I spoke at a women’s retreat recently and during the lunch break I had a crazy experience. I almost died.
Dramatic, I know, but let me tell you the story. It’s a short one. Basically, I tried to swallow a piece of fajita meat and it lodged in my throat. Right there. At the table. I couldn’t get it to go down or come back up. It just sat there, filling up my airspace. Within seconds, panic was welling up within me. Two women leapt to my rescue, but at that moment I finally coughed hard enough to dislodge it.
Ten seconds of total fear.
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Meet Bev Amsbary-Davenport!
Bev and Luann spent a half hour together talking about Bev’s years serving as director of womens ministries at Emmanuel Faith church in Escondido, California. Bev began serving in the high school department until one day, her pastor Dr. Richard Strauss invited Bev to be the first director of women.
Bev was a gifted pioneer overseeing 30 different ministries for women.
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Divorce rates have been climbing and Christian marriages are not exempt. With increasing numbers, marital discord has been at an all-time high even before the pandemic. More and more this challenge is bringing increased calls from church members for counseling. What happens, however, if your marriage is the one in crisis? When a woman is invested in working alongside her pastor-husband, is part of a pastoral staff, or in another leadership position, the pressures of the calling can leave little strength to devote to her own relationships. So, what can you do if you find your marriage in crisis?
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Hint: People in leadership are imperfect people who are in the process of becoming more like Christ. They are just like everyone else.
One of the best tools I have uncovered lately to help me get to know myself is the Enneagram. Discovering that I am a Two has helped me understand how I am wired on the inside, both positively and negatively, and how I can let God develop the dark side of my personality type into a positive for His Kingdom.
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Soon after I stepped into ministry leadership (before I accepted the role as Director of Women’s Ministry), a long-time friend said God told her to pray for me. She never asked for a prayer list, but she would let me know she was praying. She was like Aaron and Hur. God provided her to lift me up as I was “doing battle” that comes with ministry.
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What is the “Elijah Syndrome”? In the book of 1 Kings, chapters 17-19, Elijah is following God’s call and standing up to King Ahab. After God reveals his power over Baal by raining fire from heaven, Elijah runs to the mountains when he hears that Jezebel has threatened to kill him. When God comes looking for him, Elijah replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too” (1 Kings 19:10).
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For me, finding a small trustworthy group of women was the best and worst requirement as Director of Women’s Ministry. Very early in my new role at the church, our lead pastor required all of us in leadership to find an accountability partner. We had to provide him with the name of the person. While this seems authoritarian, it was for our protection. Our lead pastor had experience with two men, who were “famous” pastors, who had moral failures and walked away from the ministries they founded. No one falls into sin, rather we allow small compromises into our life that allow sin to not seem as sinful. These accountability partners were there to help us navigate the stresses and strains of ministering while being people-in-progress ourselves
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The most hurtful words I received while serving on a church staff were from women who disagreed with my calling from God to teach his Word.
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I had stepped into my leadership role during a leadership change at our church. At that time, our church was changing and morphing in many ways. In those early days of my leadership, we had a saying that we were “doing a church plant in a 100-year-old church with buildings and a budget.” Change is hard. While I had previously held a leadership position in a parachurch organization, I had not held a leadership position in the church. This was different. People were the focus rather than the process. But the process was changing and morphing.
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