A place for mums to belong

The Mum Community (MumCo) at St John’s Lutheran Church Perth, in Western Australia, is a welcoming and nurturing space for mums – from pregnancy through to their children’s early school years. Meeting fortnightly, MumCo offers mums connection, encouragement and a timeout, supported by a team of dedicated ‘mentor mums’.

I have been involved in Mum Community (MumCo) for seven years. As a new mum, I found this community of women to be exactly what I needed in the overwhelming years of parenting young children. Now that my children are in school, I’m just as passionate about providing this community to other mums.

The MumCo – or MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) – began more than 50 years ago in the US. Today, it supports more than one million mums in 100 countries.  The MumCo encourages and equips mums of young children to realise their potential as mothers, women and leaders in relationship with Jesus, in partnership with the local church.

At St John’s Lutheran Church Perth, we meet every other Thursday morning from 9.30am to 11.30am, giving mums two hours to regain a sense of themselves, sit down, enjoy a hot cuppa and connect with other mums.

As mums and their kids walk through our church doors, they are greeted by one of our leadership team members and taken through to the childcare area to meet with childcare providers and get their kids settled. Then they meet with the other mums in our gathering space.

The group follows a supplied curriculum, which includes guest speakers, discussion questions and creative activities.

As a Mum Community, it’s a space where:

• We raise our kids and one another.
• We boldly elevate motherhood.
• We embrace the unexpected and imperfect.
• We understand our direction is more important than our speed.
• We celebrate often and loudly.
• We know every mum has a place with us.
• We follow Jesus and invite others to journey with us.

We are blessed to be supported by our church leadership, administrative assistants and ‘mentor mums’. Our mentor mums are the women of our congregation with hearts for this ministry. Many of them are mothers and grandmothers, and they desire to give back to this community of women.

Our ministry regularly has eight mums in attendance, more than half of whom are not members of our church.

I truly believe in this ministry as an outreach mission for the church. Providing this ministry for mums brings them into a place where they can experience the love of Christ as his daughters. Moreover, the church is not only reaching these women, but it is also reaching their children, who are so lovingly cared for by our childcare volunteers.

Meighan Mills serves on the MumCo leadership team at St John’s Lutheran Church Perth in Western Australia.

Learn more about the MumCo ministry at St John’s in this video prepared by Meighan. To find out more about MumCo in Australia, visit www.themumco.au