August 20, 2025 • 12 mins
Hey, Friend,
I probably don’t have to tell you this. Women need women. We need women we can trust, confide in, share our lives with, and bounce ideas off of.
I recently took a survey of women in ministry to find out what they needed and they responded with several answers. But the one answer that every woman gave was this:
I need a community of women in ministry outside of my context.
That’s why I started offering Kairos Cohort. This is a group coaching program whereby we meet 7 times a year via zoom and twice a year in my home (for those in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area). Others meet with us completely on zoom.
In today’s episode, I share with you how it is going.
I pray this blesses you,
Becky
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you want to know, if you really want to know what someone needs, I suggest you ask them.
(00:08):
I sent out a survey a couple of years ago asking women in ministry what their needs were.
And they came back with a variety of responses, but there was one response that every single woman added to her list.
Community.
They said, "I need other women in ministry.
(00:33):
I need a community." One woman called it collegiality.
"I need a group of women outside of my church setting.
Women that I can talk to, women that I can share with, women that I can confide in.
I need community."
Does this sound like you?
Well, let's dive in to today's episode.
(00:56):
Hey, friend, are you a people-pleasing conflict-avoiding leader?
Is your secret relationship with fear affecting your leadership decisions?
Do you want to learn how to build credibility and confidence or to navigate difficult conversations?
Do you long to manage your time without sacrificing your family or self-care?
(01:20):
Welcome to Leadership BecomesHer.
I'm Becky Burroughs, your host and a minister in life and leadership coach with over 50 years experience in leadership.
I firmly believe God has given you everything you need to lead well.
You have the toolbox.
You just need to learn how to use the tools.
So get comfy or start a mindless task.
(01:42):
You know how to pause or rewind if you need to.
Let's get started.
[Music]
I have been in ministry for 18 years and I have been very, very, I now know very, very blessed to have always been on a staff with other women in ministry.
(02:05):
There has never been a time in my 18 years where I've been the only female minister on staff and yet ever since I started coaching other women in the ministry.
I have come across many, many, many, many women who serve in a church as the only female minister on staff.
(02:26):
Now most of those churches, not all of them, but most of them have at least one other female who is support staff.
If you don't know what support staff is, we used to call them by other names, secretary, bookkeeper, whatever their major role is.
The most common term for them is support staff and that's great.
(02:48):
That is better than nothing.
But there are a lot of times when ministers will sequester themselves for private meetings without the support staff and you look up and you're the only woman in the room.
And what I have observed women doing over the years is losing their voice metaphorically, shrinking to fit the role they've been assigned.
(03:11):
And they begin to feel like the token female in the room and so they're hesitant to give their opinion to offer input or heaven forbid to push back on something one of the men have said.
And so I want to back up a little bit, you know, been in ministry 18 years, but five years ago, I got certification as a professional coach and I decided that I wanted to focus on women.
(03:40):
I do coach men have coached a number of men, but the majority of my clients are women and they tend to be women who serve in ministry, either as a vocation or a volunteer, women who lead or in some capacity in a nonprofit and women who run small businesses.
I've done corporate coaching. I'm coaching a woman right now who leads a group and which feels a little bit like, you know, a small business because you got a small group that she's over.
(04:11):
And so five years ago, I sent out a query in a Facebook group I was in for women in ministry. And I said, I just got certified as a coach.
I want to practice on women in ministry. I'm offering free coaching for one month to the first 10 women who respond and within minutes.
(04:38):
And it was like I'm talking less than seven minutes. Boom, I had 10 women. Now, I think the key word was free. I'm not going to kid you about that.
The other thing was that was a month after the pandemic hit the United States and we were all isolated and you remember how scared we were not knowing, you know, what was going to kill us with this pandemic.
(05:05):
I remember a story went around that you had to be careful touching Amazon purchases and I was getting I was ordering on Amazon because I couldn't leave the house and I would get these packages and I put on gloves and I put the package on my screened in back porch for a week before I would open it because what if it had somebody else's goodies on it and I ended up getting COVID.
And so it was a different time and it wasn't hard at all to fill up this group. And so for a month I met with this group of 10 women one night a week via zoom for a month.
(05:39):
And at the end of the month, I offered year-long coaching and whatever the price was that I offered at the time, I found a nonprofit that's very supportive of men and women in ministry that agreed to pay.
Two thirds of the cost so it was small, small amount of money for the women to pay.
(06:00):
And eight of the 10 women said yes, they wanted to continue on for a year, which is pretty high percentage.
And so we continued together for a year. And zoom, you know, zoom is great in a pinch.
We've all had to learn the value of zoom during the pandemic. It is not ideal and it makes it it's not impossible to build community via zoom. It's just harder.
(06:27):
At the same time, I was participating in other groups where I was really the recipient and someone else was doing the teaching or the coaching.
And so I was with a group of women that I did not know 100% online.
And I thought, you know, how real can these relationships be? They're online. Well, I'll tell you how real they can be.
(06:49):
I ended up meeting some of these women in person and it was like meeting a long-lost friend. We had spent so much time together online.
But anyway, I was coaching these women and I noticed a couple of things.
One, I love doing group coaching because I love creating that community.
I love the women learning from each other. You know, if one person asks a really good question and I answer her question or help her guide her through whatever her situation is,
(07:17):
the other women have an opportunity to learn too because they're experiencing something similar.
And then there's the wisdom of the crowd. One woman will say something so deep, so profound, and the other women benefit from that.
So even though I love doing individual coaching, I see great value in group coaching. Well, in the pandemic ended, I thought I would like to keep this going.
(07:41):
And so I offered group coaching via Zoom and I said, we will meet in my home once a year and the rest of the months will meet via Zoom.
And what I noticed was that one time where we spent the whole day together in my home was so incredibly impactful in terms of building and solidifying these relationships.
(08:02):
We would sit around my living room and women would talk and share and there were so many tears and there was so much laughter.
And it was like a bunch of friends getting together so that the next year when I offered the group coaching, I said, we're going to meet in my home twice this year.
And in addition to that, we always take the summer that June and July and December off just kind of to honor the church rhythm of summers are crazy for females in ministry for anybody really, but a lot of the women or children or student ministers and so their summers are not their own.
(08:36):
And then December is crazy for everybody. And so what I do in this group coaching is we meet every month via Zoom.
We take off June and July twice a year once in the spring and once in the fall, we meet in my home and then we take December off and then they have an opportunity to sign up for it again for another year.
And there's a cost associated with it and I try to keep it as low as possible, but still there is a cost associated with it because of the time that I put into it.
(09:06):
We also do a book study and in the book study, I don't require the women to read the book.
Now you can get it if you want, you can read it if you want, but I'll read the book. I'll do a summary chapter with a PowerPoint presentation that will take about 20 minutes and then we'll have some things I'll have some things I want you to work on in between our sessions.
And then in June and July when we don't meet, I go visit them in their setting.
(09:30):
Now I can do this when they're in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, which is where I am. I can do this.
If they're too far out, I'm just not able to do that, but it has worked extremely well for me to go into their church settings and see their area, their office, their wing, whatever it is to meet the people in their world, to take them to lunch, to spend one on one time with them has been a really important part of what we do.
(10:01):
I call this group coaching, Kairos cohort and Kairos basically means, you know, for such a time is this. And I believe that this time in our lives when women are in ministry and they're getting to fully live into the giftedness that God has given them.
(10:24):
And I'm just wondering the call that God has placed upon their hearts and they're having to learn what is it that God wants me to do in this time and place and how can I grow and how can I learn to be the woman that God created me to be instead of this woman that I have shrunk into this mold that I decided was where I needed where I belong and where I felt comfortable.
(10:48):
And I'm being stifled because I'm not being who God created me to be. And so we work a lot on leadership development, on personal reflection, on self-care. We build that community because that's what they all told me was so important to them.
And I start a new group up every year. So if this sounds like something that you might be interested in as a woman who serves in a church or in a nonprofit,
(11:15):
or even a woman who is a Christian who runs her own small business, I want you to contact me either via email at hello@beckyburroughs.com or I'm on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn.
Send me a DM and I would love to have a quick Zoom call with you to give you more information because we're looking to start up another group in a few months.
(11:38):
Hey, let's do this again next week.
It is my prayer that this podcast inspired you, blessed you, or made you think. If so, please share it with a friend, subscribe and please leave a review.
Hey, I want to connect with you. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Send me a DM or email me at hello@beckyburroughs.com.
(12:04):
If you are a Christian woman who leads and you are interested in one of my Leadership Bootcamps for Women in Ministry, this is a four week workshop.
Or becoming part of a Kairos Cohort, year long group coaching. Send me a DM or an email for more information. We'll talk soon.
[Music]
If you want to know, if you really want to know what someone needs, I suggest you ask them.
(00:08):
I sent out a survey a couple of years ago asking women in ministry what their needs were.
And they came back with a variety of responses, but there was one response that every single woman added to her list.
Community.
They said, "I need other women in ministry.
(00:33):
I need a community." One woman called it collegiality.
"I need a group of women outside of my church setting.
Women that I can talk to, women that I can share with, women that I can confide in.
I need community."
Does this sound like you?
Well, let's dive in to today's episode.
(00:56):
Hey, friend, are you a people-pleasing conflict-avoiding leader?
Is your secret relationship with fear affecting your leadership decisions?
Do you want to learn how to build credibility and confidence or to navigate difficult conversations?
Do you long to manage your time without sacrificing your family or self-care?
(01:20):
Welcome to Leadership BecomesHer.
I'm Becky Burroughs, your host and a minister in life and leadership coach with over 50 years experience in leadership.
I firmly believe God has given you everything you need to lead well.
You have the toolbox.
You just need to learn how to use the tools.
So get comfy or start a mindless task.
(01:42):
You know how to pause or rewind if you need to.
Let's get started.
[Music]
I have been in ministry for 18 years and I have been very, very, I now know very, very blessed to have always been on a staff with other women in ministry.
(02:05):
There has never been a time in my 18 years where I've been the only female minister on staff and yet ever since I started coaching other women in the ministry.
I have come across many, many, many, many women who serve in a church as the only female minister on staff.
(02:26):
Now most of those churches, not all of them, but most of them have at least one other female who is support staff.
If you don't know what support staff is, we used to call them by other names, secretary, bookkeeper, whatever their major role is.
The most common term for them is support staff and that's great.
(02:48):
That is better than nothing.
But there are a lot of times when ministers will sequester themselves for private meetings without the support staff and you look up and you're the only woman in the room.
And what I have observed women doing over the years is losing their voice metaphorically, shrinking to fit the role they've been assigned.
(03:11):
And they begin to feel like the token female in the room and so they're hesitant to give their opinion to offer input or heaven forbid to push back on something one of the men have said.
And so I want to back up a little bit, you know, been in ministry 18 years, but five years ago, I got certification as a professional coach and I decided that I wanted to focus on women.
(03:40):
I do coach men have coached a number of men, but the majority of my clients are women and they tend to be women who serve in ministry, either as a vocation or a volunteer, women who lead or in some capacity in a nonprofit and women who run small businesses.
I've done corporate coaching. I'm coaching a woman right now who leads a group and which feels a little bit like, you know, a small business because you got a small group that she's over.
(04:11):
And so five years ago, I sent out a query in a Facebook group I was in for women in ministry. And I said, I just got certified as a coach.
I want to practice on women in ministry. I'm offering free coaching for one month to the first 10 women who respond and within minutes.
(04:38):
And it was like I'm talking less than seven minutes. Boom, I had 10 women. Now, I think the key word was free. I'm not going to kid you about that.
The other thing was that was a month after the pandemic hit the United States and we were all isolated and you remember how scared we were not knowing, you know, what was going to kill us with this pandemic.
(05:05):
I remember a story went around that you had to be careful touching Amazon purchases and I was getting I was ordering on Amazon because I couldn't leave the house and I would get these packages and I put on gloves and I put the package on my screened in back porch for a week before I would open it because what if it had somebody else's goodies on it and I ended up getting COVID.
And so it was a different time and it wasn't hard at all to fill up this group. And so for a month I met with this group of 10 women one night a week via zoom for a month.
(05:39):
And at the end of the month, I offered year-long coaching and whatever the price was that I offered at the time, I found a nonprofit that's very supportive of men and women in ministry that agreed to pay.
Two thirds of the cost so it was small, small amount of money for the women to pay.
(06:00):
And eight of the 10 women said yes, they wanted to continue on for a year, which is pretty high percentage.
And so we continued together for a year. And zoom, you know, zoom is great in a pinch.
We've all had to learn the value of zoom during the pandemic. It is not ideal and it makes it it's not impossible to build community via zoom. It's just harder.
(06:27):
At the same time, I was participating in other groups where I was really the recipient and someone else was doing the teaching or the coaching.
And so I was with a group of women that I did not know 100% online.
And I thought, you know, how real can these relationships be? They're online. Well, I'll tell you how real they can be.
(06:49):
I ended up meeting some of these women in person and it was like meeting a long-lost friend. We had spent so much time together online.
But anyway, I was coaching these women and I noticed a couple of things.
One, I love doing group coaching because I love creating that community.
I love the women learning from each other. You know, if one person asks a really good question and I answer her question or help her guide her through whatever her situation is,
(07:17):
the other women have an opportunity to learn too because they're experiencing something similar.
And then there's the wisdom of the crowd. One woman will say something so deep, so profound, and the other women benefit from that.
So even though I love doing individual coaching, I see great value in group coaching. Well, in the pandemic ended, I thought I would like to keep this going.
(07:41):
And so I offered group coaching via Zoom and I said, we will meet in my home once a year and the rest of the months will meet via Zoom.
And what I noticed was that one time where we spent the whole day together in my home was so incredibly impactful in terms of building and solidifying these relationships.
(08:02):
We would sit around my living room and women would talk and share and there were so many tears and there was so much laughter.
And it was like a bunch of friends getting together so that the next year when I offered the group coaching, I said, we're going to meet in my home twice this year.
And in addition to that, we always take the summer that June and July and December off just kind of to honor the church rhythm of summers are crazy for females in ministry for anybody really, but a lot of the women or children or student ministers and so their summers are not their own.
(08:36):
And then December is crazy for everybody. And so what I do in this group coaching is we meet every month via Zoom.
We take off June and July twice a year once in the spring and once in the fall, we meet in my home and then we take December off and then they have an opportunity to sign up for it again for another year.
And there's a cost associated with it and I try to keep it as low as possible, but still there is a cost associated with it because of the time that I put into it.
(09:06):
We also do a book study and in the book study, I don't require the women to read the book.
Now you can get it if you want, you can read it if you want, but I'll read the book. I'll do a summary chapter with a PowerPoint presentation that will take about 20 minutes and then we'll have some things I'll have some things I want you to work on in between our sessions.
And then in June and July when we don't meet, I go visit them in their setting.
(09:30):
Now I can do this when they're in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, which is where I am. I can do this.
If they're too far out, I'm just not able to do that, but it has worked extremely well for me to go into their church settings and see their area, their office, their wing, whatever it is to meet the people in their world, to take them to lunch, to spend one on one time with them has been a really important part of what we do.
(10:01):
I call this group coaching, Kairos cohort and Kairos basically means, you know, for such a time is this. And I believe that this time in our lives when women are in ministry and they're getting to fully live into the giftedness that God has given them.
(10:24):
And I'm just wondering the call that God has placed upon their hearts and they're having to learn what is it that God wants me to do in this time and place and how can I grow and how can I learn to be the woman that God created me to be instead of this woman that I have shrunk into this mold that I decided was where I needed where I belong and where I felt comfortable.
(10:48):
And I'm being stifled because I'm not being who God created me to be. And so we work a lot on leadership development, on personal reflection, on self-care. We build that community because that's what they all told me was so important to them.
And I start a new group up every year. So if this sounds like something that you might be interested in as a woman who serves in a church or in a nonprofit,
(11:15):
or even a woman who is a Christian who runs her own small business, I want you to contact me either via email at hello@beckyburroughs.com or I'm on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn.
Send me a DM and I would love to have a quick Zoom call with you to give you more information because we're looking to start up another group in a few months.
(11:38):
Hey, let's do this again next week.
It is my prayer that this podcast inspired you, blessed you, or made you think. If so, please share it with a friend, subscribe and please leave a review.
Hey, I want to connect with you. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Send me a DM or email me at hello@beckyburroughs.com.
(12:04):
If you are a Christian woman who leads and you are interested in one of my Leadership Bootcamps for Women in Ministry, this is a four week workshop.
Or becoming part of a Kairos Cohort, year long group coaching. Send me a DM or an email for more information. We'll talk soon.
[Music]
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