Starting a WOTTS Group

The following is an excerpt taken directly from Elisabeth Elliot's book entitled "Keep a Quiet Heart" (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 1995) pages 183-184. This book is a compilation of several lead articles from a newsletter that Mrs. Elliot had written over the course of a dozen years prior to the publishing of the book.

Men and women who are committed to obedience to Titus 2:1-5 are desperately needed in the world, in the church, and in the home. Writing on what I called spiritual motherhood I referred to them as WOTTs (Women of Titus Two). A reader asks if I have guidelines, structure, organization, information about such a group. Well, not much--for this reason: as soon as you organize, you have to have meetings! What we don't need is one more meeting to take us away from our homes and telephones. My suggestions are simply these:

1. Pray. Ask God to show you the needs and ways in which you yourself can help. Pray (perhaps on the phone if it's difficult to get together) with one or two others who understand the need.
2. Ask your pastor if he might preach on the Titus passage. It will take courage for him to do this.
3. In Bible studies, Sunday School classes, over your kitchen table or wherever you have opportunity, raise the subject of spiritual motherhood. Tell others of the blessing your own spiritual mothers have been to you. (If you had none, find a model in a book, as I did in missionary author Amy Carmichael. Then seek to be one.)
4. Post a list on the church bulletin board of the WOTTs, women who earnestly desire to be available. Mothers (in the usual sense and in the spiritual) are people who must be available--not all the time, not to meet every demand, but as needs arise which they can meet. They are prepared to do so, no matter how humble and unsung the job. The deepest needs are for godly examples, ears to hear, shoulders to cry on, hearts to pray. Then there are the humble tasks which lighten others' burdens: drive someone to the doctor, do somebody's ironing, take a friend and go clean somebody's refrigerator and oven (jobs young mothers find it hard to get around to); babysit--in your house or theirs. Rock a baby, read a story, cook the supper, do the mending. Take a old person shopping and to lunch. Clean the house, do the gardening, write letters at his or her dictation or acquire some government postcards--so cheap, so easy to write a note on if you address them first.

God will give you many other ideas if you ask Him.

A Call to Older Women

The following is an excerpt taken directly from Elisabeth Elliot's book entitled "Keep a Quiet Heart" (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 1995) pages 180-182. This book is a compilation of several lead articles from a newsletter that Mrs. Elliot had written over the course of a dozen years prior to the publishing of the book.

In 1948 when I [Elisabeth Elliot] had been at Prairie Bible Institute (a very stark set of wooden buildings on a very bleak prairie in Alberta) for only a few weeks, I was feeling a bit displaced and lonesome one afternoon when there came a knock on my door. I opened it to find a beautiful rosy-cheeked face framed by white hair. She spoke with a charming Scottish burr.

"You don't know me, but I know you. I've been prraying forr you, Betty dearr. I'm Mrs. Cunningham. If everr you'd like a cup of tea and a Scottish scone, just pop down to my little aparrtment."

She told me where she lived and went on to say that my name had been mentioned in a staff meeting (she never said how--was I thought of as a misfit at PBI? I wonder) and the Lord had given her a burden for me. Many were the wintry afternoons when I availed myself of her gracious offer and we sat together in her tiny but very cozy basement apartment while she poured tea for me and I poured my soul out to her. Her radiant face was full of sympathy, love, and understanding as she listened. She would be quiet for a little, then she would pray and, looking up, cheer and strengthen me with words from God. During and after my missionary years she wrote to me until she died. Only God knows what I owe to "the four Katherines"--Katherine Cunningham, Katharine Gillingham Howard (my own mother), Katherine Cumming (my house mother when I was in college), and Katherine Morgan. These and several others have not only shown me what godliness looks like (many have done that), but have significantly graced my life by obeying God's special call to older women.

The apostle Paul tells Titus that older women ought to "school the younger women to be loving wives and mothers, temperate, chaste, and kind, busy at home, respecting the authority of their own husbands" (Titus 2:4-5 NEB). My dear "Mom Cunningham" schooled me--not in a class or seminar, or even primarily by her words. It was what she was that taught me. It was her availability to God when He sent her to my door. It was the surrender of her time, an offering to Him for my sake. It was her readiness to "get involved," to lay down her life for one anxious Bible school girl. Above all, she herself, a simple Scottish woman, was the message.

I think of the vast number of older women today. The Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1980 says that 19.5 percent of the population was between ages 45-65, but by 2000 it will be 22.9 percent. Assuming that half of those people are women, what a pool of energy and power for God they might be. We live longer now than we did forty years ago (the same volume says that the over-sixty-fives will increase from 11.3 percent to 13 percent). There is more mobility, more money around, more leisure, more health and strength--resources which, if put at God's disposal, might bless younger women. But there are also many more ways to spend those resources, so we find it very easy to occupy ourselves selfishly. Where are the women, single or married, willing to hear God's call to spiritual motherhood, taking spiritual daughters under their wings to school them as Mom Cunningham did me? She had no training the world would recognize. She had no thought of such. She simply loved God and was willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for His sake. Retirement never crossed her mind.

If some of my readers are willing to hear this call but hardly know how to begin, may I suggest to you:

1. Pray about it. Ask God to show you whom, what, how.
2. Consider writing notes to or telephoning some younger woman who needs encouragement in the areas Paul mentioned.
3. Ask a young mother if you may do her ironing, take the children out, babysit so she can go out, make a cake or a casserole for her.
4. Do what Mom C. did for me--invite somebody to tea, find out what she'd like you to pray for (I asked her to pray that God would bring Jim Elliot and me together!)--and pray with her.
5. Start a little prayer group of two or three whom you can cheer and help. You'll be cheered and helped too!
6. Organize a volunteer housecleaning pool to go out every other week or once a month to somebody who needs you.
7. Have a lending library of books of real spiritual food.
8. Be the first of a group in your church to be known as the WOTT's (Women of Titus Two), and see what happens (something will).
   
   

"Say not you cannot gladden, elevate, and set free; that you have nothing of the grace of influence; that all you have to give is at the most only common bread and water. Give yourself to your Lord for the service of men with what you have. Cannot He change water into wine? Cannot He make stammering words to be instinct [imbued, filled, charged] with saving power? Cannot He change trembling efforts to help into deeds of strength? Cannot He still, as of old, enable you in all your personal poverty 'to make many rich?' God has need of thee for the service of thy fellow men. He has a work for thee to do. To find out what it is, and then to do it, is at once thy supremist duty and thy highest wisdom. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.'" (Canon George Body, b. 1840)

Modeling Before Them and Encouraging Them

The following is an excerpt from Martha Peace's book called "Becoming a Titus 2 Woman." It is found on pages 54-56 in the section entitled "Her Response to Younger Women." This particular section deals with "modeling before them" and "encouraging them." Copyright 1997 by Focus Publishing.

In addition to teaching what is good, a Titus 2 Woman is also to live out Biblical doctrine in her life. She respects the governing authorities (I Peter 2:17), she shows respect to the pastors of her church (I Thessalonians 5:33). She has the attitude of being FOR her husband or the younger woman’s husband, not against them (Proverbs 31:12). She is like the “Excellent Wife” in Proverbs 31:12 who “does him (her husband) good and not evil all the days of her life” (adaptation added).

She admits when she is wrong because she is a humble woman. She readily asks forgiveness. She does not overreact if others think she is less than perfect. It is not the end of the world and her feelings are not hurt and her life ruined if she has been reproved. She truly understands that the “wounds of a friend ARE faithful” (Proverbs 27:6, emphasis added). She is more concerned with glorifying God than in looking good or being proven right. She knows her heart is deceitful and she wants to be pruned and molded by God. As a result, God pours out His grace to her and uses her mightily for His glory.

In addition to being humble before God and others, a Titus 2 woman uses her spiritual gifts. Whether possessing the gift of teaching, exhorting, organizing, or mercy, she rightly uses her gifts not for self-edification but for their intended purpose of building up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12). She also unselfishly uses the talents God has given her and is generous like the “Excellent Wife” in Proverbs 31 who “extends her hand to the poor; and she stretches out her hand to the needy” (Proverbs 31:20).

A godly older Titus 2 woman does much more than just LIVE a godly life, she TALKS about the Lord; and she especially talks TO the younger woman about Him. She does not have to possess the official gift of teaching to teach the younger women. She does not hold to the view “my faith is private. I just let my life show my faith.” Certainly, her life DOES model her faith but she also speaks up and out in love as she “teaches what is good” (Titus 2:3).

In addition to teaching the younger woman, she encourages the younger woman.

Encourage is the Greek word sophronizo. It means “to recall one to his senses, to admonish (warn), to exhort, to spur on.” Sophronizo comes from the root word sophron which means “of sound mind, prudent, self-controlled, sensible.”

Sophronizo encompasses more than just the greeting card mentality of “I’m thinking of you today” or “Just a note to say ‘Hi.’” It is encouraging the younger woman to make the sensible choice. It may include energetically urging or warning her to do what is right.

This kind of encouraging is the bedfellow of teaching what is good. In other words, it takes both teaching AND sophronizo. It reminds me of the Apostle Paul. He was gifted by God as a master teacher of doctrine but intertwined throughout his teaching was “beseeching, warning, reproving, praying, urging, exhorting, and encouraging.” (See Colossians 1:28-29 and Acts 20:18-21, 31).

Examples of Discipling Younger Women

The following is an excerpt from Martha Peace's book entitled "Becoming a Titus 2 Woman." It is found on page17, and is the introduction to her third chapter.

When I (Martha Peace) was a girl of about twelve my mother offered to teach me and my best friend, Anna Owen, how to sew. She took us to a fabric shop and let us choose patterns and material. I remember that my material was a beautiful pink and white striped polished cotton. It had a glossy, candy-like appearance. Since it was summertime, I chose a pattern for a sun-dress.

Mother patiently showed us how to lay out the patterns, cut out the dresses, and then sew them together. Although I did not think about it at the time, there was a great deal of love and joy for my Mother in what she was doing. I learned a lot about sewing even though I do not recall ever having the courage to wear that dress in public. Perhaps I did once. Mother, in a sense, was being a Titus 2 Woman to us. She was an older woman teaching the younger women how to care for their families and be sensible with money. As a result, she gave me a legacy that is part of me today. Although I do not have much time to sew, I still enjoy it when I can.

Just as my Mother had a desire to teach me and my friend Anna, God has given me a desire to teach the younger women how to do many things. Instead of sewing, however, I desire to teach others to "love their husbands, love their children, be kind, sensible, pure, workers at home, and be subject to their own husbands" (Titus 2:3-5). In order to accomplish this goal, when I have a Titus 2 relationship with a younger woman, I become personally involved in her life. She is my friend. I share personal things with her and we help each other become as much like the Lord Jesus Christ as possible.

Sometimes we meet together on a scheduled basis such as once a week. Other times, we simply talk on the telephone or meet for lunch. We may meet together to discuss a good Christian book we are both reading. Maybe she desires an older woman to pray with or perhaps to teach her how to pray. It could even be that she needs someone to teach her how to sew, shop for groceries, or clean her house. Depending on her areas of weakness and strength, I disciple and hold her accountable in the three areas in which God has in the past and still is maturing me: doctrine, character, and ministry.

Spiritual Mothering

From the book "Becoming God's True Woman" ed. by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

The following excerpt is found on page 162 and

written by contributing author Susan Hunt.

Everywhere I go I (Susan Hunt) meet young women who long for spiritual mothers. Some express a sense of loneliness, and yet they do not even realize that the disconnection they feel is because they do not have nurturing relationships with older women. Our postmodern age is characterized by isolation. The feminist movement made many promises, but the push for independence and autonomy has left women confused and alone. This is our opportunity. The time is ripe. Women are seeking answers. It is time for Christian women to step into this vacuum and show and tell the truth about womanhood.

But where are the older women?

In recent years I have observed a troubling phenomenon. Many women of my generation (Susan Hunt) have relinquished this high calling of nurturing younger women. My generation has abandoned this calling for many reasons. Some simply do not know this biblical mandate. The church has not sounded this call for many decades. Some think they have nothing to offer. Some are intimidated by the intelligence and giftedness of younger women. Some have decided this is the season to indulge themselves. Some want to share their life experiences, but they feel isolated from the younger women and don't know how to bridge that gap.

I plead with the church to call and equip women for this ministry. God is gifting his church with incredible young women. They are a sacred trust. We must be good stewards of this gift. Many are first-generation Christians. Many are separated from their extended families because of the mobility of our society. We must exemplify the faith to them, and we must teach them how to show and tell the truths of biblical womanhood to the next generation. The implications of whether we accept or abandon this calling will reverberate for generations to come.