Women in Leadership

The main reason we were visiting South Africa was to find out about Magnify, the women in leadership programme, written and delivered by Rev Jane Day.  The name for the programme takes inspiration from the song of Mary in Luke Chapter 1 when she says, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant…the mighty one has done great things for me…holy is his name.’

The programme aims to equip, encourage and empower women to serve God wherever they are in God’s mission and takes place on six Saturdays throughout the year.  The six sessions, all beginning with ‘C’ are as follows:

• ·         Context – Women in leadership
• ·         Character – The inward journey
• ·         Competence – What gifts do we bring?
• ·         Connect – Who is around you?
• ·         Communion – Exploring spirituality
• ·         Courage – What are you aiming for?
• ·         Celebration – Telling stories of changed lives

Rachel and I attended a ‘Magnify’ day exploring spirituality, which was held at a wonderful retreat centre called Enseni - a former family home that was bequeathed to the church and is set in beautiful gardens. 

      

The theme of the day was ‘love’ and we were offered three different options to help us engage with the theme.  One was creative – to decorate a compassion box and fill it with things that give us pleasure or enjoyment and reflect on how we take care of ourselves. The second was an awareness walk – we were invited to walk in the garden and really take time to notice the beauty of the nature around us and listen for God’s voice.  This was helped by the fact that it was summer in South Africa and it was a beautiful, hot, still, sunny day! The third invitation was to go to a quiet prayer room and focus on different aspects of God’s heart, resting in his love for us. 

      

After a couple of hours we gathered together again and shared communion and were invited to share any thoughts from the morning.  We then ended the time together with lunch before everyone went their separate ways.

   

Jane very kindly allowed Rachel and myself to look at all her Magnify resources and we were both impressed by the professionalism, careful thought and attention to detail that Jane has put into the planning of the days and by some of the amazing stories of women who have done the course and have been enabled to realise their worth to God and how he has gifted them and gone on to do some amazing things in a leadership role.  Another thing that was inspiring for us was that in a nation where there is still a lot of segregation and division, even sometimes in the churches, that the Magnify programme is pulling together women of all backgrounds, races and nationalities in a common bond of sisterhood that must surely put a smile on God’s face.

     

Nicky, Jane and Deirdre - the team from Creative Communication