Where are we going women of Willow Crystal Lake?

I have been leading the women’s ministry at Willow Creek Community Church, Crystal Lake campus for 7 months now. We created a Women’s Ministry Leadership team and have been working on mission, target, values, and now vision. I recently had “a moment” during one of our meetings. For now, I won’t go into why I had the “moment” or what the exact details of the “moment” were. Suffice it to say, it was unsettling and caused me to question again,

“What am I doing here? Why are we doing this? Where are we going? Is this the right direction?”

As I lay in bed after the meeting trying to go to sleep that particular night, God gave me these words to describe some of my hopes for us, as women of Willow Crystal Lake~

Gospel women
Intimate-with-Jesus women
Changed women
Women who feed on Jesus’ words
Women who would open up that chair in a split second
Women who are willing to go deep with each other
Women who are not afraid of deep and uncomfortable
Women who know it’s ok not to know
Women who make other women feel safe
Women who are ok with the mess
Women who are willing to be inconvenienced
Women who are going out to the margins
Women who want more for their lives, their kids or their families than to be safe, to do the American thing
Women who depend on the grace of God like nobody’s business
Women who know their standing with a holy, loving God
Women who say yes to the things of God
Women who give their lives away
Women who take care of themselves
Women who cheer each other on
Women who share their story
Women who welcome others in
Women who are marked with the imprint of Jesus
Women who are compelled to go

I needed this reminder of the “grander vision.” We are still in process of crafting the mission, target, values, and vision for the Women’s Ministry at Willow Crystal Lake. But one thing is sure, we are on our way.