(Claire Paul and Ali Morphew)

Through Jesus’ teaching and life, we can see that He valued women. He took the time to get to know Mary and Martha, comforted and assisted different women in need, spoke with love and honesty to the woman at the well, and after His resurrection revealed Himself to women first. Quite simply, Jesus championed women!

At Jubilee, we are blessed to have a rich history of great women’s ministry. Over many years, women of all ages have prayed and encouraged each other. Some of our closest friendships have been formed through getting to know other women at church. We all know that life is full of highs and lows, however, having God at the heart of it, and having a group of people who can encourage and build us up really makes a difference. We are not meant to do the Christian walk alone. Jesus valued close friendship with others. He valued spending time with a variety of people and choose 12 disciples with whom He would really do life with.

Back in 2018, Pete Benton (a former elder of JCC) challenged us during a Sunday morning service to ‘DREAM BIG’ and to persevere through the waiting and seemingly silent times with God.  There was no focused women’s ministry in the church at that time, but one woman wrote in her journal that day…’I want the women of JCC to know they are loved, accepted and valuable to the church and to God. We could do this through friendship, God’s Word and with the help of the Holy Spirit’.  From this dream, JCC hosted a women’s conference in 2019 entitled ‘Shine’ where we were encouraged to take off our masks and be real with each other and with God. There was a desire to start ‘Jubilee for Women’ fairly swiftly after this, but Covid-19 put a stop to these plans and yet again we waited on God for His timing.

Earlier this year, a small group of us met up to pray to seek God’s heart for the women in our community and the future of women’s ministry at Jubilee.  We used post-it notes and wrote down words and phrases of what we thought women’s ministry could/ should include. We then grouped the notes together and ended up with three main themes: faith and intimacy with God, friendship within our church family and opportunities to serve others in need in our communities.

 

We met with the elders to share our thoughts and received great support and encouragement to continue with our plans. Dan, our lead elder, shared these verses from Romans 12: 12-13 with us and they have stuck in our minds:  ‘Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality’. During the recent week of prayer, we felt God say to us that we were to be rooted and connected in our relationship with Him and with others.

 

Our prayer is for all women to know that they are loved, accepted, supported, uplifted in prayer, encouraged, and equipped in order that they can live in and serve out God’s purposes. Part of our vision is to see women of all ages and stages living the abundant life that Jesus promised, where they are in step with the Holy Spirit and are out-working the great commission given to all believers in Matthew 28 v 19-20.

 

If you are able, please join us at the ladies’ prayer meetings on the 3rd Saturday of each month at 7:30 -8:30am, and we would love to see you at ‘Food and Fellowship- Jubilee for Women’ launch event on Thursday 13 October at 7:30-9.30pm where we will share even more of our vision.

 

More details can be found on ChurchSuite, our website events page and on the flyers in the foyer at church.

You can also click on the events below to book. We’d appreciate you booking a ticket as this helps us know how many we need to cater for.