Every Church Flourishing by the Great Commission Association of the SBC
Why are Women Leaving the Church and 7 Biblical Ways to Empower Women in the Church with Dr. Cathie Smith + What is Greater than Serving?!
Published: 8 June 2026 at 01:01 Europe/London
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Episode notes
How can pastors and churches encourage women to use their gifts for the Kingdom of God?
Seven Ways to Empower Women In the Church:
1. Engage them. Engage them in discipleship and making disciples. See them, connect with them, open doors of opportunity for them as God allows.
2. Encourage their giftings.
3. Exhort God's calling in their lives and give them opportunities to respond to what God is calling her to do – commission/send out
4. "Equip women for ministry and disciple-making. This includes education. Educate women in theology, hermeneutics, and other Bible teaching skills to help her to be able to adequately handle the word of God.
5. Establish ministry pathways for women – both for equipping and serving in her gifting. This will involve a cost in resources, personnel and energy.
6. Enlist qualified and gifted women to serve in leadership roles and invite them to speak into sermon topics, schedules, etc. Give them a voice at the decision making table. Partnership not just permission.
7. Entrust and Release Women in your church – Champion/Co-Workers/Celebrate
Women are fully in the Imago Dei - in the Image of God. Jesus sees Mary and Martha, and He engages them in deep theological truths in profound ways.
"The church cannot flourish without women playing KEY ministry positions…in every realm of life, you lose what you don't value."
Pastors aren't like Jerry Jones or Mark Cuban…we don't own the team the way that sports owners own their team. We don't own the church, it's Christ's church, and we are under-shepherds at best. We aren't owners who utilize church players to put trophies in our cabinet."
Jesus does not look past women.
How can pastors and churches encourage women to use their gifts for the Kingdom of God?
Generation Z women are disaffiliating from organized religion and leaving churches at unprecedented rates, outpacing their male peers for the first time in modern history. Research indicates that nearly four in ten young women now identify as religiously unaffiliated.
Data from the Survey Center on American Life shows that women make up the majority (54%) of Gen Z individuals who disaffiliate from religion, completely reversing the gender gap seen in older generations like Baby Boomers, and recent studies from the Barna Group highlight that young adult women now report the lowest rates of Bible reading, prayer, and church attendance among their generation.
1. Our own Pastor Christopher Cole has written a great article about church renewal called The God of Renewal, which you will want to read.
https://www.gcasbc.org/post/the-god-of-renewal
Also, our GCA resource of the month is also related to church renewal and is written by future podcast guest Mark Hallock and Jeremy Conrad, and is a great encouragement for churches to work together for the Gospel! All around us, pastors are discouraged, churches are competing instead of cooperating, and the witness of the gospel can feel fractured. But what if the solution isn't working harder, it's working together?
In Radical Collaboration, Mark Hallock and Jeremy Conrad call God's people back to His design for unity, offering a practical vision for how churches can partner, multiply, and strengthen one another for the sake of the gospel.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G3WJSHPC?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_KKM4MNGP5Q18XK8AB1YX
