212: What Women Really Need (And Why Church Programs Keep Missing It) | with Jessica Francavilla

So much women’s ministry is built on calendars, themes, and events - and yet many women still feel unseen, overwhelmed, or disconnected. 

In this episode, Jessica Francavilla and I talk about what it looks like to actually discern what women need in a given season, and why programs alone often miss the deeper spiritual and emotional realities women are carrying. 

We share how a small, multi-generational team listened, paid attention, and responded in ways that were more relational, more human, and far more impactful than another event.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

1. Why well-intentioned programs often miss what women are really walking through
2. How discernment starts with listening, not planning
3. What a multi-generational approach reveals that one age group can’t see alone
4. How presence and responsiveness can reshape ministry without adding more to the calendar

Connect with Jessica Francavilla: 

www.cityoffreedom.info 

www.livinghopeva.com

Get your FREE ticket to the Women's Ministry for Small Churches Conference! >> www.smallchurchsummits.com

Join our free Facebook Community: facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get your FREE ticket to the Small Church KidMin + Youth Ministry Conference! >> smallchurchsummits.com

Transcript

Laurie Graham  0:01 
Hey, welcome to the Small Church Ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy, and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host, Laurie Graham. Let's dive in!

Laurie Graham  0:22 
Hey, hey, welcome back to the Small Church Ministry podcast! I hope you have enjoyed this season as we're talking about women's ministry. And again, if you are not in women's ministry and you're like, "Wait, wait, I thought this was just about small churches," we have a plethora of topics—from emotional health and church hurt to digital ministry and finances. Just scroll through the menus and you're going to see tons and tons. But I also want to say that, as you find us, I have noticed that pretty much everything we talk about applies to everyone in every way. So if you want to listen in, today we're going to talk about how to really understand what people really need and why church programs keep missing it. As Jessica and I talk about women's ministry, if you're in kids ministry, if you're in men's ministry, if you're in outreach, or if you are dealing with the older crowd, the younger crowd, or the in-between crowd, there's going to be a lot of wisdom in here for everybody to gain. So stick with us; we're going to have a great time! I want to introduce you to a new friend of mine, Jessica Francavilla. She is going to introduce herself to you in just a second, but she is part of our Creative Solutions free Facebook community. If you are not in there, please jump in! The link is in the show notes. This is where we connect with so many amazing people really all over the world. So Jessica, do you want to tell everybody who you are, what feels important to you to introduce, and why you're here on the podcast today? Because it's really fun.

Jessica Francavilla  1:54 
It is really fun! Thank you so much for the invitation to be on, Laurie. Hey, everybody; it's so good to be here with you guys. I am a mom of four—I think that is the most important part of my life—but my husband and I also pastor a local small church here in Williamsburg, Virginia. I'm also a speaker and an artist, and so that's just a little bit about me.

Laurie Graham  2:21 
I didn't know the art side; I can't wait to hear about that! I'm looking at your wall behind you, and it looks all kinds of very cool and ombre—is that the right word? Ombre? Like it's very—that is so—okay, that is the right word. They don't get to see the wall behind you, but I do, so that makes even more sense. It's always fun to connect with people in small churches, and before we dive into the topic at hand, you have been around us for a little bit. What have you noticed? Or how have you benefited? Or what's been good for you to connect with other small churches—like, what's unique? Because I think it's a beautiful community.

Jessica Francavilla  2:58 
I agree. So, let me just first say I have been in ministry for over 16 years and I've worked in all different church sizes. When my husband and I were called out to lead a church ourselves, we really asked the Lord, "What does this look like for us?" It was interesting because I don't think everybody hears this, but we heard: no more than 150 people.

Laurie Graham  3:25 
And then you actually felt called into a smaller church.

Jessica Francavilla  3:29 
We felt called to a smaller church, and here's why: this is where relationship happens. This is where we can truly live as God's family, where we know each other. I think the "150" came from that idea that you can't know more than 150 names, you know? So, where is the space where we get to know each other and get into relationship? One of the things you don't realize when you feel called to this church size is how difficult it can be, and so Small Church Ministry has been a lifeline for me. It’s like, "Oh, hey, the things that we struggle with—it's not just us." We're not isolated, we're not alone, and we're not crazy; when those things happen, we're not alone. In that way, it's been such a lifeline to just be able to hop on Facebook and see other people's ideas and pray with one another. Then there are the conferences; I don't remember if I attended the children's one first or the women's one first, but it was so powerful and so rich. I think one of the things I love is just the wealth of knowledge and experience in this community, and being able to hear from one another and learn from each other's mistakes and successes has just been beautiful.

Laurie Graham  4:46 
Yeah, well, we can't wait to have you speaking at one of our conferences too, because that's one of the reasons I love our conferences: it's small church people speaking to small church people. It's not people telling you how to grow your church, and it's not people who don't understand. For instance, it's funny when we talk to people in larger churches—I'll just go to kids' ministry for a minute—sometimes people will say, "Well, have your children's pastor..." and I have to say, "Stop. Most of us don't have a children's pastor; we have a grandma helping in the nursery, and we love it." It really is a different language, a different culture, and a different system. Even the things that are effective are different because we don't recruit or develop people the same way. I actually believe we develop people better and more like Jesus because we're all a bunch of misfits in the church; we're not just looking for the "cream of the crop" who happens to be perfect, you know? Anyway...

Jessica Francavilla  5:42 
I digress, but I hear you. Yeah, and I love it—I think there's an authenticity that happens in the small church.

Laurie Graham  5:51 
Because everyone is needed, and it's not about the talented or the most educated; every single person is so important in a small church, and they are seen, so we can walk together. Exactly. Okay, let's jump into our topic today. We're talking about what women really need—and by the way, that took me back to the old Mel Gibson movie, What Women Want, or something like that, which went through my head—but...

Laurie Graham  6:24 
...women really need and why church programs keep missing it. I know you have some really specific, special things to share on this—things you've done in your church and things you've noticed. So, where do you want to start?

Jessica Francavilla  6:44 
Oh, gosh. Well, I think you just touched on a keyword there when you said "programs." I read a statistic somewhere, Laurie—and I'm going to have to try and find it because it was really interesting—that most of the information we read about how to do church ministry (whether, again to your point, it's kids, outreach, or women's) is generated by much bigger churches. It tends to be more about programs, and I think a lot of us take those programs and try to apply them to the small church model, but it doesn't always work. To be quite honest with you, I didn't understand why it wasn't working.

Laurie Graham  7:28 
And by the way, that's normal; that's what many people who find us experience. They've even been in larger churches or medium-sized churches and they're like, "Why isn't this working?" You feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall, but the reality is that small church ministry isn't "less," it’s just very different. Right? It's different. Yeah, the programs don't land the same. And so for you—because we also talk about how programming and relationships can go together; we're not saying programs are 100% bad—what are some signs for you that programming is happening? We see the programs happening, but care or connection isn't. How do we even discern that?

Jessica Francavilla  8:03 
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great question because I'm with you—I still like programs, but I need to modify them, at least; that's what I've learned. The biggest sign for me is: how are the conversations going? What do the conversations sound like? You know, are we hearing about what's happening in each other's lives, or are we sticking only to the topic of whatever Bible study we're listening to or program that we're doing? That was one of the key signs for me when the Lord revamped our entire women's ministry. I had been doing this Bible study for years and I was kind of tired of it, but I wanted to be faithful, so I kept showing up and implementing the same plan season after season until the Lord arrested my attention and asked, "How much do you know about what's going on in their lives? What does the prayer time look like in these Bible studies?" That was where I had to say, "Okay, it's not really even about the attendance." We had good attendance, but we weren't going as deep as I think we need to.

Laurie Graham  9:24 
I really want to—I was debating whether to interrupt you and mention this or bring it back later, but I think it's important to talk about now—I love that you said you were even tired of it or bored with it, or, you know, it was, I’ll just use my words, feeling like "same old, same old," but you wanted to be faithful, so you kept going. We talk about that sometimes: faithful doesn't mean keep going all the time. Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is pause, look for a pivot, or say, "Okay, God." So, what did you do to get yourself to a different place there?

Jessica Francavilla  10:03 
That's a great question, and you totally hit it on the head. I think that's one of the other signs, too: when you're tired of it, chances are something needs to change. As I said earlier, it was a "God idea." I just started looking around our church—and we're not a huge church; we're probably 70 to 80 on a Sunday—but I started looking at the women in different age demographics, people who were respected and whom I respected, and I just asked them out for coffee. I just wanted to know what life looked like for them. One great example is one of our ladies; she's kind of a matriarch in our church, in her 80s, and a widow, so she kind of gathers all the widows alongside her.

Laurie Graham  10:52 
Almost like the connector and the different demographics.

Jessica Francavilla  10:56 
Yeah, it's like, who are the natural connectors? So she and I sat down, and then I sat down with a young adult; I just wanted to hear what life looks like, what's going on in your world, and what's important to you. For me, I'm a homeschooling, part-time working mom of teenagers, so what I was looking for was very different from what they were looking for and what they needed. It was really great. After I sat down with each of them, we actually decided to do a retreat. We did a weekend retreat and just got away for two nights, and it was beautiful. Honestly, we had a lot of fun, and interspersed throughout that, we asked, "Okay, how do we care for the women of our church?" That was kind of the question of the weekend; if we had one agenda item, that was it. Throughout the weekend, ideas would come up and we'd write them down, but it really spurred an entire shift for our women's ministry. Out of that conversation, I stepped away from leading the Bible study, and another woman stepped up. What?

Laurie Graham  12:10 
Okay, so this is almost unheard of, because another thing we hear all the time is, "If I don't do it, no one will, and I have to keep doing it," especially when it comes to leading Bible studies. And so you saw a direct link between getting all these other ages and demographics involved and—wow, that's amazing.

Jessica Francavilla  12:28 
And, I'm not going to lie, it was hard for me. I was like, "Well, this is what I do." But it was so good; I actually stepped away from it for two years. During that time, we had two women lead special events every other month. Another woman started a prayer walking group because she was like, "I can't even commit to a Bible study, but I can commit to walking for 30 minutes in the historical area of our town." That ministry has just flourished. So, part of it was just me asking people what they needed, and suddenly, the Lord rose up in them what they felt called to do. It empowered them to lead in areas that I don't know if I would have even thought of.

Laurie Graham  13:16 
Well, and I just want to highlight: you weren't looking to recruit; your motivation was right. People see through that, and I think it crosses a line for me into manipulation, right? Like, "I need to find somebody; I want to get somebody." You went in asking them what they needed, and this is where that organic ministry comes up. I also want to give you some kudos because, obviously, they like you and trust you and had some sort of relationship with you to be able to be honest. So, if you're listening somewhere and you're like, "Well, when I asked them, they didn't tell me," sometimes it's a context of where you're at. You said you took them out for coffee; you didn't do it in a church setting. It also doesn't sound like you passed out a survey because, can we all just say, surveys don't work? You can get a little bit of information on surveys—some people will give you information—but for the most part, they won't. So you just had this organic conversation. I also just want to say "yes" to the multi-generations and different demographics. So often people are like, "Well, how do I get the younger people involved?" If you want to get the younger people involved, you need someone younger on your team or providing input. I hesitate to say "leadership team" because some people don't have an organized leadership team, but you need someone who is in the core of that demographic because you even said, Jessica, "What I want as a mom of teenagers is not what this person needs." We can't just predict what other people need; I just love how you gathered this information.

Jessica Francavilla  14:49 
Yeah, absolutely. I think it was so good, and thank you for the kudos, but like I said, that was the Lord; I don't know that I came up with that naturally, but it created a curiosity in me to say, "Okay, how do we do this better?" If we can get really curious and ask people good questions—just simple questions, they don't have to be hard—like, "What's going on? What does your week look like?" I didn't know what a week looked like for my 80-year-old widow ministry woman; I just didn't know. Suddenly, I found out she's busier than anybody else I knew, and it started clicking: "Oh, well, no wonder why you can't make it to this; you've got all these other things going on."

Laurie Graham  15:32 
Yeah, can you share a few of the other questions that you asked, or similar questions that you would ask if somebody's listening now and maybe they're not super relational, or they're like, "Gosh, I don't even know what I would ask"? Can you give a few other examples of what types of questions would be great for this kind of curiosity?

Jessica Francavilla  15:49 
Yeah, absolutely. Well, a lot of times I would just ask, "Tell me what your life looks like. Tell me what's going on. I want to hear: what is a day in your life like?"

Laurie Graham  16:00 
Wait, so you didn't say, Why aren't you coming to my event?

Jessica Francavilla  16:03 
I didn't, as much as I wanted to, because we all want to.

Laurie Graham  16:09 
Okay, so what does your life look like? What does your life look like?

Jessica Francavilla  16:11 
"What does 'beautiful' look like in your life?" The other question is, "What's important to you? In this season, what are the most important things to you?" I also asked them, "How can I come alongside you as a friend and as a sister in Christ? How can I come alongside you?" And then I asked, "What are other areas that you feel you couldn't speak about in a public setting? What are some things that you would tell me one-on-one that you might not want to say elsewhere?" What a great question. I think it's good to ask those questions because sometimes people don't know if you want to go there or not, and so you are inviting them: "Would you confide in me and tell me?"

Laurie Graham  16:53 
What would you tell me that you don't want to tell anyone else?

Laurie Graham  16:55 
Yeah, no, it's good.

Jessica Francavilla  16:59 
It's so good. Even in that conversation—I keep referring to this one woman—she was able to share that in Bible study, it was really hard for her to hear because of her hearing aids. I was like, "Oh, well, you wouldn't have put that on a survey; you wouldn't have told me any other way." But what good information to have! It was like, "Oh, I can serve a little differently in how we do community now." So, those were some of my key questions that I'd written down.

Laurie Graham  17:29 
No, that was great. And by the way, you could write a blog post about this and list the questions—actually, that would probably be really helpful for people. So put that in the back of your mind if you have a moment. So let's talk about what you heard and maybe what surprised you. Like, did anything surprise you about what women were actually walking through?

Jessica Francavilla  17:53 
You know, it was really interesting. There were some practical things, like, "Oh, I didn't think about schedules or work-life," or just things that you don't normally think about. But I saw a trend with a lot of our women, and I think it's really common in this day and age: a lot of the women didn't feel seen or heard, and they felt lonely. That broke my heart, and I was like, "Oh my goodness."

Laurie Graham  18:20 
And these are women that you picked who were kind of hubs and were connected, and you're saying they were saying they didn't feel seen. Yes. So, I just had a conversation with Tracy Mason, who is also on the podcast, and she kept highlighting "people being seen, people being seen." How do we define that, though? Because I know for a lot of people—unless you've experienced this and had deeper conversations that are emotional-health-ish—what does it really mean that we "see" people?

Jessica Francavilla  18:58 
Well, I think that's great. And here's the thing: it's not contingent on just one person to go and see everybody, right? Like, I can't—I will not be responsible for making everybody feel a certain way. But what was really fun in having this group—and it's about five women who came alongside me, so there's six of us total—is that we have all taken responsibility for making sure that people are checked in on, that a quick text message is sent to somebody we may know is struggling, and that on most Sundays, we try to make sure people get that hug. Because of where we live, we have a high retirement community, so we have a lot of older people—some widows, some divorcees—and we are just being really purposeful about giving them that physical touch they may not otherwise get, being able to just check in on them where others may not. And so it kind of goes back to the fact that I'm no longer trying to do this all on my own. There's a team of women who are being really purposeful about loving the women of our church and helping them just stay connected and be connected.

Laurie Graham  20:12 
Yeah, and I'm curious if you have seen this, because when I've experienced this in churches, it's not just the leadership that's doing it. The culture starts to shift when we're modeling it—even as leaders or just people in the church—when we're modeling slowing down and actually having real conversations. You know, even after church, I could sit next to somebody while people are walking out and just have this one-on-one conversation, and then I start watching other people do it, like, "Oh, we don't have to rush out." I think when we model it, the culture starts changing. So you see the person who wasn't seen, and then they go, "Oh my gosh, I feel so seen." And then eventually—it's not overnight, and I don't think it's even something we can just teach; we can definitely teach it and practice it, but it's not like you teach it and everybody changes overnight—but I think it opens up a culture. Have you seen a shift like that at all with your church in general?

Jessica Francavilla  21:05 
We have, absolutely, we have, and it's really interesting. I don't know if you've ever heard this Laurie, and we didn't talk about this, but I've had several women tell me how much they dislike women's ministry.

Laurie Graham  21:19 
Yep, yep. We have another podcast, literally, that talks about that, right?

Jessica Francavilla  21:25 
And it's really interesting to me because I think the only reason people dislike it is that they feel like it's disingenuous or not authentic. I don't know what the other podcast is about, so I don't want to misspeak at all, but that's just been one of the things I think that loneliness comes from: "Am I really cared about? Is it really important if I'm a part of this church or this group of people?" So, that's been the fruit of that intentionality; we've just seen some authentic relationships blossom and come together. That's been really, really neat. I definitely feel like it's filtered throughout the church and even beyond the walls. I'll tell you, our walking group is probably the best little evangelistic group out there because they've just gathered other women alongside them. There's no pressure; they don't have to do homework from their Bible study or attend a big conference with hundreds of other people. It's just two or three women walking together and praying with one another, and she just keeps bringing new women along where they start to hear the gospel. And you know what? It doesn't cost anything. It doesn't cost anything.

Laurie Graham  22:34 
Yeah, very cool, very cool. And I know you're active in the groups, and you come to the conferences and everything. So, everybody watch out for Jessica Frank Avila; you'll be seeing and hearing more from her, and I know that people already know you from the community as well. So, thanks for taking the time to be on the podcast today. And for those of you, wherever you are listening from right now, let's just take a deep breath together and know that God's got it. Whatever we're in the middle of, whatever we're struggling with—whether things feel great and you feel like a rock star, or if things feel down in the dumps—know that He's with you.

Laurie Graham  23:11 
Jesus is walking right with us; I love this time post-Christmas because "Emmanuel, God with us" is such a good reminder. Christmas isn't just about the holiday season, but it's a great reminder that no matter what, God is walking right with us and you're not alone. So, join this community of small churches because, man, do we support each other. Jessica, thanks so much for being with us today, and to everybody else: until next week, be a light.