Isn't it time?

I realize that while I am a pastor and my blog often revolves around 'spiritual' matters, not everyone who reads this is necessarily a Christian.  You don't all necessarily attend church, and more than likely most of you are not a part of my particular faith tradition, which is Church of God (Anderson, IN).

But today I want to speak specifically to my faith tradition.  It is a tradition that is steeped in a story of women in ministry.  At one time their number was around a third of all vocational ministers.  That number has drastically dropped in recent years.  And our leaders have too often fallen into using male language when speaking of pastors.  In addition, as my wife recently wrote about on her blog (http://unconventionalpastorswife.blogspot.com/2012/06/finding-conference-for-clergy-spouses.html ), too often we have spoken of pastor's wives and not only assumed that the spouse of a pastor must necessarily be a woman, but a girly woman at that.

I am going to take a few steps today and the first is with the concept of pastor's wives.  If you were to read my wife's blog you would know that not all pastor's wives are cut from the same mold.  To this end the first step I suggest is to stop treating pastor's wives as if they are all middle-aged and above, as more young pastors come onto the scene more young pastor's wives come along with them.  Most of these young women are more professionally minded that my mother's or grandmother's generations were.  Most of them are as post-modern as our culture, which means that we need to stop treating them as if they were our mom or grandma.

[we also need to mention that pastor's spouses, if they can even be considered as a whole, need to allow the possibility for the inclusion of pastor's husbands, or at the very least for the state and national assemblies to include pastor's husband retreats]

The second step is that we must refocus our language, our attitudes, and our actions in regards to women in ministry.  Like it or not it falls on male leadership [along with organizations like Christian Women Connection and Qara] to lift up female leadership.  It is my belief that this means we need to change our language.  We need to stop using 'he' and start peppering in a few 'she', we need to say that young women can have the call of God on their lives to vocational ministry as much as our young men can.  To this end we need to change our attitudes.  We need to stop holding up two or three paragraphs that Paul wrote to particular settings at particular times not to everyone for all time.  In addition we have tended to compartmentalize people into where they can and cannot serve.  To all of our disadvantage and to some of us our dismay we have continued to allow women in ministry but too often only in the roles of children's pastor or worship pastor, and on a very rare occasion youth pastor [but they better be married].  To this end we need to change our actions.  We need to throw out the rules and throe open the doors and begin to look at the resumes of women as well as men when searching for a lead pastor.

My next step comes out of a biases, I recognize this so you might as well also.  Within our 'movement' exists a ministry called Christian Women Connection, it used to be called Women of the Church of God.  It has been around, doing good work, for a long time.  It is filled with our mothers and grandmothers, our sisters and wives, and for some of us our daughters.  Whether the wider church likes it or not CWC is the engine that drives our church.  Our strength lies in our women, the ones who force their sons and daughters to go to church until they feel they belong.  The women who occasionally have to drag their stupid husbands to church, while the guy would rather sleep or play golf.  The women who teach our Sunday Schools, who lead our VBS, who grow our future leaders for us.  Isn't it time that we adequately recognize the work that these women already do, and the greater work they are capable of.  They say that 'the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world' but what we need to realize is that the women who attends our church, raises our kids, and leads their families are the foundation of our churches and without them we would all flounder.

I married a beautiful, intelligent, creative, and strong woman because I didn't want a sheep to follow wherever I go, but rather a partner who would have at least as much insight into what our path should be as I do.  We, as a church, already have women like my wife among us, isn't it time that we recognize them, their actions, and their potential.  They do not need our permission to be who they are, they are simply in need of us to get out of their way.

Peace and Love,
Pastor K