Women's Ministry: Connecting With Others | Trinity Talks Podcast

Good morning, women of Trinity. I've got Karen and Jordana here with me. They are part of

the Women's Ministry that we have going at Trinity Streetsville. If you're just joining

us, we're going to do a little conversation. We're going to have a little chat in between

our two services with, as I said, Karen and Jordana. They have been involved in some events

and some activities with Women's Ministry. I know that they have some in store as well for us.

I can't wait to find out more about what's in store for us. Thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having us. We have the men of Trinity for the Men's Ministry

join us about a month ago. I've just been counting down the dates that we could have the women

join us. Now I'm really listening. Before we begin, I do have a little game to play with you,

too. I did not tell them about this game. The fear that you see in their eyes is real.

In front of you, ladies, you see some pieces of paper. We're going to start with Karen.

Karen, could you just pick that piece of paper up and point it towards the camera?

You're going to see it, actually, Karen, on the camera. If our amazing tech stuff can turn off

our camera there. Don't look, Karen. Close your eyes. There we go. We've got a camera.

So you know, perfect. They're listening in. So, Jordyna, can you, in one word, try to see if

you can get Karen to guess this person? Now, this is called a women of the Bible guessing game.

So there is a person there that is a woman in the Bible. One word. One word. And then we're

going to see if Karen can guess it. And if she doesn't get this person in that word,

then you can give her another word. This is actually based on the old game show called Password. If

you need to do a hyphenated word, that's all right. Can I tell, can I give a name? Yes,

as long as it's not the name of the person. More than I. Well, I'll be honest. You can see

through the paper. I can see through the paper. Okay. All right. So I would not have got it from

that. But I can see that it's Esther. It's Esther. So Karen can see through the paper. So next time

she's going to close her eyes. Perfect. All right. That's actually, I think my hardest one too. So

next time we're going to have you close your eyes. So no cheating for the next one, Karen.

At least she's honest. Wonderful. That's a good word. I didn't know it. The only one woman associated

with him. Very good. And I think there was a study on the book of Esther with women,

not too long ago. So yeah. So there you go. All right. Jordana, it's your turn. And I'm going

to kindly ask that you close your eyes just in case you can see through the paper as well.

All right. Oh, she's got it with a book behind her. She's very good. All right. There's another

famous woman in the Bible. And I'd like Karen to take a look at that woman. Can you give a word?

Boaz. Oh, Ruth. Well done. All right. These ladies know their Bible. All right. Next word,

Karen. Perfect. It was Ruth. It was Ruth. I'm not sure which person I thought.

There we go. I hope the camera can see that with my tiny writing there.

Mother. Mother. Mary. There you go. Come on. Exactly. Perfect. Jesus is mother. I did have

to put in brackets Jesus is mother because we've got a couple of Mary's that pop up in the Bible,

don't we? All right. And Jordana, you're very last one. Okay. Oh, she's got her book ready to go.

You guys are good. Maybe we should have this game in one of our future women's ministries events.

All right. I'm going to ask you not to use another name. Okay. Just making it a little extra challenging

for her. We can see the word sin. Hmm. Original sin.

All of these are women, right? It's a woman. Okay. Then it's Eve. It's Eve. Absolutely.

Camera can go back on. I was about to say Satan. No, no, no. Sin. That's right. We had to remember

it was famous women in the Bible. So well done. You're very good at that. And you're good sports.

So we're talking about women's ministry and I was wondering if maybe Karen,

you can start us off and Jordana, feel free to jump in. But I'm wondering if you could

define or describe for us what is women's ministry maybe in general,

but then what does it look like here at our church? So women's ministry in general is

providing programs and ways for women to connect through ministry, through friendship, through

learning, through social events, different things like that. So it's yeah. I love that you use

word connect because I know that through different events, that's how we actually get to know one

another within a church. Coming together on a Sunday morning is great, but the connection often

happens outside of the church or outside of the church service, I should say. Yes. So what does

it look like here at Trinity specifically? What can we expect or what do we sort of have going on

at the church? Well, right at the moment, we have a women's Bible study, which Jordana will talk about

in a couple of minutes. So we've had, do Bible studies. We try to provide these as both online

and in-person engagement so that it's available to everyone. We had had some women approach us and

say, well, I don't drive at night. And so with the pandemic taught us that we can do these things

virtually and we can still connect together and learn together. I love that. Yeah. We do,

in the past, we have done retreats where we've gone away for a weekend, like the men are away

this weekend. Right. Yeah. Waiting for our turn. We have done women's days apart, which we'll talk

about a little bit later again. And we do women's breakfast. We've done women's hikes. And we've had

craft events, worship painting and things like that. Excellent. So I hear a lot of diversity in

there. So really something that might reach out to all women. Exactly. All these events, which is

great. It's great. So maybe I'll ask you, Jordana, why did you want to get involved in women's ministry

here at the church? So when I was just about coming back to church a few years ago, I think my only

connection was through the moms group with Jen Cessin. And it was really nice to be able to just

sit with other women and connect and chat. And it was a good place to reconnect with people

at a time when I couldn't necessarily come on a Sunday every day time. So once the pandemic sort

of began to subside, and I was coming to church very regularly, I thought that's a good place to be.

I wanted to connect with other women. I wanted to continue studying the Bible. And there was a need,

I think, for it for that. There was a hunger for it. So that's got me first working with Jen

on an online Bible study. Okay. And then just continuing with that to just see how we can

get people conversing again after the isolation of the pandemic. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And

then so what brought you into wanting to sort of take a leadership role in the women's ministry,

Karen? I was actually part of a women's ministry team back in the 1990s here at Trinity. And it

sort of disbanded. And then as we started having more reason to connect and get back together,

it just seemed like a natural fit for me to come back into that ministry. And there were people

that were interested, but nobody really wanted to lead the team. And so I was happy to do that.

That's wonderful. Yeah. We're really happy to have both of you. I know I'm speaking personally,

I'm very happy to have both of you taking on some of those leadership roles for the women in the

church. Now, I'm going to ask a question. One that I think is sort of challenging, but also sort of

more or less just really interesting in a world where equality is really in the forefront of a

lot of our public conversations and gender equity is a hot topic. And why would we focus on women's

ministry? And we've got men's ministry as well, instead of just people ministry. What do you

think the value of having a women's ministry is? I think women long for a connection in a way that

is different than men. Men have a want to connect in a different way than women do. And so much of

what we do is as couples or as the masses. And through women's ministry, having that connection,

because women have different issues. Like Jordana was saying, she started coming to the

Mums group. And so that was a way to connect with people who were at that same similar stage of life

who also had young children, have young children. And that's a group that's still going. It's not

officially under the women's ministry banner, but in a lot of ways it is part of women's ministry.

Women like to connect and form relationships in different ways than you would as a couple.

And sometimes you need that different type of support than you can get in a men's,

like in a combined ministry. Right. No, I think I completely understand and completely agree.

Do you have anything to add to that, Jordana? Yeah, just from my experience with the Bible

studies, when it's only women getting together, there's just more personal sharing. I just second

what Garen says that when you're comfortable with just other women, there's a baseline of

understanding that does not need to be consistently explained and verbalized. And there's plenty of

small groups where there are men and women throughout the church. So there's plenty to engage in that

is open to everyone. But this is slightly different because it creates that space for personal struggle

or to be verbalized, I think, in a way that might not. If it's another man and not talking about

your partner, I'm just talking about other men, right? Who are more strangers. And so, of course.

So it does create a different dynamic for sharing and connection, I think, than something that is

for both. Absolutely. Now, I'm going to jump ahead in my questions a little bit because I want to

talk about some of the activities that we had last year and then look forward to some of the

activities that we're going to have this coming year, or at least ones that are planned. And let's

start off by talking about something that we had called the Women's Day Apart. Now, some of you who

are watching or listening in may have been a part of this event, but I know, Karen, that you were

one of the organizers of that. And we have a beautiful prop, or I shouldn't say prop. It's a

quilt for those of you who might be listening and can't see it, an absolutely gorgeous quilt

that was made by the women at the Women's Day Apart last year. So can we talk a little bit about

that special day? And maybe as Karen's talking, we might block your face a little bit. But,

Jordyna, we practiced this earlier. Jordyna, if you could help me just hold up the quilt and maybe

Karen can just talk about it. Sure. So the Women's Day Apart last year, what we did, we had a speaker

from by the name of Dr. Wanda Malcolm, who's a professor emeritus of pastoral care at Whitcliffe

College. And she came and led us through a reflective retreat. And this particular, where the quilt

came from, is we read through Mark VI, we read three different versions. And while we read that

slowly and reflectively, the women who were at the Day Apart painted what they heard or what they

felt. Now, and we dubbed it paintings for God's fridge. And truth be told, we did not tell the

women ahead of time that this is what we were going to create. So each woman did their own

painting. And then at the end, we said that we were going to have it made into a quilt. So,

Janet Figaro, she and her daughter actually made this into the quilt. I didn't know that. Yes.

It's beautiful. Yeah. And so this is something that we're hoping will be displayed somewhere in

the church. I love it. And other aspects of that day, we had a movement, a centering movement,

a session we had, a session where people could create Anglican prayer beads. We had a session on

Visio Divina, Electio Divina. And we had a session on spiritual friendships. So when we have the

Women's Days Apart, like we'll have a keynote speaker come who will lead us through some

different sessions. And then we have breakout sessions. Wow. That sounds great. I actually

missed it last year, I remember, but being kind of disappointed that I missed it because it looks

great. What I love about just looking at this quilt, seeing that obviously several, I'm going to

say about 40 women were inspired and by the scripture, the same scripture passage. But I

see how it came to life in so many different ways for these women. And it's that just right there

is a testament to the life that Jesus's word brings into our lives and how it can be experienced

individually. Which is just beautiful then to share that with one another. So yeah,

we'll definitely get that put up in the church somewhere. I think it's great. But we have other

activities coming up this year as well. I've heard some rumblings, but nothing official. So maybe,

Jordy, can you tell us a little bit first of all about the Bible study happening right now? And

then we can talk about what we have in store for the women of Trinity. Yeah, we've just begun a seven

week study going right through the Bible. This is the study guide, if you can see it. It's seamless.

It's called by Angie Smith. And it's a very quick study that goes through just the main

narrative arc of the Bible. It's creation. What are the different ones? It's creation, the patriarchs,

the exodus, the kingdom and the prophets, the messiah, the letters of Paul, and the letters of

Paul move into the final letters as well in Revelation. So you end up just going through a sense of the

story from beginning to end and where we fit in and how it comes alive. So that's a very quick

study. And it's really neat that Rob is doing that kind of a narrative arc through his sermon

series. So we're really glad that it'll intersect that way with what our study is doing. That's

right. We're starting a new sermon series beginning today all on the Bible. We're calling it the

Bible for grownups. And I'm not sure if you had a chance to see that outside in the lobby.

That's Brian, who's one of our church parishioners here, made a Bible out of wood where he actually

has little pieces of wood that represent the different books within the Bible. So it's all

coming together. It's all coming together. Trinity, we are well aligned today. So what else do we

have in store? On May 25th, we have a women's breakfast. And we're really kind of honored and

excited. The men's ministry have approached us about cooking for us and serving for us that day.

Wow. Which is great. It's really cool. And we are looking at what we're going to plan for the fall.

We are going to plan a women's day apart again for later in October. Okay. So mark your calendars.

And then we're looking at maybe doing some hikes and some different things like that.

Excellent. And we're always open to suggestions as well.

All right. So I think what I'm going to do in the links below this when I put this into the

podcast on YouTube is I'll put some of the links to the registrations for those events.

And as well, feel free if you are watching, you're a woman to connect with Karen or with

Jordana or even just info at trinitystreatsville.org. And we will be happy to receive some of your

suggestions or get you connected in with the women's groups. And we're always looking for

new members of the team as well. Okay. Perfect. Now, I'm going to leave us with one of the questions

that I had in here. And that was this is official women's ministry that we're talking about.

But what does informal women's ministry look like here at Trinity? Is women's ministry only,

I guess my question is only within these organized events, or is the goal to empower and to enable

women to continue those connections outside of the organized events? Well, I think there's a

perfect example this morning with Jane and her family being baptized. Yes, congrats, Jane. And

Jane came to Trinity through Alpha and her table leader was Ali. And Ali has continued to mentor her

since Alpha finished and encourage her and and Jen does the same thing through the mom's ministry.

Mm hmm. And, you know, there are connections that are made through whether it they can be made

through life groups. Mm hmm. For example, Elizabeth, you and I are in the same life group,

which is a women's life group. That's right. And there's mentoring that goes on there were and

one of the things that we would really, really love is to get some younger women involved and

attending and reaching out to the younger demographic. So looking for ways that we can do that as well.

Right. Right. Yeah. That's great. Actually, so what we're hearing is sometimes it's through these

organized formal women's ministry, whether it's a Bible study or a day apart, that these connections

are formed, but then they're fostered and they grow outside. So I'm going to leave it there. I just

want to say thank you for joining me. Thank you very much. And I look forward to, I look forward

to the breakfast. I'll tell you that for sure. And again, I'm going to put some links in at the

bottom of the podcast for you. So thank you. And we've got another service to get to.