WILL YOU SAY, YES?

If You Build It They Will Come

The purpose of this blog is to share with you about my “Success is in the Details Mentoring Program”; the inspiration behind it and the implementation of it and to encourage you if God gives you an idea to go for it. You don’t have to have all of the pieces in place before you get started, just dare to step out and trust God to help you pull it together.

First, let me give you a little insight into who I am and what I do. I was led sixteen years ago to start a women’s ministry. Through divine inspiration, timidly and with great trepidation, I launched Women of Valor Ministry in January 2000.  My first workshop was entitled, “Understanding Your Spiritual Gifts”. The workshop was a success and the women wanted more; therefore, I continued hosting a series of events for eight years.  Then the well of ideas dried up, meaning the source of my inspiration for workshop titles and content just stopped coming to me. I was a little perplexed and sensed a change was coming, but didn’t know how, when or from which direction the change would occur.

Some months later I began meeting some incredible women who I sensed were not chance meetings, but were divine connections. They sensed it too and as a result we collaborated and hosted a number of events (a workshop, conference and a retreat). After the events we still felt that there was more that we were supposed to do together. Through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, we were led to form an Alliance for women in ministry and business. Which we named it the Women in Ministry and Business Alliance (WIMBA). WIMBA is a membership group that is a coalition of Christian women who are leaders, ministers of the Gospel and/or business owners dedicated to empowering other Christian women leaders through Kingdom principles. God has tremendously blessed this endeavor and the lives of many women have been impacted as a result.

Through WIMBA, women were learning how to build their brands, launch ministries and start new business/entrepreneurial ventures. Needless to say, I was very happy sharing strategies, opportunities, advice and resources for my WIMBA sisters.  I was truly fulfilled and then something amazing happened this year during one of my face to face meetings with one of the millennial members.  She said to me, “You have a gold mine inside of you. The information that you give to WIMBA members is priceless and women willingly pay a lot of money for what you provide to us for free”. She also told me that I should figure out a way to monetize some of the information that I provide. I believe this was God’s way of reminding me of his word which says, “The laborer is worthy of his hire”. (Luke 10:7)  My WIMBA sister was saying to me that if WIMBA members had been receiving that same training from someone else, they would have had to pay a significant amount for it. So being a member of WIMBA nets great benefits and I still share information freely with the membership. However, I have found a niche market that I can build my business and share my expertise in.

After our conversation I began to earnestly seek God about what was my area of expertise? God is so amazing! After many weeks of prayer, God spoke to me one morning, “What have you been doing for the last sixteen years? You have consistently been involved in doing women’s ministry (hosting workshops, conferences, seminars, retreats, teaching, ministering and doing all aspects of it from developing budgets, flyers, programs and marketing materials, securing locations and speakers, and applying for 501c3 status), where you have empowered women to live purposeful lives and become all that I (God) have intended them to be”.  I realized that God was letting me know that I could teach women what I had learned about women’s ministry (paying attention to details, the good, the bad, the highs and the lows), and how they could start a ministry that would stand the test of time and be impactful. Thus the name, Success is in the Details. Wow, talking about a light bulb moment! That was one. Over the years I have seen many ministries start and stop due to poor planning and not paying enough attention to the details.

I am not one to procrastinate when God reveals His will for my life I try to respond immediately because if I think about it too long, I will talk myself out of doing it; therefore, I always go public with what God gives me so I will have to follow through. The following is an example of what happened when I went public with this idea that God gave me. I first created an event on Facebook and Eventbrite called How to Launch an Impactful and Sustainable Women’s Ministry, selected a date and chose a three hour time frame. I created this three-hour workshop on Facebook and to my surprise ten women pre-registered. One registered on the day of the event and I invited the caterer to join us, so there were twelve women total in attendance. I set this event up before I started pulling my materials together. On the day of the workshop, I had eight hours of content to try to squeeze into three hours.  However, the session was a huge success in spite of my having too much information so I offered the attendees a continuation workshop session for free so they could get all of the information.

During the workshop, I casually mentioned the mentoring program to the women in the room and said I would tell them more about it later. Well, I got cold feet and decided not to mention it, but God intervened on my behalf. I had posted a Parking Lot poster for questions and during the end of the session I began to answer these questions. One of the questions was how to sign up for the mentoring program. I stood there with a blank look on my face and said, “Signup! Wow! I never thought anyone would want to sign up. I have nothing prepared”.  They suggested that I go pull it together and let them know when it was ready so I could mentor them. As I was pulling the program pieces together I remembered how much time it took me to research how to get incorporated in the state, obtain my 501c3 status, and the mistakes I made along the way while building Women of Valor Ministry.  In hindsight, I wish I could have had someone to walk with me during the creation of Women of Valor Ministry. This reflection helped me to put together a pretty intensive mentoring program. So far I have mentored four of the twelve women and I am having the time of my life. Go figure! If you build it, they will come.

                                                                  

Therefore, if God gives you an idea, I encourage you to go for it. You don’t have to have all of the pieces in place before you get started, just dare to step out and trust God to help you pull it together. Don’t be afraid to start whatever you are passionate about because I am still building the program. Many of the components are in place like my logo, worksheets, manual, T-shirts, a Facebook private group page and this blog is also one of the components.  Stay tuned, because I will be giving you tips on how to launch and relaunch a para-church/nonprofit ministry, as well as the process pieces involved in developing the Success is in the Details Mentoring Program.