Women in Ministry: Where are you at?
I believe that this is an important issue. Let's talk about it.
In this thread, let's talk about biography - where are you at? How important is this issue to you?
Next time we'll do what we love - jump into some scripture.
posted by Dan Masshardt at 12:56 PM
10 Comments:
Dan,
I believe that women can have leadership callings from the Lord.
I don't embrace the Christendom model of leadership so I can't comment on that. I have no opinion about how Christendom defines ministry.
This is very important to me. I think that the leadership the Lord is empowering should be embraced as passionately as the Lord Himself is.
My comments, after one question for Bill. In your view, is there any leadership that God empowers men for but never women? Or to put it in the biblical terms we've been talking about, are women excluded from any of APEST?
I used to be against women in ministry. Two major reasons. First, the way I read the New Testament led me to believe that women were prohibited from leadership roles. (again, I want to look at the texts in future posts - let's just get our cards on the table).
My church taught this and most of my Christian friends (included women) were in agreement.
Second, I didn't know any women pastors (sorry Bill) really at all and the few I encountered seemed awkward.
Both of these things have since changed for me. I now understand scripture differently - i.e. historical and literary context is key - rather than going with a prooftext method. As well as realizing I had looked only at prescriptive aspects of Scripture and not descriptive (female leaders named).
Also, I met women who were gifted, called, not feminists with an agenda, but conservative, evangelical women who take the Bible seriously, including what it has to say about women in ministry.
I now have a different view. I believe that God can and does call women to leadership of different ministries in any position.
I will say that depending on different contexts, there may be wisdom about placement and timing.
Who's next? Looking forward to hearing some initial thoughts...
I am a strange complimentarian. I wasn't always one though. I started pastoring in the United Methodist Church and of course they are not.
I have never been as strict to say a womon couldn't minister. Just that a women could not be an elder/pastor in the church. I have always felt women should minister to women and that men and women should share the responsiblity to children.
I will admit though my views have become much more progressive/liberal (you choose) since becoming a church planter. I used to believe that only women could serve as teachers in the church and men as pastors and teachers in the church. But before coming to the CGGC my world of understanding was blown away by some Pentacostals who embraced APEST.
I still argue for the Pastor/Sheperd role to be held by males, but believe that Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, and Teacher can all be held by women. There are biblical examples for each.
Now on the issue of working beside women pastors, I believe ultimately in the atonomy of the local congregation as Winebrenner did. I understand how people come to the conclusion of women pastors/elders. If a congregation comes to that conclusion that is their choice, just as many congregations in the Western Region have chosen to be complimentarian.
For me it is not a secondary issue to divide over. For me there are very few issues to divide over. Maybe because I have become postmodern, or maybe because I understand grace better than I used to. I don't know. For me baptism is not a secondary issue. For most it is. I can not serve a congregation that does not immerse. I could however serve a church that had a women pastor at one time.
For me there are a ton of secondary issues... Reformed/Arminian, Egalitarian/Complemtarian, Footwash/keep'm dry (I'm a washer), Every Sunday/once a quarter communion, ect...
I see faith and time as a big story and somehow God is using all these differnt parts of the story to work it all out in the end. I guess my conclusion is if you can explain how you got to a point from scripture systematically, I can accept your belief. It doesn't mean it has to be my perspective.
Things that are first priority to me: Salvation through Jesus, Mission (Great Comission), Soveriegn God, Deity, Trinity and a few others.
Jesus prayed that his people would be one. Maybe my postmodernity has helped me get to that point.
At the last Best Practices meeting for planting leaders Ed Stetzer called me the hired gun. He said "If you want to build the Kingdom Justin, will work for you." I want to build the Kingdom and I believe the leadership of the CGGC does too. So almost everything else is secondary.
Let's build the Kingdom.
question for justin (anyone else can feel free to comment): when you say "build the Kingdom", what exactly do you mean? i know it may be a little off topic, but i think it might play a role, at least in helping me to understand where you're coming from.
Thanks Justin. That was just what I wanted.
Dan,
My comments, after one question for Bill. In your view, is there any leadership that God empowers men for but never women? Or to put it in the biblical terms we've been talking about, are women excluded from any of APEST?
In my opinion, no.
It appears that there was at least one woman among the Apostles in the New Testament. (Rom. 16:7)
The first person the New Testament refers to as a prophet was a woman. (Lk 2:36)
The propehcy of Joel quoted by Peter on Pentecost specifically says that women will prophecy.
Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus as the chief cornerstone.
There's only one person called an evangelist in the New Testament. I can see no reason to think that the New Testament church would think that a woman can't be enpowered by the Lord to be an evangelist and there is certainly no Scripture that suggests that.
1 Corinthians 11-14's description of early church worship certainly allows for women to prophecy and gives instructions on how they should do it. It also doesn't prohibit women from teaching.
As far as being gifted to shepherd: There is nary a person called a shepherd in the New Testament. There is nothing that is said to be done by a shepherd in the New Testament.
It's unclear to me what the connection between elders and shepherds and teachers is in the New Testament. It seems clear that one of the roles of the elder is to shepherd the congregation. (The verb 'shepherd' appears in connection to the work of elders in Acts 20 and in 1 Peter 5.)
It strikes me, though, that Paul seems to suggest that in order to be appointed an elder a person must be a married man.
Walt- Building the Kingdom for me...
God has pre-ordained that (wo)men are his tool/mechanism of spreading the message of grace through faith in Jesus Christ to find and to share the message with those he has chosen from the foundations of the earth.
God in his infinite wisdom could have decided to make people born knowing that they were in relationship with God, but chose for humans to share this message, in that the irresistible grace that is offered through the message would turn those to Christ for whom he died.
Those who are called and recognize their calling as the chosen, of the first born among many brethren, become part of God's eternal Kingdom. There job is to then spread the message of Grace and reconciliation as they have heard, and work on bringing reconciliation to the world (all things ie people, relationships, the earth, ect.) until full reconciliation can take place at the return of Jesus, when all things will be made new.
Those who are called to perpetuate the Kingdom until it's full establishment when it fully returns does this through inviting people into discipleship and planting churches to connect with new people groups who need the message of reconciliation in their own language.
For me the message of the Kingdom is two fold first
Luke 4:17-19 (English Standard Version)
17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind,to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
The second is Matthew 16:24,25 (ESV) " 24Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
To me... that is a brief definition of the Kingdom.
I don't buy into some of the earlier Hyper-Calvinistic definitions of the Kingdom. Which was Calvinist Law taking over the world.
Just a word to me in regard to Bill's unknown about the relationship between eldership and shepherding. I think we can try to get more precise here than what we have been left in the NT, but the impression I get from Acts and the epistles is that "elders" are those entrusted with primary and ultimate responsibility for the church in an oversight kind of way, but as person they might have any mixture of the APEST gifts. Having said that, I have long wondered if we make a mistake when we put people on our elder boards/teams who have none of the APEST gifts (which I would say has been very common in evangelical churches).
agreed.
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