International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. This year’s theme is #ChooseToChallenge and we’ve invited women leaders here at the BUV to share with you their thoughts about choosing to challenge the status quo to create change.

By Nicole Zoch

My name is Nicole Zoch and I am a wife to Jamie, my husband of 25-years, and a mother to three beautiful children, Faith, Joel, and Levi. I am the author of Having Faith, a book I released in 2019 which journals my nine-year faith-journey from infertility to motherhood, and I am currently writing my second book on walking and talking with God in the cool of the day as inspired by Genesis 3:8. I hope to launch this book later this year.

Apart from family life and writing, I currently hold the position of Lead Elder at Daylesford Community Church (DCC), a role that I have only recently been appointed to in October 2020, after a 4-year tenure at Kyneton Baptist where I held numerous leadership positions. My responsibility at DCC is as the Prophetic Overseer of a Five-fold Ministry-led Church model based on Christ’s ascension gifts as found in Ephesians 4:11:

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers…”

I am passionate about this team-based leadership approach, partly because I see it as a biblical blueprint to help “equip God’s people for works of service, so that the whole body of Christ may be built up” (refer to Ephesians 11:12). This means it celebrates unity in the body of Christ by utilising the gifts that we have been given by our overall Leader – Jesus Christ. This, to me, is exciting! 

But I am also an advocate for this type of leadership structure from a personal perspective as well. 

As a woman who has been in Church leadership for over 20-years, ministry life has had its ups and downs. It can be both challenging as well as very rewarding. But one thing I learnt a while back was doing everything yourself is not the better option. Burn out is very real. Juggling ministry and family life can be taxing to say the least. Certainly as a wife, mother, author, and prophetic leader, balancing all of my commitments has had its challenges. I haven’t always got the balance right.

So the 5-fold ministry model helps deal with some of these issues. It affords a greater opportunity to balance family-life with ministry-life more effectively. Certainly, it has enabled me to step into ministry where otherwise I would not have had the capability nor the time to invest. It has been liberating for me to minister predominately out of my prophetic and teaching giftings, whilst equipping and nurturing others to be raised up in their ministry gifts as well. I see this as a win/win for the body of Christ – men and women alike being championed to serve out of their ascension gifts to further God’s Kingdom here on earth. It is a wonderful model to unify the Church, and is another way to encourage, nurture and release more women into ministry”!