truth exposing lies the world and religion have told women and where we involve ourselves in projects that elevate oppressed and marginalized women and girls. Our vision is to reach women in regions of the world where the truth is seldom told and see them free from abusive or degrading situations.
Worth. Belonging. Purpose. We believe that God is found where these three intersect. This is what is burning in our hearts and what we want to build our community around. And you are invited to join!
1 Chuck Degroat, Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself – and to God – When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2024), 22.