For guidance on choosing the right curriculum for your context, see our children’s ministry curriculum guide for small churches.

For a realistic system for building reading habits as a busy pastor, see our pastoral reading habits guide.

For a complete guide to developing your worship team, see our worship team training guide for small churches.

For practical guidance on building community partnerships, see our rural church community partnerships guide.

For a practical guide to building Titus 2 mentoring relationships, see our Titus 2 mentoring guide for small churches.

By Brent Lacy

In most small churches, women do the majority of the ministry work. They teach Sunday school, lead women’s Bible studies, organize benevolence, coordinate VBS, run the nursery, and serve in a dozen other ways. They are the backbone of the congregation.

And yet many of these same women feel unseen, undervalued, and uncertain about where they fit in the church’s leadership structure.

This is a problem worth addressing. Not because of cultural pressure, but because the church is losing the gifts of half its congregation.

Starting with Theological Clarity

Churches hold different convictions about the roles of women in ministry leadership, and those convictions are rooted in sincere readings of Scripture. This guide is not going to resolve that debate. What it will do is help churches of any conviction develop and deploy the gifts of women more effectively within their theological framework.

Whatever your church’s position on women in pastoral leadership, there is almost certainly more room to develop and deploy women’s gifts than you are currently using. The question is not whether women should lead. It is where and how.

Where Women Lead in Most Small Churches

Regardless of theological position, most small churches have significant opportunities for women to lead in these areas:

• Women’s ministry leadership. Leading Bible studies, mentoring programs, and women’s events.
• Children’s and youth ministry. Teaching, leading, and developing curriculum for children and youth.
• Hospitality and care ministry. Organizing benevolence, meal trains, and pastoral care for congregation members.
• Administrative leadership. Managing church communications, finances, and operations.
• Worship leadership. Leading music, directing choirs, and coordinating worship arts.
• Outreach and missions. Leading community service initiatives and missions partnerships.
• Small group leadership. Leading mixed or women’s small groups.

Developing Women’s Leadership

Identify women with leadership gifts

Look for women who are already leading informally. The woman who organizes everyone else. The woman who people go to for advice. The woman who sees a need and fills it without being asked. These are the women with leadership gifts.

Name their gifts specifically

Many women with significant leadership gifts have never been told they have them. A pastor who says “I have noticed that you have a gift for organizing people and getting things done. I want to help you develop that gift and use it in the church” is giving a woman something she may have never received: specific, named affirmation of her gifts.

Give them real responsibility

The fastest way to develop a leader is to give them real responsibility with real accountability. Not a committee seat. A ministry to lead. A problem to solve. A team to build. Women who are given real responsibility and supported in it will grow faster than women who are given token roles.

Creating a Culture Where Women’s Gifts Are Valued

Culture is set from the top. If the pastor values women’s gifts and says so publicly, the congregation will follow. If the pastor only calls on men for visible leadership roles, the congregation will conclude that women’s gifts are less important.

Practical ways to build a culture that values women’s gifts:

• Recognize women’s ministry contributions publicly and specifically from the pulpit
• Include women in planning conversations, not just execution
• Ask women what they need to lead well, and provide it
• Celebrate women who are developing other women
• Make sure women’s ministry has adequate budget and resources

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