The Right Ingredients

New Study Blends Creativity and Content in Perfect Proportion

Tracy Hamm hears it from at least two different women every week: This is exactly what I needed.

Hamm, who leads a women’s Bible study at a growing church in Wichita, Kansas, says she prayed for months about a new direction for her church’s women’s ministry. Attendance was sporadic – and the more serious the spiritual topic, it seemed, the lower the turnout.

“You can either have a fun time or you can do a Bible study – that’s what women think,” Hamm says. “Everything I found was one or the other.”

Then Hamm followed a link in an e-mail newsletter and found something different – the Creative Friendzy Web site. With equal emphasis on its values of character, community and creativity, Creative Friendzy is a new kind of women’s curriculum. It aims to impart hands-on fun and practical skills while still delving into significant scriptural truth.

“I don’t think any other materials combine those features in the same way,” says Kathy Jingling, who co-authored the study with friend Pam Morton. “You have books that teach a creative skill and you have Bible studies that teach a lesson – this one combines the two.” A typical session might start with a humorous skit, continue with a recipe or craft demonstration, move on to Bible study and wrap up with discussion. Lessons are grouped topically into units of four lessons each, with each unit based around a general creative theme – the “Home Improvement” unit, for example, mixes screen repair and home crafts with Bible lessons on spiritual foundations and God’s blueprints for healthy relationships.

Apparently, the formula has struck a nerve. Thanks to Internet exposure and a warm reception at the Assemblies of God National Women’s Ministries Conference, Morton and Jingling have had orders from 30 states and inquiries from as far away as the United Kingdom – and that’s before the curriculum has appeared in most bookstores.

“We hear over and over again, ‘this is exactly what we’ve been looking for,’” Morton says.

She sympathizes. Asked to lead a 10-week study at her church in 2002, Morton went on a search of her own. She was struck by the popularity of TV shows like Trading Spaces and thought she would find a study that combined the creative giftings of most women with a Biblical framework. She searched the Internet and scoured the stores in her hometown of Springfield, Mo., but with no success.

So she wrote the study herself.

“I thought, if somebody wants to invite their friends, how do they do that?” Morton says. Her answer was to make sure from the outset that the study was written in plain language, without Christian catchphrases. Church experience would not be a prerequisite.

“If you say ‘Bible study,’” people may not be interested – but they will be interested in learning a particular skill,” Morton says. “We had one lady come specifically for the creamed corn recipe. She ended up staying, and we had a chance to invest in her life.”

Morton tapped Jingling, a longtime friend, to talk about her love of writing at one of the first Creative Friendzy classes. But Jingling is also a former schoolteacher and full-time Assemblies of God missionary with 17 years’ experience as a curriculum author. When it came time to take Creative Friendzy to a broader audience, she was the natural choice for a collaborator.

“I needed her to come along and say, ‘this is what teachers look for,’” Morton says.

On the surface, the women are different. Jingling is unmarried; Morton is married and has two daughters. Jingling is 48. Morton is 37. But students say the chemistry between the two is part of the secret to the study’s success.

“I think we’re Creative Friendzy, the philosophy, personified,” Morton says. “Because we have age differences and marital-status differences, that allows us to write for all types of women.”

The study’s relational context is another key aspect; it focuses not just on imparting knowledge, but on allowing women to share with one another. For some, this has meant dramatic change.

“I’ve never been a person to open up and make friends,” says Susan Matthews, a member of the Creative Friendzy leadership team at Morton and Jingling’s church in Springfield. “I don’t really approach people. My poor husband really suffered for it, because he had to be everything for me – my best friend, my person to go shopping with.”

Three years in class with Morton and Jingling, Matthews says, have done wonders to connect her with other women. “I am not the same woman today,” she says. “It hasn’t just blessed my life, it’s blessed my family’s life… and I know it’s because Creative Friendzy has brought me out of my shell.”

In Wichita, the study seems to have had that effect on more than one woman. Hamm says her women’s ministry had previously seen event attendance fluctuate anwhere from two to 20 people; its first Creative Friendzy event drew 53.

“We just about fell over,” Hamm says. “We took pictures of them coming in the door.”