2012-11-15T08:09:33-06:00

I saw this list by J. Lee Grady, at Charisma Mag, on ten lies the church tells women… and it’s a list worthy of a good conversation today. I give you his opening and then only his list… go to the link to see his explanations:

What distortions have you heard? Have you heard these?

For centuries, a patriarchal system of control has kept women in spiritual captivity through distortion of the Scriptures. It’s time to debunk the myths.

We live in the 21st century, but if we’re honest we have to admit that in some ways the church is still in the Dark Ages—especially when we look at the way we treat women.

Even though the Scriptures never portray women as secondary to men, our male-dominated religious system still promotes a warped view of female inferiority. Women are tired of this, and as a man, so am I—because such demeaning attitudes don’t reflect God’s heart.

Jesus challenged gender prejudice at its core when He directed so much of His ministry toward women. In a Middle Eastern culture that considered women mere property, He healed women, discipled them and commissioned them to minister. Yet today we spend much of our energy denying them opportunities—and using the Bible to defend our prohibitions.

I’ve identified 10 erroneous views about women that for too long have been circulated in the church, preached from pulpits and written in the study notes of popular Bible translations. I believe we must debunk these lies if we want to see the church fully released to fulfill the Great Commission.

Lie No. 1: God’s ultimate plan for women is that they serve their husbands.

Lie No. 2: Women can’t be fulfilled or spiritually effective without a husband.

Lie No. 3: Women shouldn’t work outside the home.

Lie No. 4: Women must obediently submit to their husbands in all situations.

Lie No. 5: A man needs to “cover” a woman in her ministry activities.

Lie No. 6: A woman should view her husband as the “priest of the home.”

Lie No. 7: Women are not equipped to assume leadership roles.

Lie No. 8: Women must not teach or preach to men in a church setting.

Lie No. 9: Women are more easily deceived than men.

Lie No. 10: Women who exhibit strong leadership qualities have a “spirit of Jezebel.”

2012-08-24T05:48:42-05:00

This weekly column by John Frye now has a name: From the Shepherd’s Nook.

Scot and Kris McKnight and I collaborated to create a title for these weekly musings. Kris suggested “From the Shepherd’s Nook.” I like it. If you are new to this column, please read the previous posts to get in touch with my purpose. I am writing with the hope of creating renewed motivation for pastoral ministry in the North American context, that is, to inspire young leaders to believe in and respond to the call of God to vocational pastoral work.

Dawne, an aspiring pastor, made this comment on the last post: “… it brought to mind the idea of the five-fold ministry, something I am hearing a lot about in my local church. I wonder how this might relate?” Dawne has raised a significant question.

I have had the opportunity to teach a seminary course on church and culture focusing on the missional church. Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church was on the course reading list. Alan has offered, IMO, the most thorough, operative description of the “five-fold ministry” concept under the acronym APEPT, i.e., Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher (see Ephesians 4:11). (more…)

2012-08-17T22:51:45-05:00

The issue of women’s experiences of churches matters to me, and I would urge folks to consider reading Sara Barton’s fine memoir, A Woman Called: Piecing Together the Ministry Puzzle.

From Barna, part two:

If spirituality were Olympic gymnastics, most Christian women would give their personal faith top scores. Three quarters of Christian women say they are mature in their faith (73%). The good feelings continue when it comes to ongoing spiritual growth, as more than one third (36%) of churchgoing women say they are “completely” satisfied with their personal spiritual development, and an additional 42% say they are “mostly” satisfied. Only one quarter (23%) of these women admit they are less than fully satisfied with their spiritual growth.

When it comes to their personal relationship with God, only 1% confess they are “usually not too close” or feel “extremely distant from God.” The vast majority of women claim to have an “extremely close” (38%) or a “pretty close” (43%) relationship with God. An additional 17% feel more ambivalent, saying they are “sometimes close and other times not close.” Perhaps this perception of intimacy with God is driven by the fact that slightly more than half (52%) of the women surveyed say they take time every day to intentionally evaluate the quality of their relationship with God.

If spirituality were Olympic gymnastics, most Christian women would give their personal faith top scores. Three quarters of Christian women say they are mature in their faith (73%). The good feelings continue when it comes to ongoing spiritual growth, as more than one third (36%) of churchgoing women say they are “completely” satisfied with their personal spiritual development, and an additional 42% say they are “mostly” satisfied. Only one quarter (23%) of these women admit they are less than fully satisfied with their spiritual growth.

When it comes to their personal relationship with God, only 1% confess they are “usually not too close” or feel “extremely distant from God.” The vast majority of women claim to have an “extremely close” (38%) or a “pretty close” (43%) relationship with God. An additional 17% feel more ambivalent, saying they are “sometimes close and other times not close.” Perhaps this perception of intimacy with God is driven by the fact that slightly more than half (52%) of the women surveyed say they take time every day to intentionally evaluate the quality of their relationship with God. (more…)

2012-08-15T15:42:21-05:00

From Barna:

Satisfied?
Broadly speaking, the research depicts two types of experiences among Christian women. The first represents the majority of Christian women. Most express a great deal of satisfaction with the church they attend when it comes to leadership opportunities. Three quarters say they are making the most of their gifts and potential (73%) and a similar proportion feel they are doing meaningful ministry (72%). More than half say they have substantial influence in their church (59%) and a slight majority expect their influence to increase (55%).

Yet, the study also shows another experience for many other women. These women are frustrated by their lack of opportunities at church and feel misunderstood and undervalued by their church leaders. About three out of 10 churchgoing women (31%) say they are resigned to low expectations when it comes to church. One fifth feel under-utilized (20%). One sixth say their opportunities at church are limited by their gender (16%). Roughly one out of every eight women feel under-appreciated by their church (13%) and one out of nine believe they are taken for granted (11%). Although these represent small percentages, given that about 70 million Americans qualify as churched adult women, this amounts to millions of women in the U.S. today who feel discouraged by their experiences in churches.

(more…)

2012-06-08T07:05:13-05:00

From Daniel Kirk at CBE:

Joshua wasn’t sure how far things should go. He liked that Moses led. He liked standing guard while Moses entered the tent and served as mediator.

He didn’t like it when Moses’ ground was encroached upon. But Moses had a different vision:

“A young man ran and told Moses, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.’ Joshua, Nun’s son and Moses’ assistant since his youth, responded, ‘My master Moses, stop them!’ Moses said to him,  ‘Are you jealous for my sake? If only all the LORD’s people were prophets with the LORD placing his spirit on them!” (Numb. 11:27-29, CEB).

Moses’ vision was the vision of Joel, the reality of Pentecost:

“Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, ‘Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young will see visions.
Your elders will dream dreams.
Even upon my servants, men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy'” (Acts 2:14-18, CEB). (more…)

2012-02-07T18:08:18-06:00

John Piper’s address about a masculine ministry and masculine Christianity was bold  but nowhere in the New Testament are ministers (used here generically) called to be “manly” or to be “masculine.” He equated in those comments “masculine” and “male,” and they are not the same. In fact, being “masculine” is not a term on the radar of any NT text about leaders in the church. Other terms shaped what ministry was. I prefer we use the biblical terms — and a nice summary would be “godly” or “Spirit-filled.” John Piper could have explored “fatherly” imagery in the New Testament, and there are some nice texts, like Philippians 2:22 where Paul sees himself as a father to Timothy, or to Onesimus in Philemon 10.

Which leads me to another dimension of ministry in the New Testament, taken no less than from the apostle Paul. We discover texts that speak of our mutual motherly ministry. In other words, another dimension of ministry compares pastors/teachers to mothers. [And this recently posted pdf by Brooten that sketches leadership of women in ancient Jewish synagogues is worth your read.]

There’s another reason for us to keep the motherly images in Paul in mind:

Making ministry so masculine may be insensitive to the ministries of women around the world, and Fawn Parish dropped this in the comment box:

Two Thirds of the pastors in the unregistered church in China are women. A majority of effective missions in North Africa is being conducted by single young women. Historically, single women missionaries have courageously braved death, spoken hard truths, been the recipient of hard criticisms, and have many sheathes of harvest to lay at the feet of Jesus.

I am reasonably satisfied that her comments are demonstrable in the sources she has sent me privately, though any numbers for both of these regions are difficult to establish with blazing accuracy. I don’t want to get hung up on that evidence, for it is well-known that many missionaries, church planters and pastors in China are women. The issue here is how to frame ministry: Is it masculine (whatever that means) or is it feminine (whatever that means), and I would argue both terms will get us into trouble, or does it transcend both (yes) and partake in the very nature of Christ (yes)?   (more…)

2012-02-01T07:37:58-06:00

From Halee Gray Scott:

But rivalry among females is not limited to sexuality. Sometimes our negative reactions towards other women are much more subtle. Anytime there is scarcity, there is a potential for derogatory attitudes that undermine the potential achievements of women, and nowhere is the principle of scarcity more at play than in Christian ministries and organizations.

According to a report published by the White House Project, a nonprofit promoting women in business and politics: “Although women constitute over a majority of churchgoers (60 percent), men continue to dominate leadership roles in the church,” with women making up only 15 percent of Protestant clergy.” So does the scarcity of leadership roles in Christian ministry and organizations lead to catfighting among Christian women?

Maybe. Given the enormous strides made by women in the past century, the lack of research on Christian women is appalling if not embarrassing. But the study I conducted last year among Christian men and women serving in Christian parachurch organizations points to, at a minimum, some relational tension between Christian women. (more…)

2011-12-11T19:05:29-06:00

Anyone who says reading Scripture is a teaching ministry is just making stuff up. Reading is reading and teaching is teaching, and preaching is preaching, and prophesying is prophesying, but reading is not teaching, preaching or prophesying. Women were prophets, women were apostles, women were teachers – this is all in the New Testament. That more than qualifies them for the public reading of Scripture.

There is a serious set of scholars who think the first public reading of Romans was by none other than Phoebe, the letter courier. Beside the already-unbiblical notion of prohibiting women from proclamation and teaching and preaching, the biggest error here is the reservation of only male-given gifts for a Sunday morning service. Where do we get Sunday-morning-only gifts? If women can read the Bible at home to themselves (teaching themselves) and to their children (teaching them) and to their Sunday school classes (teaching children), they can read it in the church service.

From Michelle Van Loon:

Should women be permitted to read Scripture aloud in a church service?

Probably for many of you reading this, the answer would be a simple yes. Neo-Reformed church leader and uber blogger Tim Chailles delivers an empathetic “No!” in this post.  In his congregation as well many others in both fundamentalist and neo-Calvinist camps, including this one, only male leaders are permitted to read Scripture:

Because of the importance of the Word of God, at Grace Fellowship Church we ask certain members of the church to be involved in a Scripture Reading Ministry—a ministry of those who are specially trained and equipped to read the Word of God and to read it well. We consider this a teaching ministry, which means that it is a ministry reserved for men.

My husband and I currently attend a church where a male pastor reads the Scripture from which his sermon is based as a part of the message. In the past, we’ve attended churches that used the Lectionary, which allowed a variety of people from the congregation serve as readers. We’ve also attended churches where a vetted reader presents the Scripture(s) for the sermon, and then the preacher follows. (Yeah. We’ve been around.)… (more…)

2011-10-19T14:12:02-05:00

Did you see this by Sarah Bessey?

You know what I would have liked tonight instead of decorating tips or a new recipe? I would have liked to pray together. I would have liked the women of the church to share their stories or wisdom with one another, no more celebrity speakers, please just hand the microphone to that lady over there that brought the apples. I would love to wrestle with some questions that don’t have a one-paragraph answer in your study guide. I would like to do a Bible study that does not have pink or flowers on the cover. I would have liked to sign up to bring a meal for our elderly or drop off some clothes for a new baby or be informed about issues in our city where we can make space for God. I would like to organize and prioritize, to rabble-rouse and disturb the peace of the rest of the world on behalf of justice, truth, beauty, and love. I’d love to hear the prophetic voice of women in our church.

Please, may we be the place to detox from the world – its values, its entertainment, its priorities, its focus on appearances and materialism and consumerism?

So here is my suggestion: Please stop treating women’s ministry like a Safe Club for the Little Ladies to Play Church. (more…)

2011-06-23T20:19:25-05:00

The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life surveyed 2,196 evangelical leaders from 166 countries and territories at the Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization last October. The results of this survey are now available at pewforum.org: Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders. There are many interesting bits to pull out of this survey and think over.

Evangelical leaders from the global south are more optimistic about the future of evangelicalism than those from the global north. The global north includes Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, the global south includes sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and most of Asia. The graph below represents a comparison of the impression of the current state of evangelicalism in each respondent’s home country with that expected five years in the future using data from questions 1 to 3 in the survey.

Seven-in-ten evangelical leaders who live in the Global South (71%) expect that five years from now the state of evangelicalism in their countries will be better than it is today. But a majority of evangelical leaders in the Global North expect that the state of evangelicalism in their countries will either stay about the same (21%) or worsen (33%) over the next five years.

In addition, most leaders in the Global South (58%) say that evangelical Christians are gaining influence on life in their countries. By contrast, most leaders in the Global North (66%) say that, in the societies in which they live, evangelicals are losing influence. U.S. evangelical leaders are especially downbeat about the prospects for evangelical Christianity in their society; 82% say evangelicals are losing influence in the United States today, while only 17% think evangelicals are gaining influence.

It would do us in the United States a world of good to develop a more global perspective. I will look at a few more of the questions and responses after the jump.

Does the difference in perspective surprise you?

(more…)

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