October Newsletter | YouAndTitus2

EMBRACING THE CALL

Y O U A N D T I T U S 2 N E W S L E T T E R

October 2022

You & Titus 2
M I N I S T R I E S

Vol. 21

Our previous newsletters have been focused on helping Christian women fulfill the Titus 2 directive to disciple their younger sisters in Christ. We usually address a topic from a biblical perspective and then provide discussion questions to help promote meaningful conversations. In this newsletter, we would like to tell you more about the efforts of You and Titus 2 Ministries and why we exist.

I am Dr. Donna Navey and I serve as the executive director for You and Titus 2 Ministries. I am married to Dr. Rodney Navey who pastors Lawndale Baptist Church in Greensboro, NC. We have four children who are married to our four children-in-law and in love. We have been very blessed with eleven amazing grandchildren. After our youngest left for college, Rodney encouraged me to go back to school to pursue my doctorate. I completed the Doctor of Education Program at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2019. I want to explain why I took this project on.

As a very young mother and pastor’s wife, I understood the need for intentional discipleship in my own life. There was an obvious void. I had older Christian friends but few who were willing to talk about the spiritual application of God’s Word in my life as a woman. It became apparent that many of them had never been discipled in a gender-specific manner, even though they had attended church their entire lives. Most of my own discipleship had been very gender-neutral. Navigating the blessing of being created by God as a woman for His glory was often difficult.

I knew God’s Word spoke about my role as a woman, but I did not have the foundational application and experience that older Christian women could provide. I longed to be equipped to live out the beauty of my design as a woman, a wife, a mother, and a member of a local church family. Titus 2 was a constant focus because I felt the need for it in my life and the lives of my peers. I read numerous books including those by Susan Hunt, Emilie Barnes, and Elizabeth George, all in an attempt to find support. I listened to Elizabeth Elliot on the radio each day as I washed dishes and often cried as the Holy Spirit burned within me affirming the plan God had for me.

I was sure that gender mattered to God. He created it from the beginning with a purpose and it was good. When Paul wrote the letter to Titus, he was helping him to establish God’s good order in the local church family. After explaining the concerns of false teaching and the need for qualified leaders in the church, his very next topic addressed the gender discipleship needed for a healthy church family. There are many reasons I believe this was so important for the early churches (I will not try to develop all of that now), but Paul gives us the most significant reason, “that the Word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:5).

How effectively we carry out the Titus 2:3-5 charge impacts how others view the very Word of God and it is no little matter. That truth was the compelling motivator that pushed me to finish my doctoral work. I wanted to do whatever it took to increase my credibility to call women to obey the authority of Titus 2:3-5. I wanted to say with clarity, “You do not need a seminary degree to disciple your younger sisters in Christ.” I remember thinking, as a young mom, someone needs to get a ladder and climb up on the roof of the church and shout Titus 2:3-5. As an older woman, I felt that God was handing me a ladder.

Paul was telling Titus to initiate this ministry among women who were first-generation Christians for the sake of the newly formed churches in Crete. It is still our duty today for the sake of the church, the home, the lives of Christian women, and ultimately the respect for God’s Word in our society. I do not have to tell you the current state of how God’s Word is treated. I have often wondered if the neglect of fostering and instructing gender-specific discipleship could be part of the reason our culture has come to so disrespect the authority of Scripture (Titus 2:3-5).

Following my graduation and during Covid, I was blessed by an amazing group of people who were willing to form a board for the ministry providing accountability, encouragement and the know how to establish a non-profit ministry. During the first several years, I have taken every opportunity to share the research work I did among 27 Bible-believing Southern Baptist Churches concerning the current state of the Titus 2 directive. The research data has amplified my passion to encourage godly women in this effort. I do not want our women to stand before the Lord ashamed of neglecting the spiritual children they were responsible for.

My dear daughter, Gloria Medlin, has caught my passion and serves as our ministry assistant. We consult and mentor women’s ministry directors and speak for retreats and conferences. We provide a training program (Embrace the Call) to motivate and instruct godly women to reach out to the younger women in their sphere of influence. We have also been writing discussion guides to be used in small group opportunities and now have a discipleship guide to be used to promote productive discipleship conversations. It provides a roadmap to help a woman move forward in her spiritual maturity.

This past month we conducted our first leadership training seminar. It was an opportunity to be their cheerleader in this important task and to provide some helpful resources. Women’s leaders from seventeen churches were represented. I hope they left inspired by seeing the value of their influence to encourage gender-specific discipleship through intergenerational relationships in their church families. You and Titus 2 Ministries covered most of the expenses for this event including the meals and resources. We hope to be able to do more of these training events and continue to produce discipleship materials at an affordable price.

Our ministry and the material we produce are always geared toward inspiring godly women to embrace their biblical assignment, to teach what is good and so train younger women (Titus 2:3-5). We know that when this becomes the cultural norm in a church family, the entire body is impacted for generations. Most of the celebrity discipleship opportunities available have not had the biblical transformative impact that Paul was talking about in Titus 2. The culture needs biblical churches that embrace the beauty of God’s design for gender discipleship and we want to help them accomplish this.

We are looking at various opportunities to continue to expand You and Titus 2 Ministries in 2023 but we need your help. We hope to reach out to more churches to provide leadership training. We want to continue to produce discipleship material, but we are much more focused on producing disciple-makers within the local church setting! If you believe in what we are trying to accomplish, please pray about becoming a financial partner through a year-end tax-deductible gift to You and Titus 2 Ministries.