I’m a fan of this conference for a couple of reasons:
1.When I wrote a post entitled “Dear Pastors – Tell Us the Truth,” I was overwhelmed with responses from pastors who felt that the Church was no place to openly discuss their fears, their failures, their hopes, and their dreams. This conference creates a safe place for those sort of conversations to happen.
2.Having been a part of a church plant that dissolved, I know first-hand what it feels like to fail...and to need a community of people with which to honestly struggle through that failure without fear of judgment.
We live in a culture that holds up celebrity pastors as the ideal: Big numbers. Big personalities. Big egos.
If that’s your thing, this conference probably won’t be for you. But if you’re looking for something else, please know that, in the words of JR Briggs, “you are not alone. There are other broken ragamuffins trying to love and serve Jesus.”
The other day, my former pastor called me up and said, "Hey, wanna try and do something really big that will probably fail again?"
We were only able to answer a few of your questions in the video, so I’ve gone back through the comments after yesterday’s post to respond to the questions we don’t tackle here. (Find out which one stumped us both!)
Despite the fact that men outnumbered women in the Greco-Roman world, women, especially widows, joined the early church in droves. In the second century, the pagan Celsus criticized Christianity, saying it was a religion for “the foolish, dishonorable, and stupid...and only slaves, women, and little children.”
Records show that in 253, the Roman church included over 1500 widows, and by the fourth century, the church in Antioch included 3,000 widows and virgins. Women have been a part of Christ’s ministry and Christ’s church from the very beginning. We aren’t going anywhere, and the suggestion that our presence is no longer wanted or needed in the Church is insulting and contrary to the gospel.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be actively seeking out men and encouraging them to exercise their gifts in a church setting.
So, a couple of questions for you:
1. How can we encourage men to participate and take ownership in the Church WITHOUT belittling women or relegating their roles?
2. Much has been written about the “prolonged adolescence” of men in America. How can pastors/teachers/counselors call men to responsibility, again WITHOUT belittling women or creating a one-size-fits-all mold for masculinity?
Do you know of any pastors/churches who are doing these things well? Please share!
It’s been over a year since we did the last “Ask Dan and Rachel” video post. Now that my year of biblical womanhood is over, I thought you might have some questions for us—about the project, about our marriage, about our strange, self-employed life in East Tennessee.
So leave your questions below, and be sure to use the “like” feature to indicate which questions you most want answered. If your question is specifically for Dan, or specifically for me, please indicate that. We’ll make a video response and post it tomorrow.
Ask away!
(Note: As you may have noticed, my blogging schedule got all out of whack this week because of traveling. Look for our Bible series and “ask a” series to return next week.)
What surprised me on this trip was that at every single event, one or two people would pull me aside and ask how I kept from getting discouraged by those big numbers that Mark Driscoll, and pastors like him, are always bragging about—the 10 million downloads, the enormous church planting network, the packed-out services, the hundreds of thousands of blog visitors.
“Do you feel sometimes like we are losing,” they asked, “like the voices that belittle women, glorify hierarchy, and demand that ‘real men’ look and act like Mark Driscoll are louder than those advocating for equality, servant leadership, and humility?”
One young woman asked me this question with tears streaming down her face, for she had been made to feel small and worthless by churches like these, and she lived in fear that thousands upon thousands of women were experiencing the same thing and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
In brainstorming with the members of the Arizona chapter of Christians for Biblical Equality, I saw frustration in their faces as they talked about the seemingly insurmountable popularity of organizations like the Gospel Coalition and Acts 29.
And at one event, during the question and answer time, one man pointed out that if I had been Mark Driscoll, there would not have been enough room in the church building to accommodate the throngs of people eager to hear his message about how real men can beat up their enemies, real men make fun of effeminate guys, real men would never attend a church in which women are allowed to speak, real men always lead, and real women always follow.
“And yet you seem so positive,” he said. “Doesn’t this discourage you?”
I told him that I do get discouraged from time to time, that there are moments when I compare my blog stats to those of Mark Driscoll and Tim Challies and John Piper and Justin Taylor and I just want to slam my head against the table in despair. But, usually, after an assuring talk with Dan and a few moments of centering prayer, I remind myself of these two things:
1. Those of us who advocate servant leadership instead of hierarchal leadership are less likely to produce “evangelical celebrities.” It may seem like Christians who advocate power, hierarchy, and narrowly defined gender roles are winning the day, but just because these voices are often the loudest doesn’t mean that they are the most effective, or even the most popular. When you build your church and your culture around hierarchy and power, you are naturally going to be 1) highly-organized, and 2) personality focused. But when you build your church and your culture around humility and service, you are naturally going to be 1) organic, growing at the grassroots level, and 2) less dependent on one or two flashy personalities and more dependent on the daily faithfulness of regular people.
Don’t forget that egalitarians have many, many pastors who support the equality and dignity of women. (Some—like John Ortberg and Greg Boyd, for example—are well-known, but they conduct themselves with a measure of maturity that keeps the focus off of them and on Jesus Christ.) The Mark Driscolls of this world pull in (and publicize) the big numbers because that is how they measure success. But while these few powerful leaders draw in the big crowds, there are countless servant leaders out there drawing in smaller, (perhaps less cool) crowds that are being transformed by Jesus Christ, who served, who sacrificed, and who—at least by the world’s standards—failed. The Kingdom was never meant to grow through power or might, but by the Spirit. And in my travels, I see it growing everywhere, in the lives of people whose names may never grace the cover of a book or the marquee of a church sign. And it is growing in the developing world, far from the celebrity-obsessed American culture, through the faithful work of both men and women who are committed to yielding to this Spirit of grace.
2. We know the end of the story.
Most of the time, when I am discouraged about the state of Christianity, it’s because I have forgotten the end of the story.
We are part of a living, growing Kingdom in which the last will be first and the first will be last, in which the peacemakers and the merciful and the meek will be blessed, in which the tiny seeds we plant today will grow into great trees where the birds of the air will nest, in which a crucified savior is King, and in which all things will be reconciled to God in love. Control is not the end of the story. Power is not the end of the story. Violence is not the end of the story. Inequality is not the end of the story. Jesus is. Those who preach the gospel of power will come and go; they will flourish and then fade.
Living as those who know the end of the story means living with a degree of righteous anger, yes, but also living with unexplainable hope, optimism, and love. So when I get discouraged, I read the Beatitudes—and instead of fretting about the lack of these qualities in others, I focus on the lack of these qualities within me. I am responsible only for following Jesus in my life, whether that brings popularity or obscurity. And I can do this with joy and with peace because I know how the story ends.
These words may be of little comfort for the young woman who still struggles to believe that her feminine qualities are valuable to God, or to the young man who has been made to feel shame because he’d rather visit an art museum than watch a cage fight. But perhaps, if we continually offer to one another words of hope and encouragement rather than despair, we will start to believe them again.
I’m in Arizona today hanging out with the good people of Tempe United Methodist Church, so I’ve got just a few Sunday Superlatives today...but they’re good ones!
Most Insightful: Kelley Johnson-Nikondeha with “Prophets” “The prophets of old are similar in this respect; they honor their inspired instruction (which comes from the Torah) and marry that with their unique innovative vision. The prophets understood deeply the words of Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Numbers–and that shaped what they saw and what they spoke.”
Most Likely to Make You At Least a Little Pentecostal: Jonathan Martin with “Why Mark Driscoll is Wrong About Women in Church Leadership" “As a third generation Pentecostal preacher who has been and continues to be shaped significantly by women in ministry, this time I had enough. Within my tradition, which is theologically very conservative, we have never had prohibitions about women in leadership. From the beginning, we have believed that the Spirit given on the day of Pentecost causes both 'sons and daughters to prophesy'... We had no connections to liberal social movements, but were demonstrating racial equality in pockets all around the world years before the modern civil rights movement. We weren’t demythologizing the Bible or playing down the blood or the cross of Jesus or the judgment of God (as Mark’s logic would suggest these are interrelated with the ordination of women as pastors). There was a new social order coming in not through politicians or seminarians or professors, but from ordinary people who were taking the Bible and the Spirit seriously.” [I loved everything about this post.]
Best Analysis: Mike Morrell with "Jesus and Religion’s Relationship Status: It’s Complicated” “Lots of people are dissing religion these days, but for very different reasons. When progressives diss religion, they want practices without beliefs. When conservatives diss religion, they want beliefs without practices. I’m sympathetic to both perspectives, but at the end of the day I have to recognize that we humans all believe things, and we all have practices. Which is why I’d say I’m spiritual and religious. Or, that I have a divine relationship and religion. They’re both here.”
Best Point: Sarah Moon with “What the ‘effeminate Christianity’ crisis says about women“ “So what’s a woman to do? It’s a lose-lose situation for us, according to the CBMW. If we aren’t “manly,” by CBMW’s definition, we’re betraying our faith and can’t “taste that the Lord is gracious.” If we are “manly,” we pervert God’s “perfect design” for the sexes. We already know that evangelicals certainly don’t want us doing the latter, so what we’re left with is the final implication that women are not really Christians.”
Best Writing: Joshilyn Jackson with “An Open Letter to the Fat Girl I Saw at Hot Yoga in New York City” “Fat Girl, I saw you in New York, and I thought, GOOD FOR YOU. You are trying to find a way to be stronger, to live in yourself, to like your body enough to give it that seventy-five minutes of movement and acceptance. To just take care of the damn thing, even if you ARE mad at it. To treat it like an exasperating, ugly, ill-tempered little child—one you secretly adore.”
Best Conversation-Starter: Zack Hunt with “The Myth of Sola Fide” “What I think we learn from Jesus and the writers of the New Testament is that our ‘acceptance’ of salvation is not a one off moment that happens during a prayer at an altar. Instead, ‘acceptance’ is a process. It may start at the altar, but that is just the beginning of the journey of salvation."
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