Monday 19 May 2008

True Confession

Dearest Brother,
Since you and I are in the "tree of trust" and nobody else is reading this, I have to admit that I'm don't stand right where you are on this issue. So I'll wrestle and process this right here on the good ole' world wide web. 
I'm not sure I would join a church where the senior pastor was a woman, but I wouldn't join a church that didn't have women as elders and associates. Sound hypocritical? Maybe it is, but that's where I am right now. Let me try and flesh that out. The response might come from the fact that I have never been a member of a congregation with a lead female pastor. It might stem from the fact, right or wrong, that in many settings men seem to grab the attention of large groups of people when it comes to vision, direction and leadership. Whether men are being intentional cruel or not, many guys don't and won't follow women in certain roles. Even saying this out loud makes me feel like a narrow minded chauvinist, which I don't want to wear that badge at all. 
Here are 2 things that you can join me in "chewing on":
1) One of the most popular, fairly recent translations of the bible was translated by men only. Could the interpretation of text or translation have been more rich if scholarly women were at the table?
2) Here's a comment from a friend of mine. His pastor had a long standing affair in a church that does not affirm the leadership of women. "If a woman would have been on the leadership team, she most likely would have sniffed this affair out way in advance. 
still under construction
the younger

1 comment:

Sayward said...

OK. I'm the Director of Student Ministries at my church, and I tend to agree with where the younger is going on this discussion. I love my job and I'm totally loving my ministry, but just as a mom AND a dad are needed to balance out a family, so too in a church family. I'm getting an intern in a couple of weeks and I really can not wait. I feel like there's so much I'm not hitting, as a woman. I looked up to my MALE youth minister so much and there were prominent women assisting him, but I think there needs to be a male leadership presence, and as it relates to the head of the church...it needs to be a man.