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.