The question over whether or not women should serve as deacons has been hotly debated within the evangelical tradition. Because of the Scriptural priority of male headship, many evangelical traditions have felt that appointing women as deacons would in some way threaten the authority of men. Others refuse to appoint women to the office of deacon because they interpret Scripture as teaching directly against it.

Now to be perfectly honest, I believe there are a lot of passages in Scripture that are quite clear about those roles from which women are to abstain, but I’ve never understood this to be one of them. And that’s what has surprised me about evangelicalism. Many a church that defends the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, holding it up as one of the most foundational doctrines of the Christian faith, seems to run in contradiction with Scripture’s clear teaching on deacons. In Romans 16 Paul speaks of Phoebe, a deaconess he commends, describing her great work in the church. In a tradition that weighs every jot and tittle as being divinely inspired, the denial of women as deacons seemed like a gross evangelical oversight given that Paul himself worked with a female deacon.

This led me to engage some fellow believers on this issue, and I have since learned that there is a plethora of arguments explaining why Paul did not, in fact, permit women to be deacons, nor does the larger context of Scripture.

But interestingly enough, respected evangelical Tim Keller (Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York) disagrees with many of these voices. In an essay defending the place of female deacons in the Church, Keller addresses the objections to appointing women as deacons by carefully examining the Scriptural defense of the practice. To read the whole essay, you can click here.

I won’t rehash all of Keller’s points, but there was one concluding remark that really stood out to me. After delving into all the ways in which Scripture supports the appointment of female deacons, Keller notes that many evangelical churches have nevertheless abstained from this practice for fear of the culture’s perception. There is a worry that in an effort to defend the authority of men in the church, a “perceived authority” related to the office of deacon could be problematic. In response to this concern, Keller writes,

“Many people have said to me over the years they thought that our practice of deaconesses did not flow from our reading of Scripture, but was a capitulation to the egalitarian culture around us. I have tried to show that our reasons are solidly biblical, but I continually try to examine my own heart regarding this. I would only ask our critics to recognize an opposite but equal error. 

In other words, the Bible probably allows it, but let’s not do it because of the culture. Isn’t that also responding to the culture rather than to the text?”

What an important point! We must always be wary of a practice that treats Scriptural teachings as though they are “not practical” in light of our present circumstances, as if the Spirit inspired Words of God did not anticipate the cultural tide of the centuries to come. When we do this, we reveal ourselves to be far more influenced by the culture than we have ever dared to admit, under the guise of prudence.

Last week I wrote about Bishop Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church, and her denunciation of “personal relationships with Christ” at their General Conference. Though I only alluded to it in that post, there was a second controversial element to the conference, and that was the Church’s decision to ordain homosexuals into the priesthood.

Now I am by no means trying to pick on the Episcopal Church by highlighting them twice in one week, but I came upon a response to the Episcopal Church’s decision, written by N.T. Wright, that I found worth noting. If you aren’t familiar with him, N.T. Wright is a renowned British theologian, and he is also a member of the Anglican Church (the Episcopal Church’s British counterpart). He makes some incredible insights into the the Episcopal Church’s decision from which we can all learn. Not only does he appeal to Scripture and tradition in his defense, but he does so without the emotional work of name-calling or mud-slinging. What follows are some of my favorite excerpts:

On sexual chastity in the Christian tradition:

“Many in TEC (The Episcopal Church) have long embraced a theology in which chastity, as universally understood by the wider Christian tradition, has been optional. That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined, as the shrill leader in yesterday’s Times suggests, to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.”

What an important reminder that sexual purity is not just about being holy, but providing a witness for those around us. We are meant to be different, to look different, and our sexual lives are one way that we set ourselves apart from the rest of the world for the glory of God. When we conform to the sexual norms of our surrounding culture, we become like a salt that loses its saltiness (Matt. 5:13).

Wright also responds to the TEC’s notions of justice in relation to human identity–that is, treating all humans justly, regardless of sexual orientation. This was also a great point:

“The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

Such a novel usage would also raise the further question of identity. It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.”

It is always ironic that many of the Christian voices who preach the loudest about community tend to ignore the greater community of Church tradition. We must not be so arrogant as to think that we know better than the 2,000 years of Christian brothers and sisters who preceded us. That is not to say that we shouldn’t hold Church tradition under the scrutiny of Scripture, but in this instance the two are clearly aligned. With that in mind, it’s important that we love those with whom we disagree, but loving them does not mean we are so shaped by the culture that we no longer resemble the Church established by Jesus Christ.

To read Wright’s entire response, click here.

You might remember this past Spring when the news broke about insurance heavy weight A.I.G. providing its employees with $165 million in bonuses. During any other year, no one would have even blinked at that amount, but not this year. Why? Because AIG had just been bailed out by the U.S. Government, receiving more than $170 billion of taxpayer money. To the watching world, these bonuses seemed ludicrous–why reward the very people who brought the company to the brink of collapse?

It was also a slap in the face. After bailing out an undeserving company from its almost certain demise, A.I.G. was taking advantage of that generosity.

Well I was reminded of the A.I.G. fiasco last night as I had dinner with my fiancé. We hadn’t gone out on a date in a long time, so we decided to do it up right! We picked a nice restaurant that we couldn’t normally afford and got all dressed up for night on the town. As we sat down at our table, we noticed that at the table next to us sat a group who clearly attended church together, if not served on staff. One of them was, in fact, the pastor. They talked about baptism services, Bible commentaries, and church attendance. They seemed like a fun group, and I was really close to interrupting their conversation with a socially awkward, “Hey, I overheard you talking and we’re Christians too!”

But then something happened that stopped me. When the bill came the pastor paid for all of them, and I heard one of the members of the party say how nice it was for the church to treat them all. Even with their small group, the prices at the restaurant were so expensive that their bill would have easily been hundreds of dollars.

And the church was paying for it.

I’ve been processing this experience ever since, and I still feel very torn about it. Granted, I do not have all the information, but this sort of thing is not uncommon. I spoke with someone the other day who said their church pays for their pastor’s meals with church members at the local country club. But is this really how we should be spending our church budget?

In economic times like these, Christians are giving sacrificially to their churches, providing for staff salaries that are often higher than their own, and trusting that those pennies are being used to further the Kingdom of God. So while I don’t believe that a pastor should be poorer than the poorest member of their congregation, I wonder where we should draw the line of extravagance. Even if a member or potential member is a high profile person in the community, and the pastor feels it is more appropriate to meet with them at the country club than Bojangles, I would think there are a lot of cheaper options on the spectrum between the two.

Now there is an extent to which we must “be all things to all people,” but how far do we take it? My dad actually agrees with pastors who do this, and he reminded me of the importance of trusting my pastor’s judgement. That point cannot be understated. So I’m going to open up the floor to other people’s input. I’m going to be honest, I am VERY skeptical about all this–Jesus didn’t exactly schmooze people into the Kingdom with steak dinners–but I’m open to having my mind changed. What do you think?

This week the Episcopal Church created yet another stir at its General Conference when the presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori denounced the idea of a personal relationship with God through Christ as heresy (that is, a contradiction with the truth of Scripture and belief of the Church). She explained,

“The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy –- that we can be saved as individuals, that any of use alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being.“

She later added,

“I said that this crisis has several elements related to that heretical and individualistic understanding. We’ve touched on one – how we keep the earth, meant to be a gift to all God’s creatures. The financial condition of the nations right now is another element. The sins of a few have wreaked havoc with the lives of many, as greed and dishonesty have destroyed livelihoods, educational possibilities, care for the aged, and multiple forms of creativity – and that’s just the aftermath of Ponzi schemes for which a handful will go to jail. If we want to be faithful, we need to be continually rediscovering that my needs are not the only significant ones.“

The great irony of the Bishop’s statement is that the Episcopal Church has embodied this very individualism against which she rants, by departing from the bulk of Church tradition in their ordination of homosexuals. In doing so, the Episcopal Church has actually isolated itself from the larger community of faith, a move that some might call ecclesiologically individualistic.

But aside from that minor detail, I actually think there is something to her words. Bishop Jefferts Schori is right in critiquing the idea of “my personal Jesus”–an understanding of Jesus that not only enables one to isolate one’s self from other Christians, washing their hands of any responsibility to others, and refusing accountability from the larger Church, but it can also turn Jesus into a kind of custom order Savior who serves your particular needs–namely, not going to Hell.

In the face of such distortions, I can understand why Bishop Jefferts Schori would raise an eyebrow. The language of “personal relationship” has been used in the name of some very unscriptural practices.

However, Bishop Jefferts Schori goes awry in her identification of the problem’s source. The problem is not the language of the personal–the problem is how we’ve used it. A healthy understanding of “personal” is that God knows you intimately as a person. He “knit you together in your mother’s womb” and he knows “when you rise and when you fall.” Just read Psalm 139–it doesn’t get much more “personal” than that.

What’s more, God is not some far off entity who is only accessible through a system. If you need God, you can cry out to Him–yet another practice we see all throughout the Psalms. Yet Bishop Jefferst Schori elevates community to a level of near idolatry given how thoroughly she founds salvation upon it. If salvation is both by faith AND community alone, then we can offer little comfort to missionaries, both abroad and in the American workplace, who find themselves isolated from other Christians with whom they can fellowship.

But most importantly of all, I would like to know how Bishop Jefferts Schori would reconcile her idea of heresy with Paul’s method of conversion in Acts 16. The Philippian jailer, frightened by an earthquake that had freed the Christian prisoners, comes to Paul and asks, “What must I do to be saved.” Paul simply responds, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

When we depart from this said “formula,” we wander dangerously close to the heresy from which Martin Luther fought to free the Church 500 years ago. J.D. Greear once stated, “Salvation is by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” We must let this truth serve as a boundary for our language about “personal relationships,” but the personal aspect must remain. When we reject it, we not only stray from the model of salvation given to us in Scripture, but we lose any hope of reaching a human race that was designed to be inherently relational.

Ever since I got engaged I’ve gotten hooked on a show called “Bridezillas.” It’s one of those train-wreck type shows that you just can’t look away from, but I’ve also been watching it to keep my perspective on this whole wedding planning process in check. Whenever I find myself stressing over insignificant details like the color of the reception chairs or table card designs, I think of Bridezillas and it jolts me back to reality.

In case you’ve never seen the show, here’s a clip that will give you a good taste of what these bride are like. CRAzy!!!!!!!

(For the sake of the groom, I really hope that was staged….)

What’s especially interesting about the show is that each episode follows a specific and consistent plot line. The viewer follows the bride as she belittles her bridesmaids, treats her fiancé like dirt, and goes nuts over the tiniest of details. She is a living nightmare.

Yet in spite of these brides’ horrific personalities, the shows always ends the same. Magically, at the moment of the wedding ceremony the bride is transformed! As if her fairy godmother had flitted into the church and waved a wand about her, the bridezilla’s monstrous behavior is but a distant memory. While she walks down the aisle smiling sweetly, the narrator concludes that the Bridezilla has now “changed into a blushing, beautiful bride.”

It doesn’t matter that she almost called off the wedding the day before, or that she repeatedly told her fiancé how stupid he was, or that she forced her bridesmaids to gain weight since they weren’t allowed to look better than her. Without exception, the narrator always states some variation of that line–the Bridezilla is now a Princess Bride.

After awhile, this part of the show really got to me. I mean who are they fooling? Just because you slap a white dress on a girl and put a tiara on her head does not a lovely bride make. These women are absolute horrors and their fiancés should run for the hills! No spin on the situation can change that fact.

But here’s what really struck me about the whole thing–While I get so angry at the narrator for such a blatant misrepresentation of  the situation, for covering over the clear hypocrisy of the bride–promising to love and honor her husband after just having called him an idiot or a fat pig–I do not apply that same high standard of consistency and authenticity to myself.

When you think about it, Bridezillas is an illustration of the Christian life. We as Christians are the Bride of Christ. We get all dressed up and then step into the church with our best faces on. We sing songs to God, hold our hands high and take meticulous notes on the sermon.

But what were we doing just hours or days before walking into that church? Did we honor and respect our spiritual groom, or did we deny him with our words and actions? Maybe we failed to share the Gospel with a co-worker when given the chance because we were afraid of what she might think. Perhaps we gossiped about other Christians to make ourselves look better, all the while tearing down the Body of Christ. Or maybe we spent our money selfishly instead of giving of it generously.

Every day of every week we give our hearts to other lovers, the countless idols that have our true devotion. We are bridezilla Christians who fail to love, honor, and be faithful to our heavenly groom.

And while we live this life of marital infidelity to Christ, we put on a facade of purity and holiness. I am certainly guilty of this. As I walk through the doors of my church it’s as if I magically transform into “Perfect Christian.” I know just what to say and how to act. I praise God loudly and nod affirmations during the sermon. But oftentimes the image I project is about as authentic as a Bridezilla masquerading as a sweet and innocent wife-to-be. The show’s portrayal of her supposed “change” is a complete farce. And oftentimes so is mine.

While God does desire that we set aside time each week to gather in worship of Him, that time is not meant to be in contrast with the rest of our week. Nor is it a weekly spiritual pick-me-up. It is instead a natural continuation of of our every day lives, one of many ways that we praise and worship our Heavenly Father. Just one of many.

There is a reason why the Bible describes Christians as the Bride of Christ. The fresh and excited affection of a young bride is the exact image that Scripture intends to define the entire Christian life. On the day I get married, I will be enthralled with my fiancé. I will be eager and willing to give my whole self over to him, to love and respect him the rest of my life. And that is the type of love we are to embody every day of our lives–that of a bride who yearns to be united with her groom in unconditional, everlasting love. We aren’t fooling anyone if we play the part of a bride on Sunday morning, and then live as spiritual bridezillas every other day of the week.

After having delineated the reasons that women’s ministry is on the decline, and then examining the reasons why we as the Church should be concerned, I am now going to explore some points of action on the part of the Body of Christ. This will not, however, be a formula, nor will it be a suggestion for church staffing policies. Women’s ministry is going to look different in different churches, not only because of theological variances but because of financial ones as well. In light of this diversity, I will instead offer several diagnostic questions to evaluate where you and your church lie on this issue.

But before I do this, I want to offer an opening definition of women’s ministry. I should have done this long before now, but it is important for evaluating where your church stands in regard to this particular ministry.  I would define women’s ministry as a function of the Body of Christ in which women are educated, equipped, and empowered to be disciples by other women. This function can play out in a variety of forms and is not necessarily limited to an official “women’s ministry division” of church life. There are plenty of different ways to accomplish this–the trick is in doing it effectively.

Having established this definition, you can implement it as you read through the following Women’s Ministry Diagnostics:

Diagnostic #1: If you are a church leader, are you providing women with the opportunities to use their gifts to the fullest?

As I quoted Ed Stetzer in my last blog entry, a large number of evangelical churches have comprehensive doctrinal positions on Biblical manhood and womanhood, but their beliefs fall short in one of two ways:

1. Churches only describe what women CAN’T do, without affirming the full extent of what women CAN do.

When I asked Stetzer about which churches do well in affirming women, he pointed me to Tim Keller’s church, Redeemer Presbyterian in New York. I researched Keller’s position and I found that while the office of elder is reserved for men, he goes on to say:

“Though the job of elder is a high calling, every believer is a “prophet, priest, and king”. All non-elders in the church must and can use their gifts in the church, whatever they are. In a nutshell, our position is this: whatever a non-ruling elder male can do in the church, a woman can do….Thus, women at Redeemer will be free to use all the gifts, privately and publicly. There are no restrictions on ministry at all.”

* To read Keller’s entire essay, click here.

I agree with Stetzer that this is indeed a strong and affirming stance for women in ministry. However this leads me to the second point of doctrinal break-down, which is follow through:

2. Churches do not put their doctrine into practice. 

There are plenty of evangelical pastors who would whole-heartedly agree with Keller’s stance. And the ones who don’t completely agree are probably not all that far off from his position. There aren’t many church leaders around anymore who would out-right deny that women should serve in some form of a ministerial role. The problem is that hypothetical belief looks very different from reality.

I have talked with numerous pastors who admit that they don’t have any doctrinal objections to a woman teaching or preaching in various church capacities or services. But has it ever actually happened? No. What’s more, church staffing often fails to reflect the equality of gifts outlined in their doctrinal positions. Women are considered to have equal gifts in ministry, but few churches will actually hire them to do so.

Now the real problem here is not the furthering of women’s “rights” in the Church or some other woman-centered agenda. What’s at stake here is the integrity of one’s theology and ecclesiology. (For you non-seminarians out there, “ecclesiology” refers to one’s view/understanding of the Church)

Ecclesiologically speaking, if you believe that God gives His disciples specific gifts to be used for the edification of the Body of Christ, and that God gives those gifts deliberately and with a purpose for expanding His Kingdom and glorifying His Name, then passive affirmation of these truths is not enough. Inherent in the above statement is action. God expects us to be using our gifts, so if we have designed a system that only enables some disciples to use their gifts while preventing others from doing the same, then we are not fulfilling our call to be the Body of Christ.

Theologically speaking, many evangelicals ascribe to a Complementarian doctrine that teaches men and women complement one another in their gifts. That said, if we do not actually allow women into positions in which their gifts are able to complement men, then what results is a lop-sided church leadership that is not only failing to draw on the diversity of gifts at its disposal, but fails to reflect the Trinitarian model of leadership provided for us in the person of God.

As I said, I will not prescribe what this looks like for individual churches, but I ask you to take a hard look at your church in this respect. Are you truly utilizing the gifts of everyone in the Body, or just some?  What would it look like to have more diversity of gifts on your church leadership and staff? And more importantly, how can you build a church leadership team that reflects the heavenly throng awaiting you in eternity?

Diagnostic #2: If you are a Christian woman, how are you honing your gifts for the glory of God?

While it is important to address the Church’s role in affirming the gifts of women, women must also pursue their gifts in Scriptural, God-honoring ways. We frequently fall short of this goal in one of 2 ways:

1. Women hone their gifts for the wrong reason.

For many of you reading this, you are very frustrated right now. You have gone to seminary, you have received an M.Div. and you are ready to serve. Unfortunately, you can’t find a job because you don’t want to be a children’s minister or counselor. I can relate.

In response to this frustration, it’s tempting to try and force your way into the church. You push and push and push, or complain and complain about how unfair it feels, hoping that someone will hear you.

But when you find your heart straying into a direction of bitterness, beware! A tactic of force or coercion that results from anger and frustration is not only ineffective, but it is also not of God. While it is important for evangelical woman to raise concerns about the health of the Church in relation to women’s ministry, we do so FOR THE GLORY OF GOD, not women. This must always be our motivation.

2. Women are not honing their gifts.

A theology of male leadership is not permission to be lazy. Men have their roles, and women have theirs, but the call of every disciple is to preach the Gospel of Christ. Just because you are not on a church staff does not mean you are any less of a minister. While it is important that the larger Church affirms women and provides them with opportunities to serve and lead, we don’t have to wait on this to be serving and leading.

So the question is, where do you fall on this spectrum? Do you know what your God-given gifts are? How are you refining them and using them? And if you are doing all of these things, what is your driving motive? Are you doing it for yourself and your glory, or for God’s?

One thing is for sure–we cannot complain that the Church isn’t using our gifts for the glory of God if we ourselves are not using our gifts, or if we care little for the glory of God.

Diagnostic #3: If you are a church leader OR a woman, what are you doing to equip women with the same training and urgency as men?

As I mentioned in my previous post, women’s ministry will find itself on the road to irrelevancy if it fails to keep up with on-going shifts in the female demographic. Here is one example: As a college student, one thing that always frustrated me about the women’s break-out sessions at conferences was that my male counterparts usually heard from pastors, whereas we women heard from pastor’s wives. Now I am by no means belittling the knowledge and wisdom that those women possessed. Their husbands would not be equally yoked with them were they not women of great faith.

However, not all pastor’s wives are called to be teachers and preachers. Some are, but some are not. That said,  I think this trend exemplifies a common pattern in women’s ministries–women leaders have not always been expected to be trained and equipped in the same way that male leaders are. This is not universally true, and it is not to say that God cannot use someone who does not have a seminary degree, but there is a reason why we expect male pastors to have extensively studied and prepared to teach. It is a responsible, effective and faithful way of equipping yourself to be a better teacher, and we should expect the same of women leaders.

In the past, it would have been a challenge for churches to find women with seminary degrees to lead in their church, but that is no longer the case. More and more women are going to seminary, so it’s time to implement their training. Is your church doing this?

And if you are a woman, what are you doing to educate and equip yourself to lead other women? If you are thinking about seminary, don’t let the limited job market be a discouragement. I have used my degree to serve my church in many ways without ever serving on staff. The Church needs women who can answer tough theological questions as an increasingly educated generation of non-believing women come their way. A seminary education is not just about getting a job, but equipping yourself for the sake of the Church.

And if you don’t feel called to seminary, your call is no less great. If you’re leading a Bible study you should do so with excellence.  Rather than becoming an hour-long therapy session, your small group should be a missional hub from which you send young women out into the world to share the Good News! Or, if you’re not a small group leader, who are you discipling? Find a younger woman to walk alongside of through the peaks and valleys of life. Pour truth into them so that they might rise up and serve the Kingdom of God with rigor and might.

As I have said before, woman serve as one half of the Body of Christ, which means we need to pull our own weight. Our roles may be different from men in some regards,  but we are no less crucial to this spiritual battle. We need to stop treating our Christian faith as a means for propping up our self-esteem, and instead hear it as a call to arms. You have heard the call, now take up your arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

This concludes my series on women in ministry. It’s difficult to fit it all into three blog entries, but I hope it has at least served as a start to the conversation. I know I have not answered all of your questions, so feel free to post them and we can follow up. Til then, I want to end with a final thought: Do not mistake my passion for this topic as anything other than what it is–a desire to see God glorified through His Body, the Church. In all that we say and do, we should be about one thing, and one thing alone–the Gospel of Christ. Affirming the role of women in this endeavor is one important means toward this end. Women’s ministry itself is not that end.

In my last post I examined the growing trend among churches that are moving away from offering women’s ministry. Today I’m going to respond to the 2 main reasons why this is happening, and then delve into the bigger picture of what’s at stake if we remove women’s ministry from the Church’s missional strategy.

#1: Women’s Ministry is Becoming Irrelevant–The first reason that women’s ministry is on the decline is that it’s become irrelevant to many women today.

The problem with this reasoning is that we do not treat the Church this way. Just because a church isn’t doing ministry effectively does not mean we abandon the idea of “church” altogether. Instead, we seek reform. We find ways to change, improve, grow, and preach the Gospel with more power and authority than ever before.

And that is exactly what we should be doing in the realm of women’s ministry. Just because successful strategies of the past are no longer working does not mean that women’s ministry has become obsolete. It simply means we need to raise the bar. Women need to step up and be more intentional about equipping their hearts and their minds to equip the women who come after them.We do not throw the form away.

We just make it better.

#2: Women Are Already Thriving On Their Own–According to this reasoning, the most urgent need of our day is to raise up strong men. Given the numbers of women going on the mission field and attending seminary, it would seem that women don’t need their own specific ministry if they’re already excelling without it.

There are actually two problems with this thinking. The first is an overestimation of the goodness of women. Women are not going on the mission field because we’re somehow better or nobler than men. It is instead the result of a combination of circumstances: our changing culture–women are encouraged to do more than they ever have before–and Gospel-centered teaching.

Due to the feminist movement, our culture nearly over-emphasized women for the sake of making them equally, and some of this was at the expense of men. But we are also seeing the positive consequences of a culture that continually affirms women in their abilities and intellect. Women are serving God in ways that they were never able to before.

That said, women aren’t surpassing men because we’re more naturally motivated. Our culture has encouraged us to do so, and there have been some positive results for the Church. But given this imbalance, the solution is not to make the same mistake as the feminists by over-emphasizing men. BOTH genders do well when challenged to step up, so we must not stop pushing women. Nor should we rely on the culture to do this for us, because the secular perspective often strays into a kind of woman-centered agenda.

The second problem with the above thinking is that its vision is far too small. While focusing on the surge of Christian woman in ministry, it overlooks the MILLIONS of women who do not know Jesus at all. I pray there never comes a day when we are satisfied with the number of women who know and are serving Christ. We must always persevere in reaching women around the world, and the individuals who are best equipped to do this work are other women. If we are to reach this demographic, then we must urgently arm more women and then send them into battle.

Now those are two reasons why women’s ministry is far more crucial than it is often given credit for. I would like to offer another.

Several months ago Ed Stetzer, who works at Lifeway overseeing research of the unchurched and teaching Christians how to respond, addressed the issue of women in ministry at a Leadership Network conference. He delineated the characteristics of a “dangerous church” in 2010–that is to say an effective church. Among the characteristics of this church, Stetzer stated that it will have “wrestled with gender inclusion.” He goes on to explain,

It is always a controversial issue, but gender issues will become increasingly a challenge for the church, particularly for the majority of American church attendees who go to churches that do not have women in pastoral roles…In the survey, the unchurched twenty-somethings were asked what impact two stances by a church have on them. First they were asked, “If you were considering visiting or joining a church, would knowing that the church did not endorse the ordination of women as pastors negatively or positively impact your decision?”

Sixty-five percent of all of the younger unchurched said this would negatively impact their decision. Only 6 percent said that this would be a positive. So, the negatives outnumbered the positives 10 to 1….Now no matter where you are on the issue, we need to have a clear and biblical reason, that is consistently applied, to explain our position.

*To read this entire talk, you can check it out on Stetzer’s blog here.

Now some of you may read this and think, “My church does this already!” Plenty of evangelical churches have discussed this topic ad nauseum, so it would seem that such churches are doing well on this point.Well I asked Stetzer about this exact thing–Don’t evangelical churches ALREADY do this, almost to the point of over-kill? Stetzer responded, “No not really. The average SBC church does an incomplete job articulating their gender views. When they do, they only tend to describe it in terms of what women can’t do.”

And this explains a LOT. I have been mystified by the fact that churches with the most detailed views of Biblical manhood and womanhood, who have the most nuanced reasons for distinguishing between the roles of men and women, do not have ministries specifically for men and women. They are not taking their theology to its logical end. If men and women are so different, then men are best equipped to teach men, and women are best equipped to teach women. But most of evangelical churches aren’t doing this, and it’s for the exact reason that Stetzer described.

If we truly believe that God created men and women for different roles, and we want to play to those differences in a way that equips believers in their service to God, then we need strong ministries for women and men. That is not to say that our genders should define us more so than our identity in Christ–if your church does not have these ministries, it will by no means crumble. BUT, the reality of our gender differences should be a factor in our strategy for expanding God’s Kingdom.

And as Stetzer highlighted, this work is not only crucial for building up the Church, but for evangelism as well. If we do not articulate the roles of women in a way that gives women Scriptural options for serving, teaching, and leading, we will quickly become irrelevant.

Now this leaves us with one remaining question: “What does this look like?” How should churches seek to build up women in ways that are both effective and Biblical? We will take a look at that in the next post.

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent this past weekend at the Advance Conference learning from pastors who are older and wiser about how to breathe new life into the Church. What was ironic about the timing of this conference was that it came on the heels of a related conversation I had with Sherry Surratt, wife of Seacoast Pastor Greg Surratt (Seacoast is a church based in Charleston, SC with almost a dozen satellite campuses in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia).

Sherry not only serves on staff at Seacoast, but she is the Director of Women’s Initiatives in Leadership for Leadership Network, and she spends a lot of her time networking with women all over the country who serve in women’s ministry.

What was interesting about our conversation was Sherry’s findings from her work with Leadership Network. The Advance Conference was held in response to the decline of the Church in America, and it would appear that women’s ministry is suffering the same fate.  After researching and interviewing hundreds of women who serve in women’s ministry, Sherry found that a large percentage of churches, particularly mega-churches, are moving away from women’s ministry. What was once considered a crucial ministry in its own right is now being absorbed into the larger arena of “church life.” 

Sherry’s findings about the lack of church emphasis on women’s ministry were further validated by a survey taken by Revive Our Hearts. The survey polled nearly 1,000 Women’s Ministry Directors and women serving in women’s ministry. Of the women polled, only a third of them possessed the official title of “Women’s Ministry Director,” and of those women only 15% were actually paid by a church. 84% of the actual Women’s Ministry Directors served in a volunteer capacity and were not on church payroll. Given that budgets reflect priorities, this statistic is telling.

As a woman in ministry, these findings are not surprising. Women graduating from seminary who are seeking to serve at evangelical churches will be hard pressed to find jobs outside the realm of counseling and children’s ministry. Most churches aren’t paying women to lead women.

So these findings beg the question: Given that women constitute one half of the Church, why  is women’s ministry so low on the totem pole?

Although there are many reasons for this, I am going to highlight two in particular. The first reflects a concern that is frequently voiced by women. The second reflects a perspective that I have mostly heard from men. Both perspectives are actually quite legitimate.

1. Women’s Ministry is Becoming Irrelevant–In the Revive Our Hearts survey, the results found that only 41% of Women’s Ministry Directors had completed a college degree, and only 1% had attained a seminary degree.  While Jesus’ disciples remind us that God doesn’t always call or need those with the highest education to lead His people, these statistics do have important implications for cultural relevancy. In a country where more and more women are seeking advanced degrees beyond their undergraduate education, and desire to dig into the meat of theology, women’s ministers have not always been fully equipped to reach them. 

This generational and educational divergence is also apparent when you stroll into a Christian bookstore. In the past, books for women have largely fallen into the categories of lifestyle and self-help, but more and more women today are looking to balance emotion with intellect. So while those genres will always have an audience somewhere and have indeed been a blessing to countless women around the world, young women are more likely to pick up a book by John Piper or Tim Keller than some of the well-known named  female authors. 

As young ladies find women’s ministry resources lacking and instead turn to more general Christian authors for theological reflection, churches are following in kind. If women are no longer interested in women-specific resources, then why bother providing a women-specific ministry?

2. Women are Already Thriving On Their Own–At the Advance Conference Dr. Daniel Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, informed us that of all the single people on the mission field right now, 3/4 of them are women. This gender imbalance has been an on-going problem within the Church over the last decade. As the number of women going to seminary and serving on the mission field has increased, the number of men has seemed to simultaneously decrease.

In response to this shift, evangelicals sounded the warning bell and have launched multiple efforts to reclaim manhood in the Church. We have seen a rise in “Wild at Heart” type books, and pastors like Mark Driscoll have spoken out against the feminization of the Church. And in order to drive the urgency home, the importance of male leadership has been elevated to a status of nearly dogmatic proportions. Male leadership has been touted as one of THE most crucial components of the Church.

In light of these events, it would seem that women’s ministry is the LAST thing we need to work on. Given the increase of women attending seminary and going overseas, women seem to be doing just fine. If anything, it is the men who need the help. We need to push men harder and pour into them more intentionally so that they will step up and lead. Women are doing a great job on their own.

These are just two of the main factors that have led to a noticeable shift away from women’s ministry within our churches. If you have been involved in women’s ministry, or if you’re just a woman in the church, I’m sure you can think of more. Feel free to offer your own thoughts!

In my next post I am going to examine the potential blind spots in the above reasoning, and examine why the movement away from women’s ministry may be dangerously short-sighted. If you are one of my male readers, I encourage you to stick with me–while this may not seem immediately relevant to you, it impacts one half of the Body of which you are a part. If we are to fight this spiritual battle, then we better make sure half the army is ready for combat.  

This weekend, my very own Durham, NC is hosting a Christian conference of EPIC proportions.

As the Durham News and Observer reported, the Advance Conference is in town featuring a wide array of “celebrity pastors,” a list that includes controversial Mark Driscoll, fiery preacher John Piper, the influential writer and Lifeway research guru Ed Stetzer, Village Church’s Matt Chandler, and my friendly, neighborhood multi-site pastor, J.D. Greear. As the article described, it is a time for “young pastors to learn from the masters about how to start a successful church.”

While I’m sure the article made every single speaker blush (and then secretly feel good), the article is not that far off. As I stood in the lobby this afternoon, I stared out at a sea of eager young men and women, all looking uber trendy in graphic tees, skinny jeans, funky haircuts and Converse tennis shoes. I think I saw maybe one middle-aged guy in a polo shirt, but he was the exception to the rule. (You know who you are……Rick Langston) This was a crowd of young people all hoping to make their mark on the world and learning from those who already have.

When you’re surrounded by so many great pastors, it’s hard not to get swept up in a kind of hero worship. And I think that’s the great temptation at conferences like these. We look up to these trail blazers, and we all secretly fantasize about the day we’ll be up on stage instructing the younger generations how to lead and preach and grow the Church. It’s funny how a gathering intended to exalt Christ can end up doing quite the opposite. God becomes small in the face of our own aspirations.

But the reality is that, in spite of my ungodly motives, these men do have a lot of experience and wisdom to share and it’s an excellent opportunity to learn. And while the conference itself is about the resurgence of the local church, I’m going to be coming at it from a very different angle:

How do we stage a resurgence of women’s ministry?

In the next several posts I am going to examine the reasons that women’s ministry is declining, why you should care, and what we should do about it. I will not only be writing from my own experience, but from the discussions and correspondences I’ve had with influential Christian leaders as well. From these conversations it has become clear that I am not alone in feeling a burden to initiate change in this particular branch of the Church–the Holy Spirit is on the move.

The theme of Advance 09 is that of an advancing army. We may have experienced some defeats in the past, but now it’s time to mount a resurgence. And ladies, we constitute one half of that army. If this “resurgence” is going to happen then we need to carry our own weight, so it’s time we start thinking about what it means to be a soldier in the Kingdom ranks, fighting not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. You are not just a precious daughter of the King–you are a mighty warrior.

Well I am back in Durham after a week of traveling throughout Tennessee and Georgia, and I have to say that the Collegiate Summit in Nashville was awesome! We heard from a number of speakers including a phenomenal young pastor in Alabama named David Platt, the President of Lifeway, Thom Rainer, and the President of the Barna Group, Dave Kinnaman.

All of the speakers were incredible, but I’m going to focus the substance of this post on something that Dave Kinnaman said that was both challenging and humbling. In case you aren’t familiar with the Barna Group, it is a research organization that primarily gathers information related to the Church and Christian culture–whether it be patterns of Christian lifestyles, or reasons that non-Christians avoid the Church. Dave has published a book entitled “unChristian” that responds to a lot of the information he found, so you should certainly check it out if you haven’t already.

During his talk, Dave provided us with information about American teens today–what makes them tick, what their habits tend to be, and how complex they are. In many ways they are unlike any other generation before them because they are so tough to pin down. There is very little that characterizes them as a whole.

However, it has become very common today to view this younger generation as sort of a lost cause. 40% of children today are born out of wedlock, and their generation is characterized most by the worldly influences of MTV and trends like “sexting,” so it’s easy to write them off. They would seem to be hopeless.

As a result, many Christians have come to think of this age group as “the Prodigal Generation,” and in light of this perspective Dave made a challenging observation:

“If this is the Prodigal Generation, then the Church is the older brother.”

I don’t think Dave could have been more on the mark. When we consistently criticize and berate young people, we reveal our hearts to be just like that of the bitter older brother in Jesus’ famous parable. Our desire is not redemption or reconciliation–we want to be justly rewarded for how faithful we are. Under the guise of concern and caution, we hide proud hearts that think these lost sheep will get exactly what they deserve.

I do not, however, believe that this trend is limited toward the teenage culture. Christians tend to be bitter and prideful toward a lot of demographics. This is perhaps most noticeable in the blog world–if you visit any popular Christian blog on the internet, you will likely find venomous comments by critical Christian readers who are quick to doubt the intentions of the writer, and fast to slander them.

Many Christians are in a constant posture of bitterness and condemnation. This is not only true of the token conservatives, but of the liberals among the Body as well–it is as if anger has all but consumed our Christ-given propensity toward grace.

It is within this climate that Dave Kinnaman’s words are timely. It’s one thing to be watchful, but quite another to be expecting failure. We must therefore be mindful of what our actions say about our faith. As in the story of the Prodigal Son, we learn that no individual is beyond the redemption of God’s love. It is not simply a story about forgiveness, but about hope–God is able to redeem anyone, even the most lost.

When we let bitterness and judgment define our interactions with other Christians, or non-Christians, we say less about their lostness, and more about God’s ability to use them. Behind that bitterness is ultimately doubt–doubt that God is really able to save, or doubt that He is so radically merciful.

Yet no person is outside the redemptive power of God. As Isaiah 59:1 reminds us, “Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.” This knowledge should determine our posture towards one another. We should be defined by an orientation of hope, not cynicism. Even if you disagree with another Christian, do not doubt the power of God to work through them. When we are bitter or arrogant, we not only close ourselves off to one another, but to the mighty and wonderful work of God within them.

So check yourself. Is your heart like that of the prideful older brother, or the loving, hopeful, and welcoming father? Judging by how you have talked about, thought about, or written about other Christians this past week, your actions probably speak for themselves.