Set Apart and Sent: The Impact of Southwestern Women Around the World

Terri Stovall, February 1, 2018

Women have been created in the image of God and have been given a role to fulfill. Women can do anything they have been gifted and called to do within the boundaries and guidelines that God has placed. We serve a loving, creative God who is using women to impact this world for Him in a thousand different ways.

Over the past 110 years, Southwestern Seminary has trained thousands of women who have served and are serving to their fullest for Christ and the Church.

One of the most frequent questions people ask me about Southwestern Women is: “What do women do with their degrees after they graduate?”

The truth is, the careers and ministries of Southwestern Women are as varied as the women themselves!

Here are just a few examples:

Ashley leads the women’s ministry for a Baptist state convention.

Sarah is the Dean of Women at a Bible institute in Florida.

Vanessa serves as a professor at a college in Houston.

Michelle is a pastor’s wife who has built a home fitness business that is faith based and built on biblical principles. Part of her mission is to teach other women how to do the same so they can stay home with their children.

Laurie is a state WMU director.

Diane serves as a missionary in Mexico.

Becca serves children with special needs.

Amy is a foster mom and serves as a children’s minister at a local church.

Stefanie is a church planter’s wife, planting churches alongside her husband.

EM, JO, and BM are the initials of three of the many Southwestern women, serving in countries that are not always safe, but whom God is using to reach women for Christ. Two of the three are single.

Meredith is a community outreach coordinator at a pregnancy center

Amanda is the wife of a college minister and mother of three, who writes and leads Bible Studies on biblical womanhood and is a mentor to many college gals.

Angela is music minister’s wife, mother of one, and serves at her church connecting and assimilating new members into the life of the church.

Cheryl is a biblical counselor helping hurting women find healing, hope, and restoration.

Melissa has a mentoring ministry using the home to impact women’s lives.

Stephanie is a program director for an outreach ministry aimed at residents in apartment complexes.

Many others are wives and mothers, who are ministering to women and sharing their faith through their homes, churches, and everyday lives. Women, both married and single, are serving in churches, para-church organizations, on the mission field, and in the marketplace. Some are pastors’ wives, some are women’s, girls, or children’s ministers, some are serving in music ministry, and some are missionaries, church planters, and educators, serving in places near and far.

These women serve in different ways and different places but all are serving as women of influence.

When asked what Southwestern women do with their degrees, the list is limitless and the answers do not fit in neat little boxes. Our God is so creative in how He uses his daughters.

And while there are a thousand different ways our female graduates are using the training they received, they all have one thing in common: Each and every one is being used by God to make a difference in the lives of others, leading them to Christ, and helping them to grow in their faith. They are making a difference and they are doing it the way God has designed. They have been set apart for the Lord and sent out for His purpose.

We have a world full of women who need to know the redemptive message of Jesus Christ and how to receive the gift of life. These same women need to know how to grow in their faith and become fully developing followers of Christ. And, for many, they will never hear unless a woman tells them and teaches them.

There are lives to be changed, women to influence, and families to impact. Let’s go to work my strong, saved, gifted, and called sisters in Christ . . . there is much to be done