Widows’ Might
In her high-pitched, staccato voice, Martha said, “Pastor, I did something that makes me very scared. I drove through the park and hit one of those birds. Someone told me I would be fined $1,000 for killing a bird, so I hid it.”
“Where did you hide the bird?”
“I picked the feathers off and cooked it for a long time,” she said, grinning. “I ate it for a week. It was two times bigger than a duck.”
Martha is a Vietnamese refugee who, with her two-year-old son, had been resettled in our town. She became a Christian and joined our church. Our conversation about the bird led to the discovery that her menu often consisted of road-kill: rabbits, ducks, even a deer that she hauled home, butchered and put into her small freezer. She was attempting to live on wages of $2.25 an hour as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant.
Martha is also a widow, but because she was new to our church and because of the language barrier, our church members did not fully understand she was destitute. But God used her plight to raise our consciousness of other widows in need.
Statistics say 85 percent of the married women in the United States can expect to be widowed in their lifetime for an average of 18 years. As government programs are cut and baby-boomers approach the median age of widowhood (56 years old), the contemporary church must renew its commitment to widows.
Ministry to widows goes beyond grief management to provide assistance and resources long after the hearse drives away.
Like a low-grade headache, loneliness pounds away at a widow. Some say they hear their husbands’ voices. Others continue to set a plate for him at the dinner table.
“When the doctor phoned to say Sam had died,” said one woman, “I felt as though I had been given a massive dose of emotional novocaine.” Another admitted she would take her husband’s pajamas to bed so she could simply savor the smell of his body.
“We discovered that Sunday afternoon is one of the loneliest times of the week for many widows,” says Judi Stewart, director of ministry at Hinson Memorial Baptist Church in Portland, Oregon. “So our church took its cue from that statement and scheduled a meeting on the last Sunday of each month from 3:00 to 5:00 P.M. The two-hour session is divided into thirty-minute increments beginning with Bible study.”
The women then participate in small group discussion. One widow testified that the talk was therapeutic.
“My family and friends think it is upsetting for me to talk about my late husband,” she said, “but I want to talk about our life together, the births of our children, our cruises, and our dreams for retirement. No one wanted to listen to me until I came to this meeting.”
Guest speakers, videos, panel discussions, or other features fill the next thirty minutes. A police officer once addressed the subject of security. “Pepper mace is one of the most effective ways to defend yourself at home or away,” he advised. So at the close of that meeting, four cases of pepper mace were ordered.
The final segment is fellowship, which includes refreshments. (Martha’s egg rolls are a favorite now that everyone knows she no longer uses roadside ingredients.)
Several concerns are unique to this ministry. First, some widows do not drive or feel comfortable going out after dark. So our group developed a network of drivers to provide transportation. A volunteer also drives the church van to pick up any who may not have a friend nearby.
A second concern is leadership. The most effective person to minister to widows is another widow. Since our ministry is new, I am currently providing the leadership but hope to pass it along when we have a qualified person. A church volunteer calls each widow the week before the meeting to remind her of the date and make sure refreshments are planned.
The third consideration is related to outreach. Most women do not like to be labeled a “widow.” The younger the woman, the less she likes the term. To this point, however, we have called the group our “Widows’ Might Ministry” because it’s clear whom the group is for. New people come because friends in the group have encouraged them to join when they are ready. Perhaps we’ll find a better term.
The group has several projects in the works. One is a listing similar to the yellow pages that will inform them of reputable mechanics, carpenters, electricians, attorneys, physicians, and insurance agents. The other project is a lobbying effort for property tax relief for widows who own their own homes.
-Wesley Teterud, pastor, Emmanual Bible Church, Great Falls, Montana
Church Stories That Make the Media
As a former reporter who daily culled hundreds of press releases, I found that most organizations don’t write good press releases. They know little about what interests the media and the public.
One pastor took to the newspaper a story of an upcoming dinner at his church-with an exhaustive list of helpers. The editor told him, “This is not newsworthy. We’ll announce the date in our religion column, but we won’t print the whole story.”
“If I climb on top of the church to eat my dinner,” the pastor said testily, “would that be newsworthy?”
“Only if you fall off,” the editor replied.
Press releases must be designed to catch an editor’s attention in the first paragraph; it competes with hundreds of others. If the first paragraph is interesting, the editor will read further and assign a reporter to the story.
Once a reporter is interested, he or she will want to interview those who know all the facts. The church staff should be notified a story is being reported and be prepared to cooperate.
Stories appearing on the feature page of a newspaper generate more interest and reach a more diversified audience than those on the religion page. To generate a feature story, find the unusual person or event.
Here are some stories that made it to the feature page of the newspaper.
A member of a local church headed her own toy manufacturing company in spite of her physical handicaps. The story included how her faith had helped her overcome the obstacles.
The new pastor of a black church in a low-income district had previously been on the city council in a wealthy, all-white city. Why had he made the move?
The pastor of one congregation collected used hearing aids for people who couldn’t afford them. Two stories came out of this effort. One told of gathering the hearing aids, and another gave tips the pastor had for making words more understandable to the hearing impaired.
One minister’s wife is an artist who paints murals for churches and local businesses. The newspaper article included photographs of her work.
The guest speaker at a local church had once been a stand-up comedian and had worked with other well-known comedians. That story generated an overflow crowd for the services at which he spoke.
Such stories interest the newspaper staff, move readers past the usual weekly church announcements, and let the community know about real people and how faith affects their lives.
-Rita Robinson, Lake Elsinore, California
Visibility for Sale
Grace Christian Fellowship, a small church in a residential area of Flint, Michigan, increased its city-wide visibility by sponsoring a well-organized neighborhood rummage sale.
“We knew from the success of other neighborhood sales in our area,” says Pastor Joseph Showalter, “that we could expect hundreds of shoppers if we had a sufficient number of sales in one neighborhood.” So the church chose May 30 for the sale and invited their neighbors to hold their own sales on the same day.
In late February church volunteers stuck flyers in neighbors’ doors announcing plans for a sale. In April and May, other flyers invited residents to register their sale on the same day as the church sale. Seventy-five neighbors registered sales and were invited to provide lists of sale items they would offer.
The church then paid for newspaper ads announcing the sales and telling shoppers to pick up a map of all sale locations and the lists of merchandise at the church rummage sale.
In spite of rain on sale day, a steady stream of visitors arrived at the church and continued into the neighborhood. Many residents, seeing the traffic, set up their own impromptu sales.
The church benefited by having more people at their own sale and gained valuable visibility. “We’ve received many words of thanks from our neighbors and encouragement to do it again,” says Pastor Showalter. “We even made some money. We couldn’t have asked for a more inoffensive and cost-effective method for getting to know our neighbors better, and we will do it again!”
The Un-sale
After hearing a series of sermons on living simpler lives, the congregation at Barre (Vermont) Evangelical Free Church decided to do something useful with all the things they owned but weren’t really using. They decided to give away their overflow at an “un-sale.” There was a single rule: take whatever you want, but only if you will actually use it yourself. Everything was to be given away.
The response was overwhelming. So many items came in that there was barely room to walk through the sale area, which was divided into clothes and nonclothes. One family donated a dining room set. Several brought odd pieces of furniture and appliances.
The un-sale opened to church families from 9:00 to 11:30 A.M. and to the general public thereafter. Each arriving customer received a notice stating that items were free but were to be taken only for personal use. Because they’d been encouraged to scale down, church families took less than 5 percent of the stock. Some took items they had originally planned to purchase new.
Every nonclothing item was given away, and 85 percent of the clothing was gone by 3:00 P.M. Remaining clothing was donated to an agency for shipment to Peru or given to needy people in the local community.
“It was a great opportunity for good press outside of the church page,” says Pastor Neal Laybourne. “We served nonchurched individuals and helped free Christians from their bondage to possessions-both at the same time.”
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