Skip to main content

Social
Ministry

Helping widows find JOY

Social events for widows provide an

opportunity to experience joy in community

in an otherwise sad and lonely season.

Why to host

Widows typically don’t like to talk about their pain and try to cover it up. It’s devastating to them. When they are able to talk about their hurts, great healing comes about and freedom from the pain. They make friends with other widows and have fun. They find that they can share experiences that they couldn’t share with anyone else.

A widow’s social ministry is an extension of the public ministry of Christ. Christ frequently reminds His followers to care for one another and to support those in need.

How to host

Our ministry guide provides step-by-step advice for every step of the process. Including:

  • Identifying widow guests
  • Recruiting volunteers to help
  • Day-of event tasks
  • Best-case event practices

Contributing Creators

Thank you to our partner organizations Balcony Women and Asbury United Methodist Church who contributed to the creation of this guide.

This ministry guide includes:

(Scroll down to download)

  • Volunteer sign up

How to Identify Potential Widow Guests

It is important to first identify the widows in your church and community. Our research shows that widows need to socialize with other widows. We strongly recommend that you only invite widows to your socials. Begin by creating a widow’s ministry flyer explaining your ministry and ways to contact the ministry.  Our Coffee, Cake & Conversation Best-Case Practice is a great way to identify the widows in your church.

  • Deliver your flyers to local senior citizen centers, senior community groups, funeral homes (many funeral homes create a strong bond with the widows they serve and look for ways to help them following their loss).
  • Ask to speak at your church’s women’s group and senior group meetings to explain the ministry and hand out flyers.
  • Ask your pastor to mention the ministry from the pulpit. This is also a great way to recruit your volunteers.
  • Using companies such as Alesco Data (www.alescodata.com) you can purchase the mailing addresses of all the single women households within identified zip codes. You can mail your flyer to all the single women households in your area. You could identify the widows and single women in need of a ministry.
  • Word of mouth from your volunteers, family and friends will go a long way. Have them post on their social media accounts, share with their church communities, and other social groups.

Volunteer Helpers

  • Identify women within your community that have a heart to serve widows.  Our Coffee, Cake & Conversation Best-Case Practice is a great way to identify volunteers.
  • Widow social ministry volunteers can be any age. Merging the seasons of life is valuable in creating a bond among the widows and volunteers.
  • You can place the sample flier in your church as a means to find volunteers.
  • Once you have identified volunteers, spend the time to learn what gifts and talents they possess and utilize their gifts for the ministry.
  • Assign each volunteer a position within the ministry.
  • Volunteers should be easily identified at the social events. An apron, a t-shirt, or special name tag for example.

Download the complete Ministry Guide below for a detailed list of volunteer tasks and assignments.

Widow Social Event Plan

Download the ministry guide below for details on how to facilitate a meaningful and successful event, including pre-event and day-of tasks and suggestions.

Every event ministry will be different depending on the number of volunteers and widows you are serving. Stand in the Gap has provided the social event ministry outline as a guide with successfully proven examples. You will need to manipulate the outline to fit your ministry. If you successfully implement other ideas into your social ministry, please share them with SITGM so that we may make that information available to other ministries.

You can visit our Ministry Partner, Balcony Women’s website at balconywomen.com (click on the Widow Event Tab) to view photos from their past events.

Stand in the Gap believes we are called to serve as protectors of widows (Psalms 68:5), we are to honor widows (1 Timothy 5:3), and we are to look after widows in their distress (James 1:27).

Contact

If you have suggestions for improving this ministry guide or questions about your event, please contact Amy Woody at amyw@sitgm.org

Download and print the following documents.