Major Highlights from 2022

Entering 2022, NEWIM was full of hopes and dreams. Besides continuing our regular ministries and aspirations, God laid before us three multi-year goals: Creating safe spaces, broadening engagement/increasing participation, and intentional inclusion.

As always, God kept his hand on NEWIM. Many on the leadership team formed teams to work on these goals and we asked the Lord to lead us. He has opened doors for new partnerships which have so blessed us. There is much to celebrate and as we conclude the year, we recognize there’s still much to accomplish. Taking a moment to look back and reflect on just what God has done can bring a whole new excitement for what’s around the bend.

This year NEWIM’s Board and Leadership Team wrestled with the ongoing confusion women have over whether or not NEWIM is for them. We decided to adopt the tagline “for women who love and serve Jesus” (to clarify who we seek to serve). You don’t have to have a title and a paycheck to participate in NEWIM.

Retreats

Retreats for Women Married to Pastors

Pastors Wives North - Pajaro Dunes, April 29-May 1, 2022

Christy, Betsy and Darlene hosted six women married to pastors for a lovely weekend retreat. One participant writes:

“We enjoyed delicious meals and decadent desserts, walks on the beach and listening to the ocean, creating an art collage, time for reading and worshiping together. But most of all the bond that was created between all of us was deep. We each came carrying really heavy burdens and as we left, the burdens felt lighter because we had shared them. It was a truly precious time.”

The group continues to check in with each other every week or two, and gals reach out for prayer from the group.

Pastor’s Wives Newport Beach, September 30-October 2, 2022

Pam and Janae, and five women from western states, gathered for a lovely weekend at a home on Bay Island. It was a lovely time of being refreshed in a beautiful setting with other safe women who love and serve Jesus.

Boxes of love

Pam and Jackie sent to all past participants of the Pastors’ Wives retreat lovely boxes of love.

“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the beautiful gift. It was truly one of the sweetest and most special things I have ever received. I was deeply touched by the fact that you are still thinking and praying for me. And the thoughtfulness and intentionality that you put into every item just takes it to another level. I deeply admire you, Lisa and all the ladies who were obedient and used by God to bless me at the retreat.”

Training Video

Pam met with a new pastors’ wives retreat team and shared the heart behind NEWIM’s Pastors Wives retreat. She gave her advice for how to invite, prepare, and plan the food, including their favorite recipes, ways they approach facilitating the retreat and putting together the schedule. What stood out for all of us was Pam’s commitment to bathe every detail in prayer.

Latino Women’s Half-Day Retreat

Jenny Guavera led a group of eleven Spanish speaking pastor’s wives and church leaders in a half-day retreat. She translated NEWIM’s silent retreat guide, Blessed, for their gathering.

Springs Three Rivers - April and October

Writers’ Getaway, October 18-19, 2022

Kathy Collard Miller and Cindi McMenamin co-led this 24 hr retreat, encouraging women in their writing projects. Together, these two authors shared how to avoid common mistakes that writers make. Cindi provided detailed instruction on how to structure a book proposal. And Kathy and Cindi shared from their hearts how God has personally refined them and shown them himself through the writing process. All attendees had the opportunity for one-on-one coaching/consultation sessions with both Kathy and Cindi. Women received expert personalized guidance and instruction for their projects. Several women who have attended the Writers’ Getaway have published books.

Arizona Springs Team retires after 5 years

Deanna writes: The Arizona Springs team has given much thought and prayer and we have decided that we need to retire, so we have canceled the fall retreat. The team poured its heart, soul, and passion into providing a safe environment where women worshiped the Lord in silence and solitude. It was a wonderful ministry. Since this retreat began in 2017, we've been honored to welcome attendees from 10 different states. That's amazing! We will miss the friends we made through this ministry but hope to see you at other NEWIM retreats and events. Blessings from current and past Arizona Springs team members,

Many thanks to Deanna Harder, Mary Williams, Jill Austin, Tracy Millward, Barbara Nurmi, Kim Bagato, and Jean Pallone for facilitating so many wonderful times of drawing near to Jesus. WATCH AZ Springs VIDEO

Relationships

In-Person Gatherings

Modesto/Oakdate, January, May, August and October

Christy Wold and Becky Austin hosted small group gatherings in the Modesto area. During the morning get-togethers, women had the chance to rekindle friendships and spend time individually with the Lord. Each morning was a mini retreat concluding with rich sharing about what God is doing in their lives and time for prayer.

Bakersfield

Sue Sabaloni hosted a get together in her new prayer room at her home in Bakersfield. Five women came, and over fresh strawberries and goodies were encouraged with a morning reflecting on their ministries and sharing how NEWIM could encourage them. Discussion included addressing the challenge of being compared to large churches when you are doing small church ministry; and, how to deal with criticism from an overseeing leader when they either don’t allow something to be done or choose not to fund it altogether.

Sue writes that the group is hoping to increase participation, and one of the other attendees will host a get together at her home in Tehachapi.

Online Gatherings

Reading Books with Friends, Book Club Discussions in February, June and November

Book Club: Edge of Belonging — Amanda joined us and was delightful! We all were amazed at the way her descriptions of various scenes in her book stayed with us. Read more. We loved talking with Amanda and could see why this book won the prestigious Christy Award.

Feathers of Hope - Sharon Garlough Brown joined us from Scotland for a wonderful morning conversation about her recently published book. Sharon gave us permission to record the call and we were able to share our time with the gals who sign up but were unable to attend. After our conversation, we all noticed how much more we loved the book. Several were interested in exploring further the themes Sharon developed and wanted to use her accompanying Study Guide to dive in deeper. This is a book that is rich and merits a second reading. It is definitely one that expanded our thinking as we discussed it.

Mother of Modern Evangelicalism - The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Mears by Arlin C. Migliazzo

Prof. Migliazzo joined us on Sunday, Nov. 6 for a lively conversation about Henrietta Mears. We talked for 90 minutes and could have continued all night. Henrietta was quite a woman and having an opportunity to get to know her through Prof. Migliazzo’s research and stories was enlightening. He gave us permission to record the conversation. You can watch it here.

We were struck by how much our movement began with Henrietta Mears.

Ever wonder how methods and strategies came to be part of the curriculum at seminaries? Talk with Henrietta. Ever wonder where the idea came from that we should target the “influencers” (celebrities in Hollywood or politicians in Washington) and lead them to the Lord first? Talk with Henrietta. Ever wonder why we tend to measure ministry success by the size of buildings and budgets and the number of people who attend? It’s the influence of Henrietta, once again.

Ms. Mears wanted the whole world know about the love and grace of Jesus, so she taught the Bible and applied it to real life.

She loved people and believed in leading church programs that were fun.

Even though she encouraged many to spend their lives as career missionaries, she came to the conclusion that God was calling her to walk through the open door before her.

She had been healed twice, but God did not heal her eye sight—something she struggled with all her life.

And in what seems like a huge contradiction, this woman who was so committed to following Jesus was not bothered by luxury or living a life of privilege.

Henrietta Mears is a fascinating woman who significantly influenced Billy Graham, Dawson Trotman (Navigators), Bill Bright (CRU), Jim Rayburn (Youth for Christ) and many pastors and missionaries. At a time in history when people were intensely loyal and segregated by denominations, Henrietta rejected being “separatist” and embraced being trans-denominational, something the Billy Graham crusades and Campus Crusade became known for. At a time when Christians were fighting against science, she was trained at the university in Chemistry. She believed “all truth is God’s truth.” Henrietta embraced culture, even Hollywood’s stars and use of technology, wanting “the very best for Christ.” The impact of her ministry continues to influence us (as does some of its unintended consequences) to this day.

Conversations about Racism

June Chambliss Turner and Luann Budd hosted a small group of women in a series of six conversations spread out over April, May, June and July.

Session 1: Welcome And Introductions

Session 2: The Danger Of Silence

Session 3: The Bias Factor

Session 4: Evangelical Deconstruction Project

Session 5: Up To The Group

Session 6: Christian Values And Conclusion

We talk about how racism persists -- and how we need to keep learning and listening to each other so that in the church we are intentional not to just follow our preferences, not to just teach what we've been taught, but to embrace diverse leadership and perspectives and fight to eliminate racism wherever it pops up.

Luann hosted 3 conversations around Esau McCaulley’s book, Reading While Black.

Prayer @ 2 on Thursdays

Every Thursday @ 2 p.m. (PST) women meet on zoom to share prayer requests and be led by Kim in prayer. The group prays for personal requests, as well as requests that are emailed to us: prayer@newim.org. New women joined the group this year.

Writers’ Group - Meeting Monthly on the first Saturday

Kathy Collard Miller meets for an hour with women who would like to learn more about the writing process. We also share our writing with each other and receive feedback. This morning is full of encouragement for writers.

Resources

The Goal Teams are working on creating new opportunities, ministries and resources to strengthen the whole organization.

Broaden Engagement/Increase Participation:

The team has been working on creating training resources.

Intentional Inclusion:

Taking suggestions from our Focus Group and integrating them into The Springs Retreat. Working to create retreats specifically designed to minister to women of color (1/2 day retreat and pastors’ wives retreat). We are also working to have NEWIM’s social media more targeted toward younger women.

Creating Safe Spaces:

Drafting a resource with key principles for how to create safe spaces.

Website Resources

Videos

Video Interviews with women in ministry, including Susan Kimes, Jackie Rettberg, Tammy Tkach, and Bev Amsbary were added.

Coming in 2023, Webpage of curated resources for Marriages in Crisis

Social Media

NEWIM posts multiple times a week to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with the hope of encouraging women in their relationship with Jesus and helping them to find NEWIM. We’ve seen a steady increase in engagement and followers across our social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. We love connecting with women all over the world through our online presence.

Monthly e-Newsletter

Every month, we send a newsletter via email to the women in our network. Each issue includes current events happening in NEWIM, encouragement from scripture, inspirational writing from a variety of writers, and resources we have found helpful in our walk with the Lord.

Website and Online Retreat Resources - Including Guided Silent Retreat handbooks

Use of the NEWIM website continues to grow. We made considerable strides in Search Engine Optimization for our website which helped NEWIM.org to appear on the first page of Google searches. This year there were over 8,298 different users (up 32%) who viewed over 13,000 pages (up 27%) on our website. Users were primarily in the United States, but some also came from several foreign countries including Singapore, the UK, South Africa and China.

Our Social Media team posted 495 posts across all of our platforms, with 18K users, and 11.4% engagement.

A Christian school in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa was planning a spiritual retreat for their high school girls and contacted us for permission to use our Guided Silent Retreat guide. We love that!

And on NEWIM’s YouTube channel, 1,483 people used our videos (up 31%). The top viewed videos: Visio Divina; Confession-Wisdom from C.S. Lewis; Journaling-Writing a Letter to Jesus; and the interview with Susan Kimes.

NEWIM-Cape Town

Three times a year, Glenda McMinn, President, facilitates the Beautiful Day Retreats. She writes: “What a blessed and powerful time it was. For our 2nd retreat had to require that the women wear masks, but women were full of courage and were SO blessed to be in the presence of the Lord. The theme was: “He restores my soul” based on Psalm 23:3 We discussed the story of David. It was evident to us that David was NOWHERE near ‘’green pastures or paths of righteousness” He was surrounded by dryness, rough terrain. It was time for us to SEE GOD IN OUR CURRENT SITUATIONS.

The June retreat was an incredible experience for 43 women including a smaller team who attended. Glenda shared:

“We had one woman attend at the very last minute, whom we were able to sponsor to come through your funding. This retreat was the FIRST TIME that she stepped out of her home since Covid 2020. What tremendous work the Lord did in her life at this retreat.

Another woman, whom I had known for MANY years, and who was totally critical of this ''thing'' called ''retreats'' attended her first one (also one of your sponsorships), and her life was completely changed. Her husband has already booked her to attend the upcoming November retreat as well as bringing her friend along who is struggling in her walk with the Lord. Wow! How blessed to see the Lord find us waiting on Him to change us. Please look at our Facebook page "Beautiful Women Retreats" for pictures of this wonderful weekend. On behalf of Cape Town women we say a HUGE THANK YOU for your support and your love for women here in Cape Town.” 

Because of the generous support we receive, NEWIM-US was able to send funds to Cape Town to offer over 50 women a full scholarship to attend the Beautiful Day retreats. See more pictures on Facebook.

Leadership Team Retreat, Oct. 14-16, 2022 at St. Anthonys Retreat Center

Loving Others Well

We had a lovely time at our Leadership Team Retreat. Twelve women joined us including Traci Martin who came as a guest from Atlanta, GA. SEE OPENING POWERPOINT HERE.

From beginning to end, the retreat was set in the book of Philippians 1-4 -- Becky and June led us in several worship times where we listened to the reading of passages of Philippians in different versions. The overarching theme was centered on loving others well, which Paul says requires that we have the mindset of Jesus, "in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus...who made himself nothing..humbled himself and became obedient to death, even on a cross!" (Phil 2) We had church together Sunday morning and a wonderful message from Philippians where we were challenged to have the mindset of Christ to the extent that people see us being humble and experience it for themselves. The call of God is for his followers to have Jesus’ kind of humility so we can love one another well. 

We talked about the amazing ways we've seen God at work in our ministry and some new opportunities that he has opened that we are thrilled about. The Lord has opened doors for Luann to make connections with several people leading organizations including National Association of Evangelicals, WOW!, Just Between Us magazine editors, Fuller’s Center for Spiritual Formation and Fresh Perspectives Ministries. Luann is participating in a national cohort focused on spiritual formation for 25 evangelical leaders co-hosted by Fuller Seminary and NAE. These new relationships are opening doors for advancing our three multi-year goals: creating safe spaces, broadening engagement/increasing participation, and intentional inclusion.

Answering Core Questions

Luann talked about what it means to be "evangelical" and who qualifies as being “a woman in ministry.” Read more.

Becoming Aware of Cultural Differences: How to Love and Welcome Others Well

Training with Steve Wong, MDiv, PhD

Pastor Steve Wong (MDiv in Theology, Biola; PhD Psychology, lead pastor Grace Community Covenant) trained us (via zoom) on principles for how we can better welcome women from various cultures (Christian women from different ethnicities, geographical regions, ages) who come to our ministries and serve on teams with us. We asked him to help us know what we don’t know.

He asked us, What cultural differences do you notice in your small groups?

There may be obvious ethnic, age, denominational, and class differences. However, culture, we learned, has other dimensions that are invisible. We also see culture in ways that are more hidden, in our actions, preferences, and how we engage in a group. We learned that culture incorporates the beliefs, values and attitudes under the surface that help to explain why people may feel as they do, lead as they do, or experience being excluded when others are trying to welcome them in.

We talked about preferences around direct or indirect communication (talked about how Jesus' use of parables was his use of indirect communication). We talked about how some of us view ourselves as individuals and others come from cultures that share a group identity, how different cultures have different ways of showing hospitality (using the example from Acts 6 where Christians from Hebraic and Hellenistic backgrounds were not all being cared for well in the early church). We also talked about cultural differences included in Sarah Lanier’s book, Foreign to Familiar: Relationship Versus Task Orientation, Inclusion Versus Privacy, Different Concepts of Hospitality, High-Context Versus Low-Context Cultures, and Different Concepts of Time and Planning.

Steve concluded by giving us very practical suggestions for how we can grow in our personal awareness that we live among people with different cultural backgrounds:

• Recognizing we are in a multicultural setting

• Becoming curious about the experiences of others

• Reading books or watching movies together that are set in a cultural context different from our own

• Taking our friends out to lunch and learning about their family’s traditions

These practical steps will help us love and serve all women well.

One woman expressed confusion over how training in intercultural differences supported NEWIM’s ministry goals and was worried that the training was not biblical. Another woman wrote on her evaluation form:

“The information presented was excellent and helpful in understanding the cultural differences that are easily misunderstood. I would like to learn more about making initial connections with women in other cultures. The energy each team had was contagious.”

So we didn’t all agree on the value of becoming culturally aware which isn’t surprising as NEWIM serves a broad spectrum of Christian women. Luann Budd felt that Pastor Steve brought the richness of his theological training, missiology, and psychology to his 3-hour presentation and the training was helpful in giving all of us insight into how we can grow in our awareness of cultural differences even among Christian women, and be humble as we lead and serve in NEWIM.

Goal Teams Shared Their Work

The three goal teams (creating safe spaces, becoming intentionally inclusive, and broadening participation/increasing engagement) shared the work they’ve done this year with the whole group. We then worked in teams and talked about how to incorporate the work of the other teams into our work. We could see how all of our work was contributing to the whole. Each team set goals for 2023.

What Do Young Women in Ministry Need?

Luann also shared what she learned when she and Anne Barbour took a group of young women on retreat for a 24-hour focus group. Luann and Anne wanted to hear from them what they felt they needed to flourish in ministry and what NEWIM could offer them, to strengthen them as they serve. What they said, basically, was surprising and aligned with our mission: they want retreats just like The Springs, and mentors—women who will initiate friendship with them and encourage them as they lead. We asked them why they didn’t come to the Springs. They said, they would have if they knew about it. We realized that we need to advertise where the younger women will see our advertisements, including on college campuses. SEE POWERPOINT HERE.

After Luann shared what she learned in the focus group, the Leadership Team was encouraged. We felt energized. We can initiate friendships with younger women and loves and affirm them as they lead in ministry. That’s what NEWIM has always done.

Thank You to Retiring Board Members & Welcome to New

Becky Austin began a three-year term as the Treasurer of NEWIM (2022-2025). Deanna Harder (2019-2022) and Sheila Brown (2018-2022) stepped off the Board.

Looking to 2023

In 2023, the leadership of NEWIM is giving attention to several key initiatives:

1. Deepening our understanding for how to create a safe environment for women in leadership;

2. Being intentionally inclusive by deepening relationships and eliminating barriers keeping women of all backgrounds, races, and ages from knowing NEWIM is an organization for them

3. Increasing engagement so that women in more locations come to know about NEWIM and experience the benefit of evangelical, contemplative retreats.

4. Creating a partnership with women on the East Coast.

5. Starting a Springs Retreat in the San Francisco Bay Area and Atlanta, Georgia.

6. Developing a spiritual formation program to augment our contemplative retreats and train new leaders.

7. Welcoming new women onto the Board and Leadership Team.

As NEWIM looks to 2023, we are eager to advance in each of these areas. God is working and we can't wait to see what he does.