VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 8/27/15)—American Baptist Women’s Ministries announces its mission focus theme for 2015-2016, “See…the Beloved Community: Transformative Relationships.” In response to current events, the mission focus provides American Baptist women and girls the opportunity to explore how we are drawn into reconciliation with God through the cross; how we are co-creators of the Beloved Community through authentic relationships with one another; and how our ministries and congregations can lead our neighborhoods, towns, and cities in becoming the Beloved Community. The one-year mission focus also builds on the organization’s 2015-2017 open-ended ministry theme, “See . . .”

“See…the Beloved Community: Transformative Relationships” will be supported by information and resources listed on the AB Women’s Ministries website (www.abwministries.org/missionfocus) and updated throughout the year, and through a virtual mission encounter scheduled for March 7-11, 2016. Additionally, articles related to the theme will be published in AB Women’s Ministries’ bi-monthly enewsletter “Leader’s Reader,” and through AB Women’s Ministries’ Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.

ABWM Executive Director Virginia Holmstrom said, “By focusing our mission emphasis on the transformative relationships that give life to the Beloved Community, we are called to see one another through God’s eyes. God’s creation intentionally expresses the fullness of diversity. Yet sometimes, even as church folk who love Jesus, there’s a reticence to embrace God’s creative design in one another. AB Women’s Ministries has long been known for developing leaders for the church and the world; for the next year our mission focus will call women and girls to the mission of building community through transformative relationships. Our adaptive challenge is ‘to draw women and girls into transformational relationships with Christ and with one another, and send them out to engage as partners in God’s transformation of the world.’”

American Baptist Women’s Ministries is a Christ-centered ministry with a commitment to encourage and empower women and girls to serve God.

American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with over 5,200 local congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.