Ministry Chick Network Podcast

You walked back into the same building. Same calendar. Same team. Same role. But something is different — and if you're honest, you know it. You have grown. You have been through something. You have learned things you didn't know a year ago. The question is whether you're going to lead like it.

In this episode, Melissa sits down with her husband Matt Mashburn — Operations Pastor and the man who has watched her lead for 33 years — for a conversation about what it actually looks like to show up differently in a season that looks exactly the same as the last one. What growth looks like from the outside. What changes when a leader finally stops leading from who she was and starts leading from who she has become. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, leadership growth, showing up differently, ministry season, Christian women in leadership, women of faith.

───────────────────────────────
KEY TAKEAWAYS
───────────────────────────────

• What it actually looks like to show up differently in a season that looks exactly the same as the last one — and why that difference matters more than any strategy or plan
• What growth looks like from the outside — what an executive leader who has watched you lead sees changing in you that you may not be able to see yourself
• What the woman in ministry needs to claim about who she has become before she walks into this next season

───────────────────────────────
RESOURCES & LINKS
───────────────────────────────

• Individual Membership → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal

She spent 30 years as an executive producer in TV news — one of the most high-pressure, high-stakes leadership environments that exists. And somewhere in the middle of all of it she started asking a question that wouldn't leave her alone: what if the church had taught women these leadership lessons instead?

In this episode Melissa sits down with Suzanne Nadell — author of Wired to Lead and CEO of She Leads Church — to talk about the leadership lessons she learned in a secular room that she wishes the church had given her, what it looks like to carry those lessons into faith-based leadership, and what she is building so the next generation of women in ministry doesn't have to learn them the hard way. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, women in church leadership, leadership development, Christian women leaders, wired to lead, she leads church, calling, women of faith.

───────────────────────────────
KEY TAKEAWAYS
───────────────────────────────

• The specific leadership lessons Suzanne learned in 30 years of TV news that the church wasn't teaching women — and what changes for the woman in ministry when she finally has them
• What the "what if" question actually unlocks — what if the church had equipped women with these tools from the beginning — and how the woman listening can stop waiting for the church to catch up
• What Suzanne is building at She Leads Church and why the woman in ministry who has been leading without the right training needs to know about it

───────────────────────────────
RESOURCES & LINKS
───────────────────────────────

• Individual Membership ($67/mo) → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Wired to Lead → [book link]
• Connect with Suzanne → suzannenadell.com | @suznadell on Instagram
• She Leads Church → [SLC website + fall conference info]
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church

Each year, there's a season that feels like a fresh start in ministry. You know what that season is for your church. New Bible studies. New volunteers. New calendars. New opportunities.

But here's the question most of us never stop to ask:

Are you actually a different leader than you were last year?

In this episode, Melissa Mashburn and Dr. Brandy Baxter explore why experience alone doesn't create growth, why so many leaders unknowingly repeat the same patterns year after year, and what actually changes a leader over time.

If you're stepping into another ministry season, don't just prepare your calendar. Prepare yourself.

• Why another year of ministry doesn't automatically equal another year of growth.
• The difference between experience and intentional leadership development.
• Three reflection questions every ministry leader should ask before fall begins.
• Why coaching, community, and honest reflection accelerate leadership growth.

There is a man in your life who works beside you, leads beside you, maybe even lives beside you — and still doesn't fully understand what you carry. Not because he doesn't care. Because nobody ever asked him to look.

In this episode of the Allyship Table, Melissa sits down with her husband Matt Mashburn — Operations Pastor, 25+ years in local church ministry, and the man who has had a front-row seat to her leadership for 33 years — for an honest conversation about what he didn't see, when he finally saw it, and what changed. This episode is for the woman in ministry who has wanted someone in her world to get it. And for the pastor or church leader who wants to be that person. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, church leadership, male allies in ministry, healthy church culture, developing female leaders, women of faith.

─────────────────────────────────
KEY TAKEAWAYS
─────────────────────────────────

• What a man with 33 years of front-row access to a woman in ministry leadership finally understood — and what it took to get there
• What well-intentioned male church leaders consistently miss about the women already leading on their teams — named specifically, not generically
• What the woman listening can stop waiting for and start asking for — because the conversation she needs is possible, and this episode shows her what it looks like

─────────────────────────────────────
RESOURCES & LINKS
─────────────────────────────────────

• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church
• Individual Membership → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Connect with Matt Mashburn → https://remotexp.net/

You've been through enough ministry seasons to know that change is not the exception — it's the job. New campuses, new leadership, new initiatives, new everything. And somewhere in the middle of managing all of it, you've wondered how to stay genuinely energized instead of just professionally functional.

Diana Rush has been figuring that out at scale — overseeing small groups, guest services, volunteer coordination, pastoral care, and people development across seven locations at Eastside Christian Church. In this conversation, Melissa sits down with Diana to talk about leading through change without burning out, what systems thinking actually does for relational ministry, and what it looks like to stay rooted in calling when the operational demands never stop. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, change management, church leadership, women of faith, calling, leadership sustainability, multi-site church, AI in ministry.

─────────────────────────────────
KEY TAKEAWAYS
─────────────────────────────────

• How to stay genuinely energized in ministry across multiple seasons of change — not just surviving the transition but leading well through it
• What systems thinking actually does for relational ministry — and why having the right operational framework is what makes personal connection scalable
• What Diana has learned about building community intentionally across seven locations that the woman leading one program in one church needs to hear right now

─────────────────────────────────
RESOURCES & LINKS
─────────────────────────────────

• Individual Membership ($67/mo) → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Clarity Kickstart Kit ($27) → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-kickstart
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church

You’ve been listening. You’ve been nodding along. You’ve heard about the cost of leading alone, the importance of community, and the room that was built specifically for the woman in ministry. And somewhere in all of that you’ve been thinking — maybe. Maybe this is for me. Maybe this is the right time.

This episode is Melissa and Brandy’s answer to the maybe. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, community, belonging, membership, women of faith, calling.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• What it actually costs to keep leading alone — not in theory, in the specific moments she has already lived this month
• What the decision to join actually is — not a financial decision, an identity decision
• What changes the moment she stops navigating alone — and why that change is available right now

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Individual Membership → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Clarity Kickstart Kit ($27) → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-kickstart
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church

Carrie Williams has been in rooms that most women in ministry never get to enter. She helped launch Eleven22 in Jacksonville. She led Truth Republic. She now serves as Executive Director of Exponential NEXT, equipping current and next-generation leaders to navigate the future of the church. And through all of it, she has been building something most women in ministry quietly ache for but rarely find: a room full of people who actually understand what they carry.

In this conversation, Melissa sits down with her longtime friend Carrie Williams to talk about what it means to lead in ministry without navigating alone — what it costs, what it looks like to build the right community around you, and why the women who go furthest are the ones who figured out they were never meant to do it by themselves. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, church multiplication, community, belonging, calling, women of faith, leadership development.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• What Carrie has learned about community from decades of building it intentionally — inside churches, inside networks, and inside rooms most women never get access to
• What the woman in ministry is actually missing when she leads alone — named specifically, not generically
• What it looks like to build the kind of relationships that sustain a calling for the long haul — and where most women in ministry stop short of actually having them

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Individual Membership → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Connect with Carrie → [email protected]
• Exponential NEXT → [exponential.org/next or current URL]
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church

She is doing all of it. Women’s minister. Communications director. Seminary student. Author. Military wife. Mom. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, she has had to figure out how to keep showing up — through the moves, the transitions, the seasons where her entire support system reshuffled and nobody around her fully understood what she was carrying.

In this conversation, Melissa sits down with Hannah Conway — bestselling author, women’s minister, and someone who knows firsthand what it costs to lead in ministry without the right people in your corner — to talk about identity, community, and what it actually takes to stay standing for the long haul. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, identity in Christ, military wife in ministry, community, belonging, calling, women of faith.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why identity in Christ isn’t just a theological concept — it’s the thing that keeps a woman from losing herself in the middle of everything she’s carrying
• What the military wife experience teaches about community — how to build it fast, hold it loosely, and why women in ministry need those same skills
• What Hannah would tell the woman in ministry who is doing it all and quietly running out of people who understand what that actually costs

• Individual Membership → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Connect with Hannah → IG: @hannahconway.author
• In Case You Forget https://www.amazon.com/dp/1087773709/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_X36HF7J0H33JX10CWPHD?linkCode=ml1&tag=livinglifef04-20&linkId=5d4cef5e710ee40f47001a782f711dae
• Faith Like a Girl https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QD75WTM/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_SNJZBMT6RYKJ4YMSBHRF?linkCode=ml1&tag=livinglifef04-20&linkId=fd2503ce96c90d298e99f8d3c4c0ed25
• YouVersion Bible App → Faith Foundations: How to Follow Jesus / Five Reminders of Your True Identity in Jesus
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church

In March 2025, Melissa Mashburn launched something she had been building toward for years. It wasn’t perfect. It was complicated in ways she didn’t anticipate. And then life got hard in ways she didn’t plan for — and the thing she had built for other women turned out to be the thing she needed most herself.

In this episode, Melissa and Dr. Brandy Baxter pull back the curtain on the full story of the Ministry Chick Network membership — what they launched, what they learned, what they changed, and what exists right now. This is the episode that was supposed to happen a long time ago. It’s happening now because the story is finally ready to be told. Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, community, membership, women of faith, calling, belonging.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• What the Ministry Chick Network membership actually is now — not the complicated version, the real one — and why what exists today is better than anything we launched with
• What it actually costs a woman in ministry to keep navigating alone, named specifically, without minimizing it
• Why $45/month is the most generous offer MCN will ever make — and why September 1st is the last time that number exists

• Individual Membership → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Clarity Kickstart Kit ($27) → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-kickstart
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church

July is almost over. August is the last full month before ministry season kicks back in. And the woman who decides right now what she wants to be different by September is the one who actually gets there. This episode is about making that decision before the window closes.

Melissa Mashburn and Dr. Brandy Baxter close out July with one honest question: what have you actually gotten clear on this month — and what do you still need to do before September arrives? Keywords: women in ministry, ministry leadership, faith-based leadership, clarity, calling, fall preparation, women of faith.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• What the woman listening has hopefully gotten clearer on this month — and how to name it so it doesn’t slip away when August gets busy
• What still needs to happen before September — and how to make it simple enough to actually do
• Why the decision made at the end of July is the one that determines what October looks like

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Free Clarity Journal → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-journal
• Clarity Kickstart Kit ($27) → member.ministrychick.com/courses/clarity-kickstart
• Individual Membership → member.ministrychick.com/courses/membership
• Church Membership → ministrychick.com/the-church