Written by Jessica Klein
Everyone knows the little old church lady. She’s the one who can hit the high notes and carry your whole congregation through “that song”. You can count on her to bring poppy seed chicken to the potluck, and if she’s anything like my little old church lady—my grandmother—she’s likely to have 20 strangers over to her house for Sunday dinner. Countless bridal and baby showers are held at her hospitality, because she has known all the members of the church since they werethisbig!
Our mothers found their roles in the church as well. They taught our Sunday school classes and opened their homes to our youth groups. Many led women’s classes, and others coached Lads to Leaders teams. We saw our mothers learn our grandmothers’ skills and recipes, and some of us have already had the privilege of watching as they fill the role of matriarch in our families and our congregations.
However, these women are not just mothers and grandmothers. Marriage and a family are not requirements to making a contribution to the church. My great-aunt, Rema Ratcliff, never married and never had children, but she took her job as ombudsman to the provost of Florida State University as an opportunity to be a Christian mother to all. Many who were students during her tenure fondly remember Sunday dinners with my Aunt Rema.
I am blessed to have grown up with a dozen such women showing me what it means to fill the unique role of a woman in the church. I am failing that line of strong, Godly, little old church ladies. I don’t teach Sunday school, I don’t bring food to potlucks, and I still jump from church to church even though I’ve been a student here for three years. I still consider myself a little girl of the church, as I suspect many of us do. I haven’t been seeing these things as my responsibility.
As comfortable as it is to believe, we are not little girls anymore. There are things that we can do, that we should be doing, to contribute to the churches that contributed so much to us. Hosting our own bridal and baby showers is a beginning. If we can’t celebrate with our friends in our homes now, who will host youth groups and home Bible studies when we are older? Many churches are desperate for children’s teachers. Proverbs 22 instructs us to “train a child in the way he should go,” and I don’t believe that this statement is exclusive to parenthood. Teaching children’s classes is something most of us can do and is training in itself—not just for the children but also for future teachers of women’s classes. Even making dinner for a sick friend is, in its own way, a contribution to the church.
For some of you, being a hostess is completely unappealing, or maybe you’re too busy to commit to teaching a Sunday or Wednesday night class, both of which are understandable. But we all need to figure out what contributing to the church will mean to women our age. If we don’t define our roles and take our places as women of the church now, we’re going to forget the fullness of fulfilling our purpose as women and maybe worse: We will lose the little old church lady forever. And who will make the poppy seed chicken then?
Jessica Klein is a guest contributer for the Bison. She may be contacted atjbeard1@harding.edu
