This post is part of a series entitled, “A Comprehensive Church-Based Widows Ministry“.
Widows ministry is not just one ministry among the many possible ministries churches can do. Rather, it is an extremely important ministry that has many distinctive characteristics.
- Widows ministry is a mandated ministry. Mandated ministries are ministries that the word of God explicitly commands the church to do, like preaching and discipleship. Widows ministry is one of those ministries (Acts 6, 1 Timothy 5).
- Widows and widows ministry are extensively treated biblical topics. Dozens of biblical passages discuss God’s heart for widows and how we are to minister to widows.
- Widows ministry is a custodial ministry. By custodial ministry, I mean a ministry that is ultimately responsible for guaranteeing the physical well-being of widows (like Ruth did for Orpah in Ruth 1), as opposed, for example, to children’s ministry or youth ministry where the custodial responsibilities belong to the parents (1 Timothy 5:16).
- Widows ministry has its own uniquely ordained and highly qualified Deacons. “…And when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them” (Acts 6:1-6; 1 Timothy 3:8-13).
- Widows ministry has existed since the beginning of the church. “There were no needy ones among them” (Acts 4:34). Sunday School, Small Groups and Youth Ministries are much more recent ministries.
- Widows ministry is a measure of a church’s spiritual health. A spiritually mature church is a church that, filled with the love of Christ, sacrifices for its own (1 John 3:16-18).
- Widows ministry has evangelistic implications. Immediately after the ordination of Deacons to serve their widows, Acts 6:7 tells us, “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.”
- Widows ministry is the one ministry most often ignored by the modern church. Unfortunately, this omission is also something that distinguishes widows ministry from other ministries.
Without an understanding of the importance of a widows ministry, your church will not be able to address their needs appropriately.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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