A ladies’ day should be a spiritual encouragement to the women of your congregation. That responsibility takes intentionality! Here are some tips, theme ideas, and other encouraging words you can use when planning your next ladies’ day.
When I became a Christian almost 10 years ago, I truly didn’t realize how much I would need fellowship. Fellowship with faithful brethren encourages me, encourages our growth as a church family, and draws us all closer to God!
If you’re considering ways to strengthen the sisterhood within your church, consider hosting a ladies’ day! Our annual ladies’ day was resurrected a few years ago for one reason – to encourage fellowship!
As it has grown and morphed over the years, we have been able to employ the talents of so many women within our congregation and encourage all who come.
You will be blessed to add a Christ-centered ladies’ day to your annual church events.
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How to Plan a Church Ladies Day – FREE GUIDE
Why plan a ladies’ day?
I love a great Bible study. As Christians, knowing God’s Word should be our utmost priority. Because without that knowledge, we won’t know how to discern evil from good (1 Peter), know God, and live righteously for God (Ephesians 4:24).
But in addition to understanding God’s Word, we can attend Bible classes, enriching seminars, annual lectureships, and ladies’ days. Special events like ladies’ days allow us to keep our minds centered on Christ, but enjoy the fellowship, decor, and sisterhood that also come with being a Christian.
Ladies’ days are also a wonderful way to highlight the Scriptural knowledge of the women within your congregation. If you decide to outsource your speaker, it’s a wonderful way to fellowship with women from other congregations! Begin mining your area. You may be surprised at what talent and encouragement you can find!
Finally, a ladies’ day impacts women of all ages. A young girl may be a wonderful song leader. An older woman may have an eye for decorating. A ladies’ day can bring together the talents of all of the women within your congregation.
You may also find a ladies’ day theme that speaks to women young and old. How encouraging! Pray that your theme will unite women across age groups, congregations, and walks of life.
Why trust my advice?
In past years, I’ve been a part of the planning process for three ladies’ days. Two of which I was solely responsible for with a co-organizer.
One year we had more than 100 women attend. The following year we had 90 women attend.
In both years, we found a framework that ironed out a lot of the kinks that come with planning a ladies’ day. We found graceful ways to deal with problems, questions to ask when selecting guest speakers, and how to organize a team that would promise the event’s success.
Even with all of the technical talk behind Ladies’ Day, my goal has always been to point people to Christ.
I pray fervently about these events. From who will come to how we’re spending our budget. I pray all we do is for the glory of God.
You aren’t going to find a way to host the most popular women’s conference for your geographical region for this post.
You’re going to find practical ways to serve the needs of the women who need you most.
I pray that you can use them to reach the women you know and love like I have.
How to Plan a Church Ladies’ Day
If you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you know how much I love organization and intentionality. An organized home is a happy home.
A ladies’ day is no different. I believe a ladies’ day should be well thought out and that should be seen across the board.
Pray
If your goal is to show off your church building, don’t do a ladies’ day. If you intend to showcase your faith experiences and how strong you were through them, don’t host a ladies’ day.
A ladies’ day should point women to Christ and how He is our ultimate source of peace, joy, and love. A ladies’ day should provide Biblical answers to worldly problems.
In sum – spiritual growth is the goal for a ladies’ day.
So start your planning process by praying about your intentions. Pray for unity. Pray for Biblical accuracy. Pray for soft hearts.
Prayer is where we start when we plan our ladies’ days.
Decide on a Theme
A theme is a great way to center your thoughts. There are so many moving parts to a ladies’ day!
Food, decor, prayers, songs, Scripture readings, and a lesson. Whew!
Centralize the day on a key verse or idea to give the day a sense of direction. When you do this, you also can see how everything is going to link back to Christ. Because that’s the goal!
Choose a Speaker
A speaker may be a woman from within your congregation. Or you may decide to choose a guest speaker.
Our ladies’ days have been a mix of the two. Our guest speakers have been recommended by women in our congregation and vetted by the chief ladies’ day organizers as well as our eldership.
I can’t stress how important it is to vet your guest speaker! If the point of your ladies’ day is to point women to Christ, you better be sure your guest speaker will do that!
Here are a few questions to ask a potential speaker:
- When did you become a Christian?
- When faced with a trial in your life, how did you handle it?
- What do you think about this year’s theme?
- (If you haven’t selected a theme) – What are two or three topics you would like to speak on this year? Why did you select those topics?
- Do you offer an invitation?
- What are your associated expenses for speaking?
- Do you have experience speaking at other ladies’ days? Do you have recordings of those so we can listen to them?
You may think that list is extensive or even personal. But I can’t stress this to you enough. These are the hearts of your church family you’re trying to reach! Be very picky about who you let speak to them!
Gather Your Volunteers
We average 100 women on our ladies’ days. Our goals are always to reach more and more women each year. But to do that, we need women who are willing to put their skills to work!
Therefore, we appoint what we call “group leaders” or “team leaders.” These are women who have special talents like an eye for decorating, or an ability to work quickly and get food on the table promptly.
These women are responsible for recruiting helpers and organizing their part of the ladies’ day.
As a “chief” ladies’ day organizer, your job is to delegate, not dictate. If you find yourself with nothing to do come ladies’ day, it’s because you’ve done what you’re supposed to do!
Other group leaders to consider are:
- Decorations
- Food
- Registration
- Skit
- Clean up crew
Tip – request a list of volunteers from your group leaders and take a moment to glance over who those volunteers are. You may find a group member has signed up to help in multiple areas. We want to make sure this sister has a moment to enjoy the day, too! Bring this group member to the attention of your group leaders and make sure your sister isn’t overworking herself.
Since these women play such significant roles in how our ladies’ days turn out, we always ask them for their feedback after the event. We also create special goodie bags for them, just to say thank you!
Anticipate Following Up
How are you going to deal with prayer requests or Bible study requests that come your way? Prepare for them!
One way to prepare for follow-up requests is to organize ahead of time. On our registration tables, we like to leave bags to accept prayer requests. If we have prayer requests, we present those at our next ladies’ Bible class and assign women to either send cards, follow up, call, or pray specifically about those requests.
If someone should respond to a call to be baptized for the remission of their sins, we have women in place who are ready to facilitate that call.
Lord willing, someone will hear something and want to know more! Are you ready to lead a Bible study to answer those questions? Bible studies are such a wonderful fruit from something like a ladies’ day! Keep the learning going!
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A Sample Ladies’ Day Schedule
I am including time stamps on this sample schedule, but please feel free to disregard them. I tell the women involved in planning our ladies’ days that times are soft guidelines, not hard and fast rules.
This is also a longer version of a ladies’ day. For a shorter ladies’ day, feel free to forego the second lesson. Say your goodbyes after your skit and icebreaker!
8:30 am – Registration
9 am – Welcome
9:15 -9:25 am – Song and Prayer
9:25 – 10 am – Lesson 1
10 am – Brunch
11:30 am – Skit/Group activity/Icebreaker
12 pm – 12:35 pm – Lesson 2
12:35 pm – 12:45 pm – Song and Prayer
12:45 pm – Closing Thoughts
1 pm – Final Song and Prayer
Tip – our brunches have been potluck-style dishes brought by women of our congregation. By no means do you have to go that big. Finger foods and a light coffee bar work just as well!
We have done a few different variations of an activity to break up the day.
Our skits are by far our most popular “event.” One year our theme was “Clothed in Dignity.” So the skit was a fashion show.
Another year our theme was “The Power of Words – Both Good and Bad.” So the skit for the year was Family Feud.
Based on your theme, there are a variety of activities you could choose from. Skits and activities aren’t necessary parts of a ladies’ day. But they sure are fun!
Another year we utilized breakout groups to piece together verses that related to our theme. This doubled as our icebreaker and was a great way to get women from other congregations familiar with the women of our congregation.
There’s a better way to plan your ladies’ day…
We didn’t even talk about budgeting, how to delegate instead of dictate, or dealing with problems when they arise. Luckily, that’s all in my FREE ladies’ day planning guide!
I want you to be able to plan your ladies’ day with confidence. And point women to Christ!
Drop your email in the box below and I’ll send my FREE guide right over!
Small Details of a Ladies’ Day
As we work to make this an event that will point women to Christ, we also want it to run as smoothly as possible. And the success of a smooth ladies’ day is always in the small details!
Avoid Bottlenecks
Our registration table and brunch table always prove to be problem areas for us. But bathrooms and classrooms can cause the same issues!
We aim to avoid all bottlenecks during our ladies’ days. Try and foresee bottlenecks at your own ladies’ day!
This may mean you encourage women to use both bathrooms if you have two in your church building. Or maybe you redirect women to form a more organized line for brunch so traffic can flow freely.
Don’t Forget to Decorate Sitting Areas and Podiums
A bouquet or a small sign with your key theme verse are great things to include in sitting areas, bathrooms, or to decorate the speaker’s podium.
Don’t miss an opportunity to make someone feel at home!
Goodie Bags
Goodie bags can be hit or miss for ladies’ days. When you include staples like pens, breath mints, chocolates, and some sort of Scripture, they’re very encouraging.
However, they can also be costly. Be a Proverbs 31 woman and consider your field. Goodie bags may not be the way to go for your lady’s day!
Door Prizes
Door prizes are not a necessity. But they are a fun way to include some friendly competition in your ladies’ day!
Our door prizes are usually numbers drawn during brunch that are associated with numbered name tags. We number our name tags, encourage our ladies to use a name tag, and announce our door prizes during ladies’ day.
You could also do door prizes for winners of an icebreaker activity.
For our door prizes, we draw on the talents of the women in our congregation. Hand-sewn gifts, gift certificates to businesses women own, and goods grown or curated by women are always included. There are so many creative ways to highlight the many talents we have among us!
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Other Ways to Meet Unique Needs
You can’t anticipate everything. But there are a few ways you can show the women in attendance you went the extra mile.
Provide tissues on church pews
Offer discussion questions
Include other ladies’ days in your announcements or in your event program
Include a notes section in your program
Remind those in attendance of our common goal – exhort Christ!
How Do You Measure the Success of a Ladies’ Day?
I’m not sure there are measurable metrics for the success of a ladies’ day.
Sure, you can monitor attendance, social media shares, and things like that. But you never know what someone may be struggling with when they enter the doors of your church building.
And you never know what they may take with them when they leave!
That’s why prayer is so important from the get-go. Pray that the women attending your ladies’ day will see Christ and want to live for Him when they leave!
Finally, you may not see the fruits of your labor for some time, if at all.
We received a prayer request for another congregation that had dwindling attendance. Despite their best efforts to reach out to the community, nothing was working.
After we received that prayer request at ladies’ day, we made the request known to our own ladies’ Bible class and began praying for the congregation.
Several months later they hosted a Vacation Bible School. It was their biggest one yet! They were also able to attract members of their community who had never attended a church before. How encouraging!
Don’t forget the power of prayer! Keep praying and inviting, even though you aren’t seeing the fruits of your labor.
Other Women’s Ministry Events
Our church doesn’t have a women’s ministry. We simply have women who see the need to serve the women in our congregation and the people in our community.
Here are a few ways we can encourage each other and grow together while focusing our sights on God.
Women’s Retreat
A women’s retreat is a great way for Christian women to come together and have great food, fun activities, and enriching fellowship.
A retreat could be a day or a weekend away. Again – keep your focus on Christ!
Ladies Bible Class
Our ladies’ Bible class used to be during the week, but attendance was few. So we switched it to Saturday morning. What do you know?! Attendance skyrocketed!
Cards and Encouragement Baskets
Our cards and encouragement baskets could be categorized as service projects, although we don’t treat them that way.
We simply keep a list of needs of the women in our congregation in mind and act on their needs as they come up.
For example, for our shut-ins and ill, we organized baskets with blankets, fruits, chocolates, and cards.
TIP – don’t be afraid to move something around if it isn’t working! If you’re organizing encouragement baskets but aren’t hearing great feedback, consider gifting the responsibility to someone else.
Craft Nights
The ladies of our congregation love getting together to decorate signs, paint pottery, make wreaths, or paint canvases!
When we get together outside of worship, we can truly bond with each other. Don’t miss an opportunity to show your love and encouragement to the women of your congregation. Instigate a craft night!
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We Have a Real Need to Provide a Biblical Example…
…now more than ever! That’s why I’m so passionate about turning my talents into stewardship, service, and kindness.
Do I always get it right? No. But that’s where God’s grace comes in. Hallelujah!
I’m so thankful God’s mercies are new every morning!
If you’re looking for other blog posts on living for God, stick around! I also detailed God’s definition of a homemaker in What is a Homemaker? Here’s God’s Job Description.
If you’re already a homemaker but looking for some encouragement, head on over to Homemaker and Happy: Tips for Embracing Your Godly Vocation. My journey started with thinking my primary contribution to my family was financial.
Boy was I wrong!
In that blog post, I recount my homemaking journey, take a look at what a Biblical homemaker is, and give you tips for how to transform your homemaking.
Finally, if you’re a seasoned homemaker, check out my ebook Homemaking Activities for Every Season! There are 350 activities, checklists, and a bucket list for every season. Download your copy here!
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