“What New England Women Wish Pastors Knew”

            Do New England pastors really understand the women in their congregation? In 2006, author Denise George and The BCNE Journal conducted a statewide survey asking women what they want their pastor to know about women in the church. According to the survey results, here are the top three findings:

1. New England Baptist women are struggling with exhaustion and need a pastor’s understanding.

Women come to church for many reasons: They love the Lord. They want to support their pastor, his family, and his ministry. They want to see lost people led to Christ, and they want to work hard for God. But today’s Christian woman is tired. New England Baptist women listed exhaustion as their number one issue. Why?

·         Women want their pastors to understand that their attendance and church involvement often come at great personal sacrifice. In order to attend and work at church, a woman will often give up sleep, rest, solitude, and all personally refreshing activities. She might even drive herself to exhaustion in order to accept the jobs a pastor requests of her.

·         Before pastors enlist women for various church jobs, women ask that he will consider all the work she does outside the church walls, including her responsibilities as a wife, mother, care-giver, homemaker, employee and/or employer, etc.

·         If a woman must decline a requested church job, it’s usually because she simply can’t take on one more responsibility.

2. New England Baptist women are struggling with stress and need encouragement from pastors.

·         “There is a huge strain on women today,” writes one woman. “We are balancing careers/children/church and so much more. Many of us struggle with getting to church, and we often have no help from our spouse. I see so many women (especially young mothers) ‘limping’ to church, so worn down and defeated and overwhelmed. We all need encouragement.”

·         Another writes: “Women need balance in their lives. We try to balance home and work, and feel a constant conflict between them. We spend our breaks at work calling for doctors’ appointments, etc. After a full day of work, we come home to another full day of work. Women still carry the burden of most housework. We need time to spend with our husbands and children, and we need time to be alone. We want to work in our church. We need time to spend with God. Please show us, pastor, how to do all we are required to do.”

·         “I feel so overwhelmed!” another writes. “Surely, God never intended for women to wear so many hats, but yet here I am, wearing them all, and I’m totally ‘stressed-out.’”

3. New England Baptist women need scriptural guidance in a secular world.

            Women today feel the strong pull of a secular society. New England women want to stay connected to Christ in a world of distractions.

·         One woman writes: “The number-one problem church women face today is they have bought into the lies of our culture. I believe that too often the church culture doesn’t look much different from the secular culture.”

·         Another admits: “We receive double messages—from society and the church. The Bible is the only place we can get clear answers. But we experience a constant battle every day to stay in God’s will, in a society that doesn’t understand, or care to understand, our walk with God.”

·         “Pastor,” another asks, “Can you teach us how to guide our children spiritually in this God-less world? We need help in our Christian parenting!”

George, who worked many years with her husband in New England for the North American Mission Board, SBC, used survey results from hundreds of women throughout the United States to help her research her new book What Women Wish Pastors Knew.

“Some of the responses I received [through the surveys] surprised me,” George admits. “Some of them even shocked me! I believe church pastors will receive some great insights into the needs of church women today from these candid responses.”

            “My hope is that this book will help pastors better understand and minister to the women in their congregations,” George said.

In most churches today, women make up 60 per cent of the congregation, and there are between 11 million and 13 million more “born again” women than “born again” men in the United States. A recent study by researcher George Barna shows that:

• women are 100% more likely to be involved in discipleship than men;
• 57% more likely to participate in a small Bible study or prayer group than men;
• 46% more likely to disciple others in faith than men;
•  33% more likely to volunteer their time and help to church than are men;
• 29% more likely than men to read the Bible;
• 29% more likely than men to share faith with others;
• 23% more likely to donate to a church than men;
• 16% more likely than men to pray.

 Barna calls women “the backbone of the Christian congregations in America.” 

“One of the characteristics of women that emerges from the research,” Barna writes, “is their high degree of spiritual depth… [and] half of all women (49%) strongly desire to be personally active in a church, compared to just one-third of men (35%).” (Information from: The Barna Group, March 6, 2000, “Women Are the Backbone of the Christian Congregations in America,” from: http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=47, accessed 6/28/05.)

Zondervan is releasing What Women Wish Pastors Knew in February. A member of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, George is the author of 22 books, including Secrets of Soul Gardening, (Zondervan, August 2005), a four-book Bible study series for women.

For more information on Denise George or her book, please visit www.authordenisegeorge.com or email her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

*(Based on an informal 2006 survey among New England church women.)