Let me describe what I’m like, and see if it resonates with you in any way? When I was pregnant with our first I had visions of the sort of mother I’d be.

Excellent, clearly.

As well as rocking the motherhood thing, I’d be making the most of the opportunity that maternity leave/ being a stay-at-home-parent gives you. Sharing the gospel at play group, while holding the baby on one hip and a cup of tea in my other hand. Discipling younger Christians, by reading the Bible with them while the baby cooed happily on the rug with their educational toys. And we’d have a hospitable, open home where people could come and see the familial bliss that they would one day wish to emulate. Ha! The pride. And the utter delusion.

Motherhood was and is hard. Which surprised me.

Little people often don’t what you’d like them to do in any given moment, so attending to them properly and having an intentional conversation about spiritual things is challenging. (“Sorry, what was I saying again. I’ve just forgotten mid-sentence.” The toddler catapulting off the sofa, may have had something to do with it!).

Rather than the little years being one spiritual win after the other, parents can find it a real challenge spiritually. For me, it’s felt rather like a haze of sleep-deprived, only-half-grabbed opportunities to point others to Jesus, as well as struggling to connect with him personally too.

Motherhood as a mission field

Evangelism in particular is something I’m passionate about. Before becoming a parent, my job gave me the freedom and the time to pursue evangelistic opportunities and help university students make the most of theirs too. Becoming a parent has meant that I’ve struggled with a sense of loss over spending my time that way. Of course there is the wonderful privilege of introducing my children to Jesus, but I’ve really missed having such abundant opportunities to share the gospel with peers – or thinking adults, at least.

And then on top of this I feel guilty because my limited capacity has meant that I’ve not been able to develop the relationships with other mums as I would like, despite there being spiritual interest on their side.

Motherhood in particular really bonds women together. The lamenting of sleepless nights, the swapping of birth stories, the exchange of medical advice. Motherhood is a great leveller and can create very precious friendships. Maternity leave is a small window of opportunity to reach working mothers when they have fewer time commitments. So I wanted to make the most of it – but struggled by myself to take the next step.

 We are part of a very child-friendly church, and while we have kids work during our church service, it was too big an ask for most seeking mums to commit to spending time away from partners on a weekend. And while our midweek “life groups” are child friendly because we meet in someone’s home, eat tea together and there’s lots of opportunity for children to play – the mums who wanted to engage further just couldn’t make it back for the 8pm Bible study. So, what could be done about this? How could we take the next step with these mums?

We need the Christian community to help us reach out

You may know that my husband Scott works part-time for our church. He works alongside a recent graduate called Amy. The two of them got their heads together and tried to think about how they could help me in my outreach.

And the resulting thing is just so exciting!

First, our life group decided to run a course written by mums, for mums called “Wonderfully Made.” I’ve hosted it in our home, Amy has prepped and led the discussions and Scott and a team of other volunteers have provided childcare. In our living room the mums have had a free hour to engage with some Christian content (through the lens of being a parent) while sipping coffee and eating cake. And the little ones have been happily looked after just next door in our play room. It’s been the most precious time of refreshing, of deepening friendships and of gospel conversations. Conversations that we would never have had, if our paths hadn’t crossed by being mums at the same time.

So we’re now at a point where we have to think again about the next step in serving these women and welcoming them into our church family.

Adapting to allow growth

Our model as a church has been to welcome people into the gospel community so that they can see Christian love lived out and hear the gospel through the relationships that develop. God has really blessed this, for which we’re really grateful.

So far in our life group, the way this has worked has been some mums with children coming to our home from 5pm on Wednesday evening for the kids to play, and then the rest of life group arriving at 6pm for us to share a meal together. At around 7pm the kids go to bed (the mums leave to take their children home) and then we reconvene at 8pm to look at the Bible and pray together. This works really well for teenagers, students, working professionals and retirees – but it means that single mums are the ones who miss out on the spiritual content, as they’re unable to get back for Bible and prayer.

So here’s what we’re going to try doing differently, to try as a life group community to reach and serve these mums together.

5pm: Mum’s Bible study time (starting with Christianity explored, but shifting to something more similar to what the rest of us are studying after a couple of months). While children are cared for and fed sausage sandwiches by others in our life group.

6pm: Everyone eats together (children play and come back for pudding!)

7pm: Kids go to bed/ mums leave

8pm Everyone else meets for the Bible and prayer time – this would typically be a mix of seekers and believers.

So watch this space and we’ll let you know how it goes and if it works well!

Humble interdependence

It’s been such an exciting few weeks for me. I’ve loved the mixing of passions – talking about motherhood, drinking coffee(!) and having gospel opportunities. The development in these relationships has been quite remarkable in what has only actually been 7 hours of uninterrupted conversation.

Doing this course has been humbling and thrilling for me – to see that by partnering with others in a different stage of life, I can be much better equipped evangelistically. And this is how God designed his church to work! Working together, using our different gifts in the growth of the kingdom, as a community welcoming others in together.

Wonderfully Made

If you are interested to run something similar in your home, or for your church play group, then I would recommend Wonderfully Made. The format is each week there are 2 short videos of mums talking about their experiences and there are some discussion questions for the group. It starts very gentle and slowly introduces more Christian content. It expects no prior knowledge of Christianity and every mum could feel they have something to say and contribute. In our particular group, the mums were actually ready for a bit more gospel content, and Amy was great at weaving that in during her prep time.

So there you have it.

Motherhood was not what quite what I thought it was going to be. It’s harder. But it’s made me more dependent on God and more dependent on my church family. But in the end, I’m very grateful for that, because parenting, evangelism and life are much better done in partnership with a loving church community.

N.B. We’re aware that this blog post may have raised some painful concerns for you, as you consider the lack of support you have in your local church. Please do get in touch if you’d like. But please don’t give up on the church, that is your primary place for discipleship. Our local churches will never be perfect this side of eternity, but Christ has purposed that they are there to help us grow and to persevere to the end.