• Inside Out Keynote Speaker Rebekah Lyon
LEARNING TO MULTIPLY Vicki Smith, Executive Director of Women's Ministries
If you attended the Summit, you heard on numerous occasions that we are one organization with a singular mission. We are one church. We must be clear and remain clear on who we are, how we act, and what we do. Women's Ministries is one part of that church, with each ministry doing what they can do to equip the churches to fulfill the Great Commission. The churches do not exist to support Women's Ministries. We exist to support the local church and the women in those churches regarding missions and making disciples of women. I began to evaluate what we were doing as an organization and if Women's Ministries was doing all they could to inspire and equip. To be the most effective, the organization needed to multiply. For the past two and a half years, I have had the opportunity to serve on the Restructure Task Force. The Council of Associations appointed this task force, and our assignment was to formulate a restructuring plan for the denomination. As we began to work through various models and began to think about our goal, we realized that, in essence, we needed to multiply
24 | General Baptist Messenger Winter 2021
and establish connections across the denomination, thus empowering churches to fulfill the Great Commission. From these conversations came the region director's model. As a result of those conversations and that plan, it was precisely what Women's Ministries needed to do. We needed to multiply to equip our women's groups and churches to fulfill the Great Commission, pouring into the church or, in this case, the General Baptist movement. On January 1 of this year, Women's Ministries implemented a region plan. The plan is designed to complement the Restructure Task Force. It only made sense to pattern our plan after the RTF plan. Women and the churches would be familiar with the idea. It would be an easy transfer of organization, and it would be a good indicator of how successful the region plan would be for the denomination. One of my goals, when I became director of Women's Ministries, was to make myself more visible in the churches and among the groups. I soon learned that this was an overwhelming task. The required amount
