The Secret Sister Dilemma
Part 1
Julia Bettencourt
Since first putting this website together, I began receiving email about the Secret Sister programs in our local churches. Many pastor’s wives and women’s leaders seem so frustrated over the issue. Other mail has come in from ladies who are having a hard time keeping up with the gift giving involved.
If you are not familiar with what a Secret Sister program is, it is basically the exchanging of names within a ladies group, where you give encouragement by the way of cards and gifts to the ‘sister’ you are assigned, along with praying for them. Usually at the end of the year, you reveal your Secret Sisters.
There’s no doubt that the Secret Sister program began in our churches as a good thing with a good purpose. It was meant as a way to encourage ladies at a personal level, so what happened? It probably goes back to a few different factors. One thing maybe is that the gift giving was encouraged and given more importance than the prayers and other forms of edifying. Back when the Secret Sister programs began popping up in our churches, the gift giving was kept small. However, then it was like with anything else, each gift had to be a little nicer, and from there on out it snowballed. Part of it too is that there are more two income families in today's society. In general, women today have more spending money than in past years. Now what we have today in some churches is a gift giving frenzy and gift giving burn out.
Is gift giving for our Sisters in Christ a bad thing? No. Can it get out of control? Yes. Face it. Not everyone lives on the same budget. Diverse people make up our churches. Many people do have extra money to spend on gifts; however, many families live paycheck to paycheck and if they have extra money, they don’t want to spend it on a Secret Sister gift. They want to spend it on their kids or something they need for their homes. Or maybe they have the money, but not the time required to pick up the gifts and get them to their Secret Sister as others in their group would.
When you have gift giving within a group at different monetary scales, eventually someone willet hurt feelings over the type of gifts they are receiving. It doesn’t have to be the cost of the item that we as ladies can develop an attitude about, but your Secret Sister may just be terrible at picking out something that you’d enjoy and if she’s your ‘Sister’ for an entire year, it can lead to bitterness. I don’t think that ladies mean to complain or grumble over how their Secret Sister treats them, but it does happen. Little comments and expressions can cut quickly into the giver of those gifts and into the heart of another Sister in Christ.
The way most Secret Sister programs have been done also has had a drawback. Usually your‘sister’ programs run for a year and then the sisters are ‘revealed’. A growing church will have new people all the time. What happens to those new ladies? Some churches have something in place to prevent it, but many times those ladies fall through the cracks. They shouldn’t have to wait until the next start up year to be involved in a church ministry. I was always taught as a young person to never stand with a group of friends and talk in a closed circle, but to always be aware to keep making an open end so anyone can join in and not be alienated. I still am very conscious not to stand in a complete circle as an adult, chatting in the parking lot after church or wherever the case. I’ll move over and open the circle if someone comes up and closes it. I think that’s how we make newcomers into our churches feel with our ‘Sister’ groups sometimes. Those ladies see the exchanging of gifts and are not involved, and may feel left out or outside the group without the prospect of the circle opening until the start of the new ‘Sister’ program year.
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Copyright ©2007 Julia Bettencourt
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