Let me begin by framing the conversation:
Any woman who God has called to leadership and especially to church planting has deep and often near-fatal wounds from those who believe following our call is sinful.  These wounds can never be neglected and honestly will never completely heal - they mark us and if we are blessed and wise, they end up marking us in a way that enables us to empathize with and reach out to excluded people - they can be holy wounds.  I don't want to overlook these holy wounds, but I want to step beyond them for the sake of this conversation.  What I would really like to engage here is the ways in which those who sincerely support women leaders stop short of actually doing that.
Networking:
As most church planters know, networking is important.  Church planters share ideas, co-conspire, connect each other to resources, console each other, point out pitfalls etc.  And beyond that, Church planters need other leaders to support them: mentors, funds, gathering a core group, church planting networks that will help with the task at hand, connections to those who are really interested in investing in church planting etc.
And, as most women in the church are well aware of, most of the incumbent or established leaders in the church are men.  And the problem is that many men - with good reason - are very interested in investing in young men.  Leaving women...well...under-developed, under-resourced, under-used, and consequently under-heard.

Let me quickly give a couple of examples and then invite you to share your thoughts:
  • As I said, the incident that sparked this conversation was being excluded from a gathering of church planters who want to engage their own brokenness and the brokenness of the world.  I was told that the event couldn't facilitate a "mixed gender" group.  As I later found out the decision was basically that the conversation would be hindered by a mixed gender group - aka men wouldn't get as much out of it if women were there.  And, honestly, I can believe that to be true.  But the choice was that women would get nothing out of it so that men could get more out of it.  I do not fault or judge or hold anything against the people who made a well-intentioned call on that.  But they - we all - need to see that excluding women from a conversation about church planting is never incidental, inconsequential, or truly unintentional.  Also, I think many of my male friends would agree that the men there will miss out on the feminine voice - which actually robs our brothers as well as our sisters in faith and calling.  Additionally, as they do not see women represented there or hear our struggles, they will continue to lead in the world in ways that are ignorant of the reality of women planting churches.
  • A second example I want to give is from seminary.  I've been to two seminaries.  At both it was suggested that mentored ministry should be - but didn't have to be - done with a mentor of your same gender.  Women are magnificent mentors and I have limitless gratefulness for my mentor, Lisa Domke.  But, as a practice, this keeps women in a lower place.  Men currently have positions of more power and more connection in the church.  Internships are meant to help you make the connections that will help you find a place to minister.  Thus if women are told to have female mentors, they will likely end up with less connections and a harder time finding a place in God's church - which was already an uphill battle.  Beyond that, in Christian universities, seminaries, denominations and most churches you will find that those in leadership are men. And many have hearts for investing in young men. (Taking them under their wings) I watched this many times from the time I was a child to...well...now.  Women are excluded from this - not by intention. And, again, the result is that women leaders are under-developed, under-resourced, under-used, and consequently under-heard.
So, let me ask you a couple of questions:
How have you seen/felt this?
How can we change this?
How can we safe-guard places for our brothers to be lifted up while still giving the gifts God has given women equal time and space for development?
What do men lose by this exclusion?
What have you lost through this exclusion?
How is God calling us to a future where women church-planters are equally developed, resourced, used and heard?
 


Comments

Melody Stone

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:32:30 pm

I can say I've felt similarly. In fact at an amazing conference about contextualization, surrounded by believers all doing amazing work around the globe and in the midst of 8-hr lecture the women were removed from the lunch session to talk about womanly things. This pissed me off. I was there to network not talk about inner-healing. I'm down with inner-healing. I love it! However, I didn't need a 45 minute info session for ladies only. There's no reason the men couldn't have heard the information either. That's what bothers me the most. Yes we are different, but we need to learn how to work with that. We aren't going to learn how to work through our differences till we work together. That means having men and women lead and learn together!
I love how Paul spent his entire ministry trying to build bridges and break down barriers between believers. Yet his messages about living a kingdom model in a broken un-fair power structure are consistently used to as justification to continue the unfair power structure. Through out Paul and Jesus' ministry the overriding principle is love, not legalism.
I disagree that having women there would make it less awesome for the dudes. Do these guys think they are going to pastor churches of dudes? Chances are the majority of the flock will be ladies, so they better learn real quick how to respectfully and effectively lead along side one. I bet integrating the genders might also help marriages.
At the conference one of the lunch time sessions for women was a panel of women who work or have worked in Muslim countries. Like the men don't need to know the potential struggles facing their wives and daughters once they move them to a foreign land!
As to getting women the training and support they need - it needs to start with a spirit led movement and unfortunately it probably needs to start top down. We have a top down system in place, and in order for the saints to be equipped to do the work of the ministry we need from teachers, apostles, pastors, and prophets doing that equipping.
My only hope for the Church right now is Jesus. I'm just gonna keep praying the Holy Spirit moves in a big way and people begin to see the role God created women to play!

 

rebecca tucker

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:16:55 am

Hey Melody,
I agree with a lot of what you said....but historically speaking, the church has rarely (never?) changed from the top down. in fact, almost every revolution and "great awakening" had youth under the age of 25 at the helm.
I think as we pray for the Holy Spirit to move, we need to consider how we can be the answer to our own prayers. If Jesus is your only hope, remember that Jesus lives in you and that the Church - flawed as we are - is Jesus' body here on earth.

Also, I definitely agree with the idea of working through our differences - but I'd go a step further and say that our differences are not something we need to work "through," but something we need to mine for all the glory God placed in what it means to be male and female.
It often seems to me that this will change when both men and women see the other gender for all the glory God intended - like the pearl in the field - and are willing to sacrifice comfort and tradition for the wholeness of God's image in men and women leading together.

 

Melody Stone

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 9:56:47 am

Yes,
Mine for the glory of God is awesome. After all that's what it's about. Glorifying God!
I just see the brokenness in marriage in the church and have to think, maybe we're doing something wrong in how we relate to each other - man and woman.
And yes, the Kingdom of God takes sacrifice - like the pearl in the field.
we should hang out and talk about this more in real life. I miss you!

 

Ronna Detrick

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 7:35:47 am

Becky: Such an important conversation with such deep streams beneath - both in our own stories and in those from the beginning of time. Your very discussion reminds me, at least in part, of why I'm rarely circling in this realm.

It's not that things are any better or worse outside the context of the church, it just feels like less disappointment, less expectation, less of the under-the-surface, unspoken, and insipid harm.

I hurt for you AND you give me great hope. Your voice matters. Your perspective matters. Your experience matters. Your work matters. And being a woman in the midst of all this makes it matter even more...as well as increase the burden you bear.

I continue to believe there is something uniquely inherent and profoundly beautiful in a woman's suffering; something of God's inhabiting and intimacy that is hers alone. You radiate that beauty and indeed, embody the God that both weeps and celebrates on your behalf.

 

tara a healy

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 9:49:19 pm

Hey Rebecca, I know I am late in on this conversation but i would like to offer my two sense here before working my way down the rest of your blog posts, I hope that is ok...

I have felt excluded in many ways concerning ministry, but perhaps the most disheartening is not the exclusion but the lip service inclusion or pseudo appeasement I have experienced. What do I mean by this? Well in my experiences male counterparts offer out lip service encouragement that feels, and in reality is, a simple condescending pat on the head. A sort of "Aw that is cute! Putting on your big clothes! Using your big girl words! Casting your big dreams! Speaking about your big girl call! Just precious!" I personally prefer the blatant exclusion then pseudo appeasement which I feel is the name of the game.

The call on my life is serious and real! And as you expressed in your blog female mentorship in my life has been great but I CRAVE bigger challenges in mentoring relationships and for now those challenges lay in male mentorship for the reasons you have expressed... women as under-developed, under-used and under resourced so though my female mentors have been AMAZING they for systemic and cyclical reasons can only take me so far. Unfortunately this fate could be suffered by another female at my hands should the cycle continue.

Separation any where is just a nicer word than segregation. Our churches are plagued with both which for the life of me I can not understand why! The gospel of Jesus is to restore redeem reunite re-member the body and in segregating the genders works against everything the Holy Spirit is doing in repairing the fracturedness of life and the cosmos. We can argue about gender roles but the question in those arguments is the wrong one (What are you allowed to do?) our question should be How is God using you to re-member His body? Jesus and Paul answer and address the latter question more often than the former (Jesus actually never addresses the former question at all).

 



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