Evangelism as a Mum

I’m a mum with three children (7, 6, and 3) and, like most mums I know, I’m bogged down with the minutiae of life and suffering from constant tiredness. Since having children, my prayer life and quiet times have been whittled down to a minimum, so the thought of evangelism hasn’t been high on my agenda. Getting through each day without a trip to the doctor or to Accident and Emergency has taken priority!

This all changed eight months ago when a new friend of mine began to get interested (or maybe just concerned) about what the Christian school our children attended was teaching them about Jesus. She openly admitted that she was pretty ignorant in this area, and didn’t have the answers when her son asked her questions about God and Jesus. I knew this friend of mine would be unlikely to be able to make it to church on a Sunday, or even to an evening event. She’s plagued by the usual stuff we all have—family commitments and a husband who works long hours.

For women just like her, I began to have a vision to run a Christianity Explored course primarily aimed at school mums. The idea developed to meet in another mum’s home after the school run, drink coffee, eat yummy cakes, and then follow this by looking into who Jesus was and why he came. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and that right from the beginning I had to totally rely on God—on my own I didn’t have the time and the strength to get it under way. So I and a few others prayed as if it all depended on God, and got working as if it all depended on us. God was faithful and provided other Christian mums (and a brave dad!) to help, the backing of four local churches and the school, an ideal venue, and finances to pay for the resources.

Inviting people was one of the biggest challenges, but I was amazed at the responses and the conversations that opened up. Don’t get me wrong: lots of people were not interested at all. Between us we must have personally invited well over 50 people (about a quarter of the school), and out of that we had 20 positive responses from women who wanted to come along. Some mums wanted to do the course but couldn’t make it on the arranged day, so we’ve also done the course one-to-one with them instead, adapting the material as we’ve gone along. While running the course, we were clearly being attacked: we had terrible weather, ice, fog, traffic jams, neighbouring houses crashed into, sick children, and even a power cut just before we were about to show the DVD! However, God is more powerful and graciously overruled.

During the course it was amazing to see the lives of these women being transformed right in front of our eyes. It was fantastic seeing the expression on a couple of mums’ faces when they understood for the first time what grace was and that they could receive it! Towards the end of the course, we saw signs of new life and a real hunger for the gospel, which is now beginning to bear fruit in them. The course also served to unite and encourage the Christians who came along, giving us all a greater sense of purpose and God’s purposes for us in our situations. Each of the mums who came along have committed to do the follow-up Discipleship Explored course, and we’re planning to run another Christianity Explored next year.

As parents of school-aged children, I’ve come to realize we inadvertently share our lives with fellow mums whilst dropping the children off, at the school gate, over coffee, and so on. Let’s not miss this opportunity to get alongside them, build relationships, and tell them the great news of Jesus. As Paul would say, “being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God  but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess 2:8). Be bold and go for it: what have you got to lose? Nothing—but someone might gain their life!

9 thoughts on “Evangelism as a Mum

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  2. Hi,

    I shared your post with a few moms in my church. The first question they asked was who takes care of the kids while the moms have their discipleship group. This is a common problem in our church, as we have many stay at home moms. Do you have any thoughts to share on that?

    Thanks,
    Shannon

    • Hi Shannon,

      I can’t answer for Jo and what she did in particular, but our church has regular groups like this during the week. They look after the kids with a combination of a couple of older women whose children are at school or grown up, and some younger university/college-aged youth—they take the kids to another room while the discipleship group meets.

      Another solution I’ve seen is just a rotating roster from within the group.

      Sam.

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  6. So inspired by this article, thanks, Jo! I’ve been wondering about the possibility of doing something like this.

  7. I ran a small scale Christianity explored course at my home with toddler group mums. It began as an informal lunch club following my church toddler group. When I advertised the course at toddler group, the mums that came were all mums who had already had meals round at my home. We continued having bible studies weekly for about 2 years. Although none of my friends have become Christians yet, it has meant that it is still really natural to discuss Christian things. I have found the toddler years to be similar to my student days in terms of evangelistic opportunities. When you have young children there is more opportunity to meet friends for coffee at their homes, and talk about really important things. I initially was surprised at my friends’ willingness to examine the bible, and wished I had asked them to earlier!

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