Our Why
The #1 question we kept in mind when we first started
envisioning this community was “Why?”
Especially when we ran into a pandemic, numerous technical difficulties, gathered coaches and teammates across multiple time zones, and explained our mission to our friends - Why are we doing this?
Kathy:
The idea for this site was years in the making. As far back as 10 years ago, I wrote notes on my laptop about creating something that could help women find not only faith but each other. When I first started asking questions that seemed to have no easy answers, I turned to books. Writers like Sue Monk Kidd and Barbara Brown Taylor seemed to understand what I was looking for but in real life, I was not having deep, meaningful conversations about spirituality.
I wasn’t looking for a bible study, although there were lots of those available, I was looking for a much more open-ended conversation. Over the years, I made my own study, found my own teachers, and gathered my own friends looking to do the same. But what if I could create an easier way? A place with all the resources to meet someone wherever they were in their own journey and encourage them to venture farther.
The idea kept bubbling inside me but I didn’t know what it could be called. One morning around 5:11 a.m., I woke up and practically levitated from my bed with the thought: “Women, Faith & Story.” The name was part of my consciousness as if I had always known it and as if it had always been something. It felt so real that I thought it must already exist, so I Googled it. Nothing came up. The more I thought about it, this trinity of a name felt as if it encompassed everything.
The Women aspect was clear: I am one of three sisters who raised four daughters and I love coaching women to find their purpose. The Story aspect was clear as well: I am an author who believes we all have a story and we never stop learning from them or each other.
The Faith aspect required a little more exploration. What exactly would we be saying when we said faith? The bottom line for me was faith in the good of people, and faith in something bigger.
So for me, Women | Faith & Story was born because I heard a whisper that I know will help others dream big and do good together.
LAUREN:
All my life, I’ve watched my Mom grow as a person, designer, businesswoman, author, and community organizer. Her internal power was self-generated but she was also so fortunate to make an incredibly close group of female friends who encouraged her along the way.
Seeing that as a young girl led me to a belief that grows stronger every day: there is nothing more powerful than a group of women who wholeheartedly support each other in their goals.
I have been so lucky in my life to not only have 3 sisters I am very close to but also to have a close circle of girlfriends for years who I love as my extended family and consider sisters in their own right. When I don’t know what to do, or when I start to lose faith in myself, I have faith in these women, and in us as a group that has each other’s backs.
The women in my life, my friends, sisters, mother, leaders -- they are who I aspire to, they are my role models. But sometimes you can’t find those people in your network, and you need help to find women who are opting in to genuinely help other women. That’s where we come in - and why we started this community.
Women | Faith & Story is a network of women who are both learners and leaders. Our mission is to build a network of women who actively lift each other up and want to help each other make progress on their ideas. We may not always know exactly where we’re headed, and we certainly won’t have all the answers but we know it takes a whole support system to find those answers and we are willing to put in the work to make that system strong.
WF&S is a community to lift you up and inspire you, but we also want you to bring what you know to the table, explore what you don’t know, and partner beside other women working in good faith.
We will be that voice that champions you - but more importantly - we are the community that will help you explore and grow so that voice becomes your own.
So for me, the answer to our Why is simple: there is nothing more powerful than a group of women who support and trust each other and take action on their goals.
If we can be a small part of helping women own their dreams and introducing them to friends, mentors, coaches, and partners that will bring their faith in themselves and others to life, then:
the question isn’t “Why?,” but rather, “How Could We Not?”
Thank you for whatever whisper, faith, friend, or email blast brought you to Women | Faith & Story, we are so happy to have you in our community and can’t wait to see what you’ll do here.
- Kathy & Lauren
