By Beth Mills, PWOC International President
[W]e were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.
I Thessalonians 2:8
I love it when our family is invited to dinner with new friends. Often when we arrive at their home, everything is already prepared and ready. Although I offer to help serve or clean up, the offer is usually turned down. “You’re our guest,” our friends reply. I leave feeling special and a bit pampered by their kind hospitality. But when I’m allowed in the kitchen with my hands plunged deep into soapy dish water, I know I’ve crossed that tipping point when we move from “guest” to “member of the family”. When I take part in the preparation and clean-up as well as the great dinner and conversation on the couch, I feel like I’ve been given a place in the family, and that’s a home I want to return to again and again.
It kind of reminds me of my first PWOC experience. Our president at the time was masterful at involving women in chapel ministries, helping them to feel that sense of belonging to a family. She rarely had to make a plea from the podium for volunteers. An unsuspecting newcomer in our midst often found herself right in the middle of great conversation as she and others stapled packets of paper, filled goody bags, or decorated tables for a program. Many times I found myself by our president’s side passing out bulletins for our Sunday chapel service, or helping her clean up tables after a Sunday Fellowship Dinner, laughing, talking, and learning. Although I didn’t carry the responsibilities of a “position” in PWOC at the time, I was given a “place.” And I found it was a place where I belonged.
We can make the atmosphere at PWOC a home, where our guests become a member of the family. Let’s invite women to become a part of our lives, a part of the life of the ministry at our installation. If we’ll give women the spur-of-the-moment personal invitation to join us in the task at hand, it communicates that they’re presence is important to us. We value the part they play: lowering the lights and screen for worship time, holding a squirming baby so his momma can listen to the devotion, placing a special favor on each chair prior to opening session. Involving women in chapel ministries gives them a “place” where they’ll want to return to again and again.
