SIDE BY SIDE
Out of Isolation, Into Community Susan Zimmerman
If, as the old cliché goes, motherhood is right up there with apple pie, then being a mom must be as sweet as America’s iconic dessert. Motherhood can be a wonderful and deeply satisfying experience, especially for the believer who desires to shape young lives to love and follow Jesus. But, being a mom, especially of babies and young children, can also be enormously challenging and isolating. Here’s how a few College Church moms, both experienced and younger, describe how motherhood felt initially: “Being a mom to young kids was a very hard season for me.” “I felt very isolated the first few months and had no mom friends.” “I have found this time of life to be quite isolating.” A VISION FOR MOM COMMUNITY IN THE CHURCH While these comments don’t reflect the overall experience of all mothers, every mom needs connection and community. The desire to meet such needs by bringing moms into community within the embrace of the local church was part of what led one mom to launch Mom to Mom (M2M) at College Church in the fall of 2014. Janet Click (former College Church member who has since moved to the Madison, WI area) had long felt God planting “the seeds of a mom’s ministry in my heart.” Janet saw a vision for a ministry that would be more than simply a place for young moms to meet and share their common experience. Because, as one young mom explains, play dates and outings at the park, helpful as those can be, frequently turn into “so many potty-training conversations!” Moms want more. Jesus wants more for them. Janet adopted Hebrews 10:23–25 when she proposed the ministry to College Church: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Looking back on how M2M came to be, Janet says, “Through too many miracles to name, M2M was born at College Church, a ministry with a mission to reach young moms for Christ and equip them in their God-given roles for ministry.”
14
MENTORS ARE KEY M2M started with a simple structure, one that has been largely retained since 2014 (though has been adapted to evening meetings during the pandemic): once-monthly Monday morning meetings at church where moms bring their little ones, oncemonthly open gym times in the Commons gym and occasional “Mom’s Night Out” gatherings for presentations, panel discussions, group table times and fellowship. During 2014, M2M averaged about 20 moms each with one or more children, and by the beginning of 2018, the meetings were averaging 35-40 moms and 55-65 kids. Significantly, according to Janet, the attendance shifted from core College Church moms to some College Church moms plus some moms new to the church, some moms from other churches and some moms who did not go to church at all. “It became a good landing spot,” says Janet. Why? From the start, M2M incorporated a key component missing from many other young mom communities: experienced moms who commit to being mentors and to walking alongside the younger women in the shared journey of motherhood from a biblical perspective. College Church director of women’s ministries Mindy Rynbrandt describes the mentoring role this way: “As directed in Titus 2:3-4 [“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior. . . .and so train the young women to love their husbands and children”], it is a joy to see more seasoned Christian moms caring for and investing in young moms who are earlier on their motherhood journey.” Mindy continues, “Using the shared experience of motherhood, and agreeing on the common desire to be faithful followers of Jesus in their motherhood, I see mentors and moms mutually blessed in relationship. In our society when families tend to be more geographically spread out, it is beautiful to see the family of God functioning as a true family.” WHY MENTORS VOLUNTEER Shelly Wildman was inspired to be a mentor (and a co-leader with Janet and now a lay leader of the ministry) because when she was a young mom, “I desperately wanted a mentor. I had noticed a woman at church who I really would have liked to meet with, but I never had the courage to ask her. Then, one day, she moved away. I had lost my chance. It would have been
