Moms are struggling. No matter how much privilege they might have or seem to have, they’re struggling. In America, they feel lonesome and burned out. Church attendance among single moms in particular is dropping, with many reporting they feel judged.
Every parental choice feels like a chance to be critiqued.
Every parental choice feels like a chance to be critiqued: breastfeeding, formula, daycare, private school, public school, home education. Even the meals you feed your children or the medical decisions you make can fray relationships with other moms.
It’s understandable, but frankly tragic, that so many moms feel like they can’t be honest or that they aren’t welcome. It’s especially tragic that this is true within churches, a place that should truly offer them what they deeply need: community.
Globally, mothers experiencing poverty struggle even to feed their children. They face birth and the earliest days of their postpartum journey alone. They face medical complexity alone, often unable to get the health care their babies need. Their children often struggle to thrive during the critical first year.
Mothers thrive when a church shows up.
But a church can help change that. Mothers thrive when a church shows up—and when mothers thrive, their children thrive. What’s more, moms are the heartbeat of the church. They don’t just need us. We need them.
If we look to Acts 2, we can see what the church was and what the church can still be. There we read:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
This isn’t a community where anyone is left to suffer alone. This isn’t a community where members compete, judge, or are left to do life alone.
A community where needs are met.
This is a community where needs are met. It’s a community where every member has made it their mission to alleviate the loneliness and hardship that so often accompanies life.
This is a community that has the power to lift up struggling moms and their children—and where those moms and their children could become flourishing, essential parts of the church’s work and life.
Of course, this mission is already being carried out all over the world. Churches worldwide have embraced countless lonesome mothers. They have also extended transformative ministry to mothers struggling with poverty abroad.
I recently visited the Dominican Republic to see how a group of moms in Compassion International’s local Nurturers program were doing. It was beautiful.
They were all young moms, and many had a very difficult time getting high-quality food. But they’d been able to stick together, help each other and have access to prenatal care, prenatal vitamins, and adequate nutrition.
One baby, however, I’ll never forget. He was five months old but looked like a newborn. His mother had died in childbirth, leaving his grandmother alone to care for him.
She had no breast milk or formula. She’d just lost her daughter.
But she found and boiled noodles. And for four months, she gave him the starchy water those noodles produced.
By God’s grace and her resourcefulness, he survived long enough to discover and join the program. Today, he’s getting the food and care he needs—and she’s getting the support she needs.
The local church is the single most important source of help for moms.
And this transformative, life-saving help is delivered via Compassion International's local church partners. The local church is the single most important source of help for moms, whether they’re struggling with burnout or severe malnutrition.
If we want strong moms, we need to do the work required to support them.
So, encourage mothers in your church routinely, not just on Mother’s Day. Provide community support: make a meal, pray for them, offer childcare when you can.
Advocate for mothers through local or global organizations, awareness and prayer. Walk alongside struggling moms. Give them the help, resources, mentorship and discipleship they need to thrive.
Moms need to know they’re cared for. They need relationships they can trust, and advice they can use. So go build those relationships, one by one.
When moms thrive, children thrive—and the church thrives. So be witness to the church’s most ancient mission: life together, in love.
Crystal Wilson is the Director of Global Fundraising Strategy at Compassion International. She is a co-founder of THRIVE!, the Compassion Employee Resource Group for moms—created to support, connect, and empower working mothers within the organization.
