{"id":4291,"date":"2016-02-17T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=4291"},"modified":"2021-04-29T13:39:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T18:39:43","slug":"seven-reasons-why-your-church-should-have-a-ministry-to-widows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-reasons-why-your-church-should-have-a-ministry-to-widows\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Reasons Why Your Church Should Have a Ministry to Widows"},"content":{"rendered":"

This verse in Scripture cannot be more compelling or clearer:<\/p>\n

\u201cPure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.\u201d (James 1:27)<\/p>\n

Scholars have produced massive volumes on the biblical mandate to care for orphans and widows. The Bible is not ambiguous on this topic. I am grateful churches around the world have taken some steps to care for the orphans, though much more remains to be done.<\/p>\n

But, in North American churches, I see hardly any intentional church wide ministries to widows. Millions are left to suffer and struggle in silence.<\/p>\n

Though the biblical mandate to care for widows should be sufficient motive for our churches, consider some of the struggles widows experience. These seven factoids should give you at least a glimpse of the need for ministries to widows in your church.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The death of a spouse is the number one stressor in a person\u2019s life. <\/strong>Too many survivors are not ready to deal with the issues of widowhood (Holmes and Rohe stress scale).<\/li>\n
  2. Over 800,000 persons are widowed each year. <\/strong>Of that number, 700,000 are women (U. S. Bureau of the Census).<\/li>\n
  3. Widowhood lasts on the average 14 years. <\/strong>That is a significant portion of any person\u2019s life (U. S. Bureau of the Census).<\/li>\n
  4. There are over 14 million widows in the United States today. <\/strong>That is an average of 40 widows for every church in the United States (AARP).<\/li>\n
  5. Upon the death of a spouse, a widow loses 75% of her support base. <\/strong>It is imperative for churches to stand in the gap (Widow\u2019s Hope).<\/li>\n
  6. Widows have a 30% higher risk of death in the first six months after the death of their husbands. <\/strong>They truly die of a broken heart (University of Glasgow).<\/li>\n
  7. The poverty rate among widows is three to four times higher than elderly married women. <\/strong>Financial needs among widows are often great (Social Security Administration).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Please don\u2019t walk away from reading this short post\u00a0without considering some type of action in your church to care for widows.<\/p>\n

    It is one of the clearest mandates of Scripture.<\/p>\n

    It is also one of the most neglected mandates of Scripture.<\/p>\n

    Let me hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the biblical mandate to care for widows should be sufficient motive for our churches, consider some of the struggles widows experience.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,184,175,186,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-discipleship","category-grow","category-health-and-metrics","category-revitalize"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSeven Reasons Why Your Church Should Have a Ministry to Widows | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Though the biblical mandate to care for widows should be sufficient motive for our churches, consider some of the struggles widows experience.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-reasons-why-your-church-should-have-a-ministry-to-widows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven Reasons Why Your Church Should Have a Ministry to Widows | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Though the biblical mandate to care for widows should be sufficient motive for our churches, consider some of the struggles widows experience.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-reasons-why-your-church-should-have-a-ministry-to-widows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-17T11:00:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-04-29T18:39:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Untitled-design.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1152\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thom S. 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