THE ORIGINAL SOURCE FOR WOMEN'S LEADERS SINCE 2001
Structure Excuses in Women's Ministry
Dealing with Excuses Part 5
Julia Bettencourt
March 2015
I have been rambling on about the type of excuses women's leaders deal with in women's ministry. Today I am discussing structure excuses. And that means exactly what the word says. We are talking about the very structure of a women's ministry. That's how all the parts fit together with all of the elements of the women's ministry program. Many women use that very structure as an excuse for not participating.
Structure Excuses
Structure Excuses are those relating to the structure and running of the women’s ministry meetings and events. Or it may involve the management of the whole women's ministry program in its entirety. Women that feel that there is a lack of structure, organization, and management will have issues with attending activities or participating in anything the women's ministry program does.
Ill structured or ill run meetings make this group of women feel very uncomfortable.
To combat this type of excuse, first see if there is any legitimacy in what they think. Go over your meetings and events with a fine tooth comb to find any potential problems. This is one of those areas where a fix can be made to alleviate the excuses.
It may be that you need to work on time management for your meetings. Start and stop on time. Make agendas for meetings and not just for business meetings but for all of your women’s ministry activities. It will give you a guide and focus to follow. It will help keep you on time and keep things flowing.
Plan ahead. Planning is always critical in any type of meeting or event. Get help in areas that need it. Get organized. Get prepared.Run your meetings and events efficiently. Get in control. If you allow participation, be sure to know how to address long winded input and how to delicately handle things that may arise.
You may need to do a little restructuring of meetings and activities to deal with this. Your meetings and activities should for the most part run like a well-oiled machine.
There may be some issues with how donations, money, and budget is handled. Be sure to have checks and balances. Do everything above board. Even if you have a small group of women in your women's ministry program have procedures in place when taking donations, counting money, and depositing money in the bank. Also have procedures on purchasing items through the women's ministry. Make ledgers. File recipts.
If the structure excuses are valid, most can be alleviated with just a little hard work. You of course will never please everyone, but this is an area that can see a big improvement with just a little effort into good management.
Copyright ©2015 Julia Bettencourt
Read the other parts of the Dealing with Excuses Series here.
Find more along this line in the Setbacks and Growth Index.
