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Dallas’ Cathy Moffit Helps Women Find Faith, Leadership Skills
by Sylvia Dunnavant
Special to the NNPA from the Dallas Examiner

DALLAS (NNPA)—Cathy Moffitt is holding on to her family, friends and faith as she uses her corporate skills to launch Christian women into new directions.

Last year, the 46-year-old former corporate executive left a lucrative management position at TX Utilities to devote her full energy into cultivating her own ministry.

For years she had developed the leadership skills that had allowed her to climb the corporate ladder. Now, she is determined to use those tools by developing leadership skills in Christian women.

“I was in Leadership Texas, Leadership Dallas and Leadership America. I found all of them to be enriching; yet, none of them were spiritually-based,” said Moffitt.

“I felt this internal pull to do the same thing for Christian women that corporate America was doing for me. I asked around to find out if there was a leadership program specifically designed for Christian women. However, no one I talked to knew of anything,” she said.

Moffitt, who is an ordained elder at the Potter’s House, quickly penned a proposal for Serita Jakes, the head of the Potter’s House women’s ministry.

With Jakes’ approval, Moffitt launched the first Christian Women’s Leadership programs in 1998 to more than 9,000 women at the church.

“I had to restrict the criteria to keep the class small. I never wanted to work with more than 45 women at a time,” she said. “I think intimacy is very important to get the full value of the program.”

In order to participate the women had to be between the ages of 23 and 35. They also had to be able to pay the $150 tuition and attend all the classes for the four month session, said Moffitt.

In five years she has helped more than 200 women graduate the leadership development program.

As women began to come from as far away as Atlanta to attend her spiritually uplifting leadership sessions, it became evident for Moffitt that she needed to offer her program to a broader audience of Christian women.

After listening to Moffitt’s presentation, Yolan Pope, who lived in Atlanta, persuaded Moffitt to take her off the waiting list and put her in the class. This meant the 33-year-old flight attendant would have to fly to Dallas twice a month to partake in the program.

“I have never had a class really touch me like this one did. It was powerful seeing women my age coming together. It was also at a point in my life when I needed a change,” said Pope. “The program enriched my life in terms of knowing who I am, and who God made me to be. I now realize it is OK being myself…flamboyant and all.”

Over the years Jakes eliminated the age restrictions and Moffitt’s students have ranged from ages 21 to 77.

“The common thread is that they believe in God and have a desire to reach their maximum potential through Him. If you believe what the Bible says, then we can do all things. He will give you the power to do what you put in your spirit to accomplish….all you have to do is believe,” said Moffitt.

Barbara Harris, who is also an alumna of the Christian Women’s Leadership Program, also has put Moffitt’s seeds of success to work in her personal life.

“I never have been a person who enjoyed being around a lot of women. I was always more or less a loner. The class helped me get pass that,” said Harris. “The program helped me understand my feeling toward women didn’t have a lot to do with them—it had a lot to do with me. I learned to love myself and women unconditionally.”

After taking the course, Janet Houston said she committed to volunteering for Generation Success.

“The leadership class helped opened up my desires of my heart and allowed me to move forward into what God had for me. After taking the class, I was able to developed a plan, stay focus and move forward into what God had for me,” said Houston.

Moffitt also requires each participant to do 20 hours of community service with a non-profit organization.

“I have always had a community focus. My heart has been to send a team through the program and let’s them go out and implement what they have learned with a non-profit organization. I like the concept of Black women helping Black people. We definitely need more of us to volunteer to help meet the needs in our community,” said Moffitt.

Moffitt does more than just talk about volunteerism. This summer, she and her husband, Lorenzo, donated a house to a woman who was raising her great-grandchild and three grandchildren as a single parent and struggling to keep a home.

Annie Record, who was suffering from breast cancer, already had lost her husband and a daughter to cancer. The two met while in the parking lot at the Dallas Convention Center.

While Record, 56, was still in treatment for cancer, the Moffitts purchased a home for Record and her extended family.

“We gave her the keys to the home this past Mother’s Day. With the help of my husband, my ministry helped with utilities, planted trees, and completely furnished her bathroom,” said Moffitt.

This year Moffitt took an even bigger plunge of faith by adding her leadership programs under the umbrella of her personal ministry, Heartfelt International Ministries (HIM).

HIM was birthed October 1994 through a spiritual experience in a San Francisco hotel. Moffitt was attending a women’s conference in Oakland. It was through this encounter that God inspired her to take the word nationally.

She later adopted the scripture, Mark 12: 30, as her motto: “Delivering the word of God from the heart to your mind and spirit.”

Despite the many obstacles of going it alone, Moffitt held her first leadership class through her own ministry in September of this year. She closed the class with 30 women, and she still had a waiting list. The classes were held at High Point Church in Arlington with $250 tuition.

Each participant is given a personality assessment. Communication skills, problem solving, strategic management, effective prayer, corporate protocol, women’s health and women sexuality are a few of the topics Moffitt covers in the four-month training program.

Moffitt addresses and ministers to the spiritual, emotional and personal development of her students. She integrates her professional background and corporate experience to empower women to maximize their talents and abilities in the work place and church environment.

She also assigns a professional Christian woman as a mentor for her students.

“I think the mentor program is a key element to the Moffitt’s leadership program. It helps young Christian women realize how Christian women use their faith in the workplace,” said Ramona Logan, reporter for NBC-5, and a program mentor. “Many times the world paints a picture of cutthroat ways of getting to the top. But as women of God we know that when you do things His way it always works out. As mentors we get to show how we can be professional, but also be a light in the work place.”

Logan added, “The one thing I found to be neat was that many things women spend half a lifetime learning, these women are able to learn in four months. Therefore, they can avoid some of the pitfalls we have had to go through. I wish the program was around when I was coming up.”

With requests for her program coming from as far away as Denver, Moffitt said she is excited about the possibilities the future may hold. Her goal is to continue to develop the program and make it available everywhere.

“In less than 15 years my husband Lorenzo and I will be in our 60’s. Yet, I believe in the divine intervention of God. And I know this is God’s calling for my life. We are in a planting stage of our lives, but when you plant you also have to prune,” said Moffitt.

As she broadens her personal ministry to include her speaking engagements, ministry training, and now her leadership program; Moffitt said she wants women to walk away understanding the magnitude of personal development.

“One woman told me she didn’t even get her GED, but I reminded her that did not mean she did not have skills, talents and abilities. The same woman later wrote a proposal,” said Moffitt.

“We get success mixed up with someone else's definition. Our society is driven by recognition, yet our true success is based on what we accomplish on a daily basses,” said Moffitt.

Moffitt will host her first leadership conference June 7-9, with her spiritual mentor Bishop Ernestine C. Reems of Oakland, Calif. The theme will be, “A Lady for All Times, at All Cost.”

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