Shannon Warden’s nearly 17-year legacy of listening and guiding people through some of life’s darkest valleys has led to a new assignment.

Effective, June 1, she became the first director of women’s ministries in the 32-year history of Triad Baptist Church — playing a key coordinating and leadership role with the lay leaders of a host of women’s ministries and counseling women at the church’s Life Support Counseling service.

“Triad’s many women’s ministries have a long and strong history and the women leading them are doing an amazing job building on the foundations set by those before them,” Warden said. “I’m excited about the opportunity to work together with them.

“Through women’s ministries, women can both serve and be served to accomplish the church’s mission to empower people to worship, connect, serve, and reach for the glory of God and to build His program and change lives.”

According to Lead Pastor Robert Decker, Triad’s members approved funding for the part-time position in 2011. Since then, the money has remained in the Personnel budget, Decker said, while the church waited for the right candidate.

He said Warden’s position will likely be converted to a full-time staff role in three years. Triad’s membership includes nearly 600 women ages 20 and over.

Warden will continue to consult with Tim Gerber, executive pastor for children and ministries — who oversees all the church’s ministry groups — but will serve as the primary point of contact and support for lay women’s ministry leaders and those developing new ones.

A growing number of women’s ministries at Triad and the critical role women play in families, the church, and society at large makes Warden’s addition an important and timely one, Decker said.

“Women are strong influences on the family and do so much to keep families together,” Decker said. “Look at the number of women’s ministries churches have in comparison to men’s ministries.

“Since the church is a family, the family of God, my vision is to coordinate and strengthen women’s ministries through this position so that we reach out into Kernersville and beyond to meet women’s needs and help them grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ,“ he said.

“Shannon’s key oversight and coordinating role will only strengthen our ability to do that and allow our many individual women’s ministries to come together even more effectively to do things better for the cause of Christ.”

A stirring in the spirit

The quest to find the right candidate took an interesting turn in 2014 when Warden considered another position but decided to talk to Decker to make sure it was the right one.

“I began to feel a stirring in my spirit late in 2014 about what else God might have for me career-wise,” said Warden, who teaches in the graduate counseling program at Wake Forest University. “I considered various options, but those all appeared to be closed doors.”

Then the talk with Decker changed everything.

“I remembered that my mother Sandra Prater, a longtime Triad member along with my dad, Ken, had mentioned how Pastor Decker had shared with her his interest in hiring a woman counselor who could both counsel at Triad and serve as the church’s director of women’s ministries, and so I set up a time to talk with him,“ Warden said.

“At the end of that late April conversation, he said he had, in fact, hoped to hire someone like me as much as a year earlier. We agreed that I could be a great fit for his vision, and at the end of our meeting, I told him that I would welcome the opportunity to serve.”

The church’s Executive Leadership Team approved Warden’s hiring at their May 21 meeting, and she began June 1.

A summer of onboarding

Since then, Warden has talked with Bridgiette Allen (Ladies Events Planning Ministry), Amanda Gatewood and Karen Boydston (Mom Connection), Amy Grochowski (Heart to Heart mentoring), Pam Chambers (Moms in Prayer International), and Miriam Stanley, who co-leads a Bible study and prayer group during Triad’s Sunday night SNAC (Sunday Night Adult Classes) time. She’ll soon also meet with Whitney Anderson, who heads up Hannah’s Prayer — a ministry for women who have experienced infertility issues or the loss of a child.

Along with these interactions, Warden plans to visit with other women’s leadership teams as part of her onboarding.

“By meeting and connecting with these and other women’s leaders at Triad, I hope to more fully understand what our strengths and opportunities for growth are,” Warden said. “I am praying and trusting as I go that God will guide us for His glory!”

Legacy of listening and guiding

Warden, who has a doctorate in counseling and counselor education and will also join the volunteer staff of Triad’s Life Support Counseling ministry as part of her new role, began her full-time counseling career at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem in 1999. She served as a staff counselor until 2006 when she left to earn her doctorate at UNC Greensboro.

Next up in her career: a one-year stint teaching human services at Guilford Technical Community College before relocating to direct the mental health counseling program (and teach counseling) at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina.

In 2013, she returned to the Triad area to teach and supervise graduate-level counseling students at Wake Forest.

Warden and her husband, Stephen, began attending Triad in the fall of 2013 and joined last summer. They volunteer in the Junior Cubbies group of Awana and are members of the Doulos Sunday School community.

The Wardens have been married for 17 years and have three children: Avery, 10, Carson, 3, and Presley, 2. Avery is a rising fifth-grader at Triad Baptist Christian Academy.

Warden works for Triad about 10 hours per week in addition to serving on the Wake Forest University faculty.

‘Five Love Languages’ experience

Many fans of Gary Chapman’s best-selling “Five Love Languages” books, seminars and other materials know her well, even if they don’t know her name. That’s because, sine 2003, she’s helped design some of the profiles and answered counseling-related letters and emails from around the world sparked by the works.

She met Chapman, senior associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church, while serving on the counseling staff.

Most recently, Warden wrote a promotional booklet for another Chapman book, “Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion.” The booklet is titled, “Taming Anger: A Guide for Moms Who Are Feeling Angry,” and is available as a free download from www.5lovelanguages.com.

“I believe what I have done and continue to do as part of Dr. Chapman’s ministry is helpful, but it has far more been a blessing to me,” she said. “I consider this a great privilege and another way through which God has grown and is growing me for ministry.

“Each of these areas of my work — counseling, teaching, programming — allow me the privilege of genuinely caring about people, listening to them intently to learn about their strengths and challenges, and actively going about helping them to improve and grow in their abilities and in their relationships,” Warden said. “ God has been growing me and using me in ways that only He can, and I look forward to how He will continue to do that in my role at Triad.”