As a mom, there have been many times over the years when I have felt overwhelmed, overworked, anxious, and downright discouraged. Actually, mothers everywhere share these feelings.
Parenting children is a demanding job. But moms often feel insufficient to the various tasks of rearing children, managing the home, and being the kind of wife they desire to be. It doesn’t make it any easier that moms often feel underappreciated, unacknowledged, and unseen while trying to fulfill these roles.
I recently met a young lady who had just found out she was expecting her first child. She expressed how unprepared and even frightened she felt. I couldn’t help but think of when I discovered I was expecting our first. Mixed into the joy and excitement of a new life, threads of fear and doubt made their way into my heart.
The good news is that whether it’s a first-time mom with questions about pregnancy and keeping a newborn alive or a mom of several teenagers trying to navigate parenting while juggling multiple personal roles and schedules, God’s Word makes provision for an important lifeline of help to moms:
“The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed” (Titus 2:3–5).
This principle of mature Christian women teaching younger women has been the mission of the Godly Mom Club’s quarterly meetings since they began more than ten years ago at Lancaster Baptist Church. (Our group was originally called HOME—Helping Our Mothers Excel.) These meetings are a wonderful time of connection for both young moms and women whose children are grown. Everyone from a brand-new convert to a seasoned Christian can attend and learn from ladies who have many years of experience raising children in a godly home.
So what do we do at a meeting? Here is our sequence from our most recent meeting:
Welcome and prayer: We opened the meeting welcoming all who came and explaining its purpose for all who came for the first time.
Dinner: We served a light dinner of homemade pasta with chicken and brownies for dessert. Other times we have done soup and salad. What you serve doesn’t really matter if you are enjoying it with friends. (Also, this aspect of the meeting is a great way to involve ladies who would love to invest in younger women in the church. You could ask a few older ladies to bring a crockpot of a particular dish or a specific dessert, coordinating the meal as a group effort.)
Game during dinner: We played a group ice breaker game, “Roll the Dice,” at each table to encourage conversation. The dice was passed around the table, and each woman rolled. The numbers were randomly assigned to particular topics from favorite family activities, to impactful verses, to fun memories.
Practical parenting tips: After dinner, our daughter Danielle shared practical tips on “Encouraging Personal Responsibility.” She focused especially on involving children in household chores in age-appropriate ways. This segment of our meeting is 5–10 minutes and has had many different tips over the years on everything from Home Décor to Teaching Children Honesty. There are many women within a church family who have raised godly children who would have good input on practical tips if asked.
Bible lesson: The speaker for our most recent meeting, April Jessup, shared an acrostic of the word godly and, using relevant Scripture passages, pointed moms to the relevance of their own walk with God in motherhood as well as giving practical ways to strengthen their walk with God.
Closing prayer: We invited ladies to share their prayer requests with one another and pray together at their tables before I closed the meeting in a time of prayer. Those who could lingered after for fellowship.
These meetings and the relationships formed through them provide encouragement, instruction, and fellowship—invaluable assets to the local church.