What Widows and Single Moms Need from the Church

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Widows and single moms are often the last to receive significant ministry in the church. But in the New Testament, they were the first. How should the modern church go about serving the widows and single moms in its midst? Here are some suggestions:

Widows and single moms need spiritual input and fellowship with other believers.

The first thing widows and single moms need from the church is also the most obvious: they need biblical teaching, they need to worship, and they need fellowship opportunities with other believers.

Most churches do this very well. But the problem is that most churches think this is all widows and single moms need from the church. They think that if their widows and single moms are showing up on Sunday morning on a weekly basis, then they must be doing okay.

But if providing significant worship and fellowship for widows and single moms is all it does, the church is falling woefully short. Widows and single moms need much, much more from the church than this.

Let me illustrate.

Suppose I was the pastor of a church where my widowed mother was also a member and someone asked me how my mother was doing and I said, “Well, I think she’s doing okay. I see her here at church every Sunday and we chat for a few minutes.”

I’m thinking your response would probably be, “What do you mean you see her here at church every Sunday? Are you telling me you don’t visit her at home; that you’re not spending time with her outside of church?”

You would think I was grossly negligent, wouldn’t you?

But this is the way it is with all widows and single moms in the church. They all need more than just spiritual input and fellowship at church.

Widows and single moms need projects done for them.

Many churches realize that widows and single moms need more than just spiritual input and fellowship from the church so they try to address the problem by doing project ministry for them. Sometimes the church will do a skills inventory of its men and then, when a need arises, they’ll send out a guy with the appropriate skill to meet the need.

Project ministry like this is good as far as it goes. But again, widows and single moms need much more than project ministry from the church.

Widows and single moms need loving relationships from the church.

One way to answer the question, “What do widows and single moms need from the church?” is to ask another question, “What have widows and single moms lost?” What they have lost is a loving relationship. So what widows and single moms need from the church is relational ministry, not just project ministry.

Widows and single moms need to be loved with the love of Christ.

Enter the love of Christ! What every church needs to understand is that the widows and single moms in its midst are an opportunity for the church to explore and then practice the profound nature of the love of Christ and how different it is from the world’s concept of love.

So what does it look like for the church to love its widows and single moms with the love of Christ?

Widows and single moms need people in the church who know and understand them.

I talk a lot about the Incarnation when I train men to serve widows and single moms. The reason is because in the Incarnation God is identifying with us, with the result that there is increased communication and understanding.

Because of the Incarnation, God knows by experience what it’s like to be a human being. On our part, we see God’s glory and love in a way we had never seen it before.

The first step, then, in loving someone with the love of God, with the love of Christ, is to identify with them so that we come to know and understand them. All widows and single moms need this. They need someone in the church who knows them extremely well.

Widows and single moms need people in the church who are committed to them.

Also in the Incarnation, God commits to us. He becomes a human being, not temporarily, but for all of eternity. He never quits the human race. The result is that his love for us never ceases.

In the same way, widows and single moms need commitment from the church. They need to know that the church will never turn its back on them, that it will always be there for them.

Widows and single moms need people in the church who will guarantee their well being.

The love of Christ is so radical that it says, “If you have a need you cannot meet, I will find a way to meet it.” That is how Christ loved us. We had a need we couldn’t meet-a debt to be paid-and Jesus Christ paid it on the cross. And now he commands us to love each other the same way.

When widows and single moms experience that kind of love, the church will be effectively ministering to their needs. And when it does – when the church loves the most vulnerable within it with the love of Christ – if will be fulfilling its highest calling.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

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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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