Tika Scoles wants to minister “to the whole woman.”
On any given week at Northside Baptist Church, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, you might find a room full of women laughing, sweating and fellowshipping their way through a REFIT workout class. It’s exactly the kind of ministry Scoles had in mind — one that meets women not just spiritually, but physically and relationally, too.
“My philosophy about women’s ministry is to minister to the whole woman,” she said. “If you sweat together, you stay together.”
Scoles, who is originally from Shelbyville, has served at Northside for 17 years and today is their connections director. Her journey to that role winds through college, summer missions work and a city she never expected to love.
An unlikely calling
While at Middle Tennessee State University, Scoles became involved with the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (then known as the Baptist Student Union) and signed up for summer missions. When she was assigned to Las Vegas, she wasn’t exactly thrilled. She had her sights set on Thailand. But that changed.
“My heart was gripped instantly for that city,” she recalled of her first flight into Las Vegas. “I had wanted to go internationally, but God had other plans.”
She eventually moved to Las Vegas full time, working alongside the campus minister at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and later at the local association office.
“Coming from Shelbyville, Tennessee, to Las Vegas, I just realized they were people just like us,” she said. “There were a lot of situations I had not encountered at that time. I had to learn through them and made a lot of mistakes.”
‘Thread through my life’
But through it all, she kept coming back to one thing: the women she was discipling.
“When I was doing college ministry, I was mainly focusing on the girls — discipling them and ministering there.
“I’ve noticed the thread through my life — there’s always been this thread of women and a love for women and a desire for them to grow and know the Lord,” she said. “Whether it was my job or not.”
In Las Vegas, she met her husband, Cory. The couple later moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to attend Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where they eventually faced a season of hardship after losing all four of their part-time jobs during an economic downturn. The difficulty, unexpectedly, opened a door back to Tennessee when Cory was hired as a children’s director at Northside Baptist.
“I never in a million years thought I’d move back to Tennessee,” Scoles recalled. But that move laid the groundwork for what would become 17 years of ministry.
State of women’s ministry
A 2023 Lifeway Research survey of more than 1,800 evangelical Protestant churchgoers and women’s ministry leaders found that 96% of churchgoing women say their church values women. Yet fewer say their church effectively equips them or provides a meaningful place to serve.
“While women are positive about their churches, 1 in 5 indicate there is room for improvement in how well their church values them,” said Scott McConnell, director of Lifeway Research.
Women’s ministry leaders surveyed in the study pointed to a range of benefits their programming provides, including biblical teaching, community service and a space for more relevant scriptural application to women’s lived experiences. Less than 1% said their church’s women’s ministry added no benefit.
For churches looking to launch or grow their women’s ministry, Scoles offers simple but firm advice: start with prayer, start small and make sure the ministry aligns with the church’s broader vision and mission. She emphasizes three core components — Bible literacy, missions and fellowship — while acknowledging that no two women’s ministries look exactly alike.
“Women’s ministry is most effective when it begins small, is rooted in prayer, and is aligned with the broader vision and mission of the church,” she said.
A space to be real
Scoles began at Northside as a volunteer women’s ministry director. Today, she oversees women’s ministry and local partnerships — and leads a REFIT fitness class she prayed about for three years before it ever existed.
The idea took root when she noticed women dropping off their children at the church’s weekday preschool, already dressed for the gym. She wanted to offer something right there at the church. When she connected with REFIT she was drawn in immediately by its motto: “Every Body Belongs.”
“If you need to come in and do your own freestyle thing on the side, you go for it. If you need to sit down during a song and rest, you’re welcome here,” Scoles said. The goal, she said, is to make participation as stress-free as possible.
Central to Scoles’ approach is creating a space where women can drop the mask.
She believes women’s ministry is uniquely necessary because it offers something a co-ed setting often cannot: a safer, less intimidating environment for vulnerability.
“We want you to come as you are. Come who you are,” she said. “More discipleship happens when they’re in a comfortable space.”
She also points to the epidemic of loneliness among adult women. Creating intentional community, she said, isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. Women who might never raise their hand in a larger setting will ask hard questions about Scripture and faith when they feel truly known.
That community takes practical forms, too. She describes a group of women in the ministry who organized regular dinner outings for a member suffering from severe depression, showing up week after week not with programs but with presence.
Scoles also points to a homeschool mom — someone who had never spoken in front of a large audience — who was encouraged to teach at “refesHER,” a women-led weekend event where women plan the program, lead the music and deliver the message. The woman said yes. She was a natural.
“I was sitting in the media booth, just in tears,” Scoles recalled. “She was so good, and everybody was sitting there learning. It just flowed.”
That, she said, is the whole point.
“This is why I do this and why I love doing women’s ministry — seeing and encouraging and helping equip women to do what God has called them to do,” Scoles said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Zoë Watkins and originally published by the Baptist and Reflector.
