In spite of all the years I’ve spent being a girl, I’m still not very good at it.

This is a great post from the Burnside Writers Collective.

I found this article very true of the way I view the world, and I think its true of my generation broadly. And responding to these women is what women's ministry in the church should look like today. But I agree with Sarah, how am I supposed to lead other women if my own compass hasn't yet found due north?

it breaks my heart

I am a chronic over-empathizer. For example, sometimes I feel sadness because of someone else's pain more intensely than for myself! In ministry, this can be exhausting! I'm not called to bear someone else's emotional burden -- that's not what it means to "carry each other's burdens."

Anyway, that being said, recent conversations with several young women about the pain they have experienced because they are women seeking to be in ministry have (a) made me incredibly sad, and (b) made me incredibly angry.

One woman sought to use her musical and teaching gifts in the church she had been attending. She was told, "Well, you can babysit the children on Sunday mornings." What a waste! Not that children don't need good teaching and good music too, but to assume that this woman is called to minister to children just because there is nowhere else she is "eligible" to serve runs contrary to God's purposes in equipping each of us with gifts for ministry.

Another woman had an extremely negative experience within the first couple of months of attending seminary. A professor spent an entire class period ranting about the issue of women in ministry, setting up straw-man arguments to show how Evil Feminism had attacked the "gospel truth" of complementarianism. (Note: I was not in this particular class, so this is second-hand information. However, I had this professor for a similar class and am familiar with the way he handles the issue). This professor may not have intended it, but he effectively undermined this young woman's confidence in her own calling before the Lord. Plus, he modeled a particular method of engaging with theological debates that is neither objective nor, in my opinion, Christ-like -- and he did this in a class filled with young men (and several women) who are preparing to be pastors!

The pain from these type of experiences runs deep, and talking with these young women absolutely breaks my heart. It astounds me that people such as the men in leadership at the first young woman's church and the professor in my second story just plain don't see that the implications of their attitudes undermine the ministry of the church.

I'm still working through how to articulate what I sense and what I see about how these type of attitudes can infect the church. It's a very subtle infection, because those in leadership view their attitudes as being Biblical Truth -- so anyone who disagrees is seen as attacking Scripture rather than challenging a particular interpretation. For now, all I can do is think, and lament, and encourage young women like the two I mentioned, and give thanks that God has placed me in a church that values my gifts and my calling to ministry, and do my best to serve God with confidence in Him, and pray for God to continue to establish His kingdom in His church.

it's time for another "good idea, bad idea"

In ministry, context can often make the difference between a good idea and a bad idea. For example:

Good idea: making sermons available as podcasts on the internet.
Bad idea: making sermons available as podcasts when no one in the congregation has internet access.

Good idea: opening up "Prayers of the People" so that people in the congregation can voice prayers aloud during the service.
Bad idea: opening up "Prayers of the People" during election season to a congregation that strongly disagrees about political issues (can you say "prayer wars"?).

Good idea: implementing healthy change in a congregation.
Bad idea: pushing for change in a congregation that really just needs some stability.

I'm sure all of us in ministry can come up with our own list of example along these lines. But here's what got me thinking about the affect of context on the validity of our ideas:

Good idea: giving female seminary students a forum in which to practice their preaching.

Let me pause here. I am all for encouraging women in their preaching, and as a recent seminary grad I know that it can be more difficult for female students to find opportunities to preach in the church. However, I do NOT believe that women can/should only preach to other women, as some of my colleagues believe.

So here's the question: does forming a women's preaching club (women preaching to women) on a seminary campus represent a good idea or a bad idea? Some contextual factors:

• The seminary campus in question had been moving forward in affirming women in ministry in recent years.
• The student body has recently shown signs of becoming more restrictive in its views on women in ministry.
• The seminary does not currently hold a formal position on women in ministry, which to me represents one of its strengths.
• Preaching labs at this institution are currently coed.
• Those at the seminary who are more egalitarian are very concerned about this proposed club.
• Those at the seminary who lean complementarian are very excited about the club.

In ministry, it's all about the context. In another context, most likely no one would be concerned about forming a "women's preaching club." But in the context I examined above, forming such a club makes a particular statement, regardless of whether or not the club's founders intended to make that statement.

So... women's preaching club in a place fighting to remain open to women in ministry: good idea or bad idea? The jury is out.