Growth in The Greenhouse
Louisa Raggatt is appointed as The Greenhouse’s Community and Engagement Manager.
From left to right: Greenhouse Program Director Katrina Clifford, Louisa Raggatt, ADM’s CEO Mary Un
When The Greenhouse launched in December 2022, we were unsure what God would do with it. The program was designed after extensive consultation with Christian women to discover what sorts of support, encouragement and training they felt they were lacking, and we were confident that The Greenhouse had the potential to meet some of those needs. But would women join? Would it grow? Would it help ADM achieve its vision of seeing ‘every woman equipped and engaged in serving Christ in the Church, the community and the world’?
The answer, it seems, is yes! The Greenhouse has grown so much so quickly, that it has become clear that for this seedling community to keep growing, connecting and encouraging Christian women, we needed to employ a second team member, someone to focus on building community and helping members engage with each other. Today, ADM is pleased to announce the appointment of Louisa Raggatt as The Greenhouse’s Community and Engagement Manager.
Community through communication is Louisa’s wheelhouse, the thread woven through her personal and professional experience. Whether as a marketing and communications professional, as a women’s and children’s minister at her church, or through entrepreneurship, she has experienced how well-managed communities, both in person and online, offer opportunities for people to develop deep, authentic relationships. She is delighted to be able to bring her decades of experience to The Greenhouse, to use her skills and experience to serve God and his people, especially his women, at ADM.
One of the things Louisa is most looking forward to is using her skills for ministry. Growing up going to church, she does not remember a time when she didn’t understand that God loved her; “Having always had a really strong sense of God’s love for me is something I am really grateful for, and having always been a Christian is something I feel incredibly blessed by, even though it does mean I don’t have the most dramatic testimony!”
It was as a teenager that she started to have a fuller understanding of what it meant that Jesus had died for her and became more deeply engaged in her faith and in her church. Since then, she has served in roles in women’s ministry, children’s and families ministry, and various team and leadership roles in the churches she has attended with her husband Mark and their three children. She also found time to study a Graduate Diploma of Divinity through Ridley College, which she is deeply thankful for. This year she has been writing a book on how regular Christians can use hospitality to love and share the gospel with their neighbours, a project funded by an ADM Fellowship.
Greenhouse Program Director Katrina Clifford feels blessed that Louisa saw, felt called to, and accepted the role of Community and Engagement Manager. “Louisa’s extensive background in communications, marketing, managing online communities and building new initiatives makes her such a perfect match for what we were looking for in this role, that she is clearly an answer to prayer. I’m so excited to see what God has in store for us in the future, and hope daringly that he will continue to grow our little community to bring the benefits of support, encouragement and training to more Christian women throughout Australia (and beyond).”
Louisa is excited about working alongside Katrina to together serve the women of The Greenhouse and reach many more. She’s looking forward to getting to know our Greenhouse members and thinking strategically about how we can provide the best possible support, encouragement, and opportunities for community to help Christian women serve God in all the contexts in which he has placed them. She asks for prayer as she does so, for the forming of good relationships and great wisdom in working out what the next steps for growth for these women and for The Greenhouse might be.
Louisa will be going to Texas next month to attend the Evangelical Theological Society conference, where she is keen to connect with Christian women from around the globe to start to form strategic partnerships with others involved in community-building and supporting and training women. She would love prayer for safety and the making of good connections as she travels.
“Our experience has been that The Greenhouse has been a blessing to each member and our hope is that thousands more women will come and fellowship with one another in the spirit of Hebrews, ‘encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ Louisa’s appointment allows us to create a broader community that under God’s blessing will go even further to achieving this vision.”
CEO of ADM, Mary Un, was an enthusiastic supporter of The Greenhouse before starting in her leadership role here, and her enthusiasm for the program has grown as she has seen up close how women are being supported and encouraged through this new community. She says, “ADM has a long history of creating a community in which women can walk alongside one another as they serve the Lord. The Greenhouse so perfectly embodies this in our modern context. Our experience has been that The Greenhouse has been a blessing to each member and our hope is that thousands more women will come and fellowship with one another in the spirit of Hebrews, ‘encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ Louisa’s appointment allows us to create a broader community that under God’s blessing will go even further to achieving this vision.”
We know that the growth of The Greenhouse to date has been possible because of the prayers of many of ADM’s supporters, as well as the hard work of everyone involved in the program so far. Please give thanks with us for the way God has taken our efforts and used them to bless the Christian women who have come along to our gatherings or joined a guild. And please continue to pray most of all that God will continue to bless this work, because we know that we can do our part, but he’s the one who will bring the growth.