I love planning Christian women’s events, and I’ve discovered I’m good at it too! Of all the women’s ministry events I’ve planned, my favorite by far is planning an amazing women’s prayer breakfast! I have some tips and ideas to share with you, and I look forward to your reading them!
Through the years, I’ve shared many tips and techniques on GodsyGirl.com on how to make your Christian women’s event spectacular!
Several emails asking questions regarding my event planning tips prompted me to compile all my tips, ideas, and resources into a book.
It details so many of the lessons I’ve learned planning women’s prayer breakfasts.
Simply called “Planning an Amazing Women’s Prayer Breakfast” you see how I share my “tried and true” processes for planning prayer breakfasts (and really any Christian women’s event for that matter).
I’m thrilled to share those details in this blog post called “Planning Women’s Prayer Breakfasts!”
You know, my first experience at my church was a women’s prayer breakfast. It was planned by an incredible woman, named Otealet Newman and her ministry team.
Although I’ve planned many events, there is nothing like a women’s prayer breakfast, in my opinion. It can change women’s lives through prayer and build lasting friendships.
My mom and mother-in-law at the first event I attended at my church (after marrying my husband).
Steps to plan my women’s prayer breakfast
I’ve poured my passion for women’s prayer breakfasts into this book and know it will bless you tremendously.
From it, you’ll learn how to:
How to Plan a women’s prayer breakfast
- cultivate a vision for your event that will guide the planning process.
- design the event to be organized, purposeful, and Spirit-led.
- craft an agenda that is purposeful and intentional.
- market the event to attract women of various ages and interests.
- and much more!
This book answers your practical questions about planning a women’s prayer breakfast and inspires you to create an event that women will cherish for years to come.
Your first planning step
As with anything, pray before you plan your women’s prayer breakfast.
Seek direction before planning women’s prayer breakfasts.
After you have peace and clarity of vision, your next step in planning women’s prayer breakfasts is to define the goals, tasks, and timelines to ensure that the women’s prayer breakfast is organized effectively and touches the lives of the attendees in real and meaningful ways.
Often, God will lead you toward a broad vision from which to build. This is a key in your steps to plan my women’s prayer breakfast
The purpose tends to be more non-committal and intangible. The goal is appeals to emotional and spiritual sensibilities. There’s no measuring or no specifics when it comes to purpose. Your heart and soul dictate it.
Personally speaking, the purpose often comes to me before all the other planning elements. I think it’s closely linked to the initial unction you get from God to plan the event.
Sample purpose(s) could be:
- Bringing women closer to the Lord through prayer.
- Teaching about God’s purposes for prayer.
- Offering a chance for fellowship or making friends.
- Encouraging prayer partner relationships.
- Helping women feel loved, valued, and blessed.
The list could go on and on.
The over-arching purpose is a great marketing tool. Thinking about your purpose for the event is a premier step in planning women’s prayer breakfasts.
Please share it in your promotional materials. Revealing that it positions the attendees as partners in your event’s success! More often than not, if they know what they are supposed to be getting from an experience, they will subconsciously work to ensure they get it.
From the over-arching purpose, you begin to craft your plan.
Start with your event’s goals – or desired outcomes – for the event. Goals could be anything from increasing your ministry’s mailing list to providing five ways women can improve their personal prayer lives.
It may seem tedious, but it doesn’t negate defining the goals. Few things are more frustrating to a group than executing a half-baked plan. Instead, invest the time to narrow your overarching purpose into actionable goals.
Good goals can be linked to metrics
The most effective goals are measurable when planning women’s prayer breakfasts.
In other words, at the end of the event, you should have clear, quantifiable evidence the objectives were accomplished.
A few sample goals could be:
- At least 60 women attend the event
- To increase the women’s ministry mailing list by 20 women
- 25 women commit to prayer partner relationships with other women in the church
Although goals and objectives are often confused with one another, they are not interchangeable. Goals tend to be measurable, and objectives are the steps and strategies you take to make the goals happen.
Let’s think about objectives or how you intend to make the goals happen. For example, say your goal is to raise $200.00 for the women’s ministry. Your objective could be to sell 300 tickets at $10.00. This would cover event costs and secure the $200.00 goal. You could also have additional strategies such as an offering, donation box, or pledge card for future financial support. Your objectives help you reach the target.
At your first meeting, when planning women’s prayer breakfasts, begin a brainstorming activity about the goals. Questions such as:
- Why are we doing this event?
- What do we want attendees to leave with?
- What needs to be in place (or happen) to ensure we meet the goal(s)?
- What role will music, poetry, testimonies, etc. play in ensuring we reach the goal(s)?
- What resources do we need to ensure we reach our goal(s)?
Again, pray about your focus for the Women’s prayer breakfast. After all, God knows everything about the women coming to the event before you even set the date. He knows what they need, their struggles, and what is going on in their lives.
He will guide you. Trust Him.
Define Success for Your Prayer Breakfast
After you conceptualize what your event will do, you’re ready to define objectives. Unfortunately, so many folks plan an event and dive into the details without knowing what success will look like.
Defining the success of an event can be a multifaceted process beyond mere attendance numbers.
It bothers me that some people consider an event a success based solely on how many people attended it.
You can have a crowded room full of women, but the event was disjointed, the themes were confused, or the event was just a good memory without any learning or retention (i.e., the women didn’t learn anything).
While the number of attendees is indeed one crucial metric, success can also be evaluated through various other means. It’s essential to consider the post-event evaluation forms to gather in-depth feedback from attendees.
These forms provide valuable insights into the overall satisfaction level, areas of improvement, and suggestions for future events.
People don’t think enought of about evlauation – especially when planning women’s prayer breakfasts.
That’s been my experience.
Additionally, leveraging verbal feedback from attendees can provide real-time reactions and allow for immediate adjustments or acknowledgments of well-executed elements. Balancing quantitative and qualitative feedback methods will ultimately help you assess the success of your event more comprehensively.
Promoting the Event
The first key to promotion is frequency. The second key is variety.
People must hear about your event several – if not many – times to remember it. Don’t just promote the event once or twice and then stop. Could you imagine Coke doing that? Even their brand isn’t strong enough to advertise the product once or twice. No, do it several times.
With that said, frequency is not the only factor. You have to promote the event in different ways. Use social media, face-to-face communication (i.e., table after church), telephone calls, emails, etc.
Frequently publicizing and doing it several ways is the key.
Once you have a plan for how often and how many ways you’ll market the event, you’re ready to think about quality.
Use an app like Canva to create professional logos and graphics to promote your event. It’s free and straightforward to use. You’ll need pictures. Use copyright-free photography. Some great resources are:
Free Images
http://www.freeimages.com/
PixaBay
https://pixabay.com/en/
Unsplash
https://unsplash.com/
Of course, you have Canva too. Click to see a template PDF you can customize for free. I would use it as a social media graphic. Just use MS Word to paste text boxes into it.
Please let me know below if it was helpful. I work so hard to try to help. Your feedback would mean a lot.
When planning women’s prayer breakfasts, these are my top three sources for copyright-free images. The image on my book cover is from *Unsplash. Here is a sample graphic I created for a women’s tea at my church:
I purchased the graphic from DreamsTime. I didn’t list their site because they are not free. The above sources are free of charge. Free is always better…well, sometimes.
The next decision to make is how far wide to cast your net.
Ask yourself these questions when planning women’s prayer breakfasts:
Is your event only for the women of your church, or perhaps you want to open it up to other churches? Maybe you want women from the community to join you. Proceed how God leads you and have a plan for how many people you want to reach.
Marketing information to share
When planning women’s prayer breakfasts, I recommend esign your marketing materials to answer your event’s general who, what, when, and where. For example:
Who is it for?
What is the event about?
When is it happening?
Where will it be?
In addition to the above, you may also include specific “to-do’s,” such as urging them to:
- Invite or bring a friend sentence
- Share the info via social media or tell others about it
- adhere to the registration deadline, if applicable
- get a prayer journal or paper on which to write
- pay the registration fee in advance or at the door
- bring their receipt or proof of payment
- coincide with the milieu or preferred attire of the event
Include as much information as possible in your marketing materials.
Food for the event
I won’t spend a great deal of time on the subject of food. You can check out my book for more information.
Planning for food presents so many variables. I will say try to align your food costs with the registration fee for your event. For instance, if the food costs a total of $10.00 per person, then the admission fee for the event should be at least $15.00. The extra $5.00 can go to the ministry for future events or supplies.
Your women’s prayer breakfast should never leave the ministry financially weaker than before. That’s not good business and terrible stewardship.
Must-have supplies on the day of your event
Avoid the frustration of not having all the supplies for your registration table by using the checklist below.
Trust me, those last-minute runs to Dollar Tree for pens or receipts only stress you out on the event day. It’s better to plan ahead and have everything you need. Mentally walk through each segment of your event to ensure you have everything you need. Consider scenarios like a person bringing a child because they could not get a babysitter. This means you may have to accommodate another chair.
Similarly, a person could transfer their registration to a friend because they could not attend. In such a case, you’d want to ensure you have blank name tags at the registration table. Planning eases tensions.
Here are the items I like to bring or plan to bring when planning women’s prayer breakfasts:
¨ List of women who have registered
¨ Pens/Pencils (Registration table/participants)
¨ Stapler
¨ Envelope walk-in money (if accepting walk-ins)
¨ Receipt book
¨ Scissors
¨ Timed signs for speaker
¨ Sticky notes
¨ Decorative tablecloth (Registration)
¨ Receipt book for “walk-ins” who pay onsite
¨ Task sheets for each member of your team
¨ Plain sheets of white paper
¨ Extra pens for participants
Managing the Speaker
You could begin your search for a to ask a speaker by asking friends and contacts for referrals. A trusted local pastor might also be a good resource. Pastor’s wives typically have social networks and may be able to help.
A riskier path is the internet. If you find a speaker online, ask for references and get everything in writing.
Blessing the Speaker
Some speakers expect to be paid for their appearance. Be sure to ask. Other speakers are OK with an undefined “love gift.” Again, ask.
Other questions to ask a prospective speaker are:
- Have you been a keynote speaker before?
- How would you describe your experience and attitude toward prayer?
- Do you think it is important to interact with the audience? How would you interact with our ladies?
- Will you need internet? A projector for a PowerPoint?
- What can we do to ensure you are successful?
- Are you able to speak on prayer in one hour?
A Question of Doctrine
One sticky consideration is theology. Make sure the speaker’s beliefs coincide –and do not contradict -yours. Sometimes, disputable matters are not deal breakers. If your speaker believes in worship on Saturdays, she may be able to speak adequately on prayer without mentioning that matter. A speaker from a Baptist church can very well minister to women in a Pentecostal church while respecting theological boundaries. It’s touchy, but it all begins with communication. Be led by the Holy Spirit.
The P.O.C. (Point of Contact) for the speaker
Identify one person as the speaker’s point of contact to avoid confusion. Their job is to ensure the speaker has no barriers to success and is ready to minister when she/he arrives.
Having the point person communicate/reiterate to the speaker how long they have to share is a good idea. Even if you’ve told the speaker once, repeating it to them in several ways never hurts.
Other tasks for the P.O.C:
- Coordinate getting the speaker’s bio.
- Meet/Greet the speaker when she/he arrives.
- Lead her/him to their reserved seating spot.
- Have bottled water, a tissue, and a cough drop at the podium.
- Ensure audio/visual needs are met.
- Signal when time is running short/over.
Be sure to visit my other posts about women’s ministry planning and definitely visit my companion site, Women’s Ministry Resources!
