An entire ministry has emerged around the books (and concepts of) “Wild at Heart” and “Why Men Hate Going to Church”. Basically, Jesus sought out, discipled and commissioned men, and without men, churches will die or fade to irrelevance. Both men and women are blessed when men feel engaged in their churches.
Women reading this would be well advised to take Esther Schaeffer’s post above. Specifically “It matters little to me that I might not be given a title or a privilege. I just want to serve Him who has done so much for me.”

While it would not be stated in that particular denomination that women are “worth” less because this role is not available to them, it is certainly a perception that ever so subtly runs deep and becomes pervasive. In fact it becomes much more than a simple exclusion from particular functions: the message becomes for young men and young women that women have less intrinsic value all around.

Certainly there are opportunities to serve in that atmosphere if one is willing to accept the role of “less than”.

It has taken me years to understand the damage caused by this demeaning stance within my own soul.

Sue Monk Kidd has written about her spiritual journey away from Christianity. Many in the evangelical camp shout warnings to stay away from her writings. But she is asking the questions a lot of women are asking. And if the church continues to ignore the questions there will continue to be an exodus of women leaving church. These are not only Gen X or Millennialists, these are boomers!

The soul wounds are deep.

I struggle to stay within the church. I struggle to encourage others to stay. I am beginning to believe that the insitutional church that is in buildings on Sundays are not hospitible “sanctuaries” for the soul of many women. Could it be that it is a healthy faith that calls us outside anything that looks and feels like a corporation with secular power struggles?

As my husband says repetatively, “It is all about power. Those that have it want to keep it.” Jesus came with a type of power that reached out to the marginalized, the broken and the sick. Jesus touched the soul wounds of women in the 1sr century… and he continues to do so today. Despite what organized church does to them.

I live on the margins of “church”, but isn’t that where Jesus had and continues to have the greatest impact?

The harsh reality is that, even in denominations where women are fully ordained (like the PCUSA), I have still walked into women’s bible studies only to be told that my husband is the CEO of our partnership and my “job” is to help implement his decisions. This contradiction is what frightens me most. The idea that our young women are being taught by the secular world that they can use any and all of their gifts to be an Officer, President, even CEO, but they are asked to conceal or disregard their God-given gifts once they enter the “sanctuary” of the church. Do we really want women to have to fake-it just to go to church? That kind of call for inauthenticity is precisely why Gen X and the Millennials are making their own Exodus –from the church.

Healing happens after an illness is diagnosed. Will we allow ourselves to bleed into anemia just to avoid admitting we are wounded?

I also wanted to say that I think the metaphor of “bomb dropping” at high altitude is an excellent word picture that I will probably borrow

My own movement toward egalitarian thinking arose partly because God had so clearly given my own wife such gifts in understanding and teaching Scripture and in preaching. She does those things far better than do I, with more love for God, and with far stronger desire to search Scripture to hear God’s voice. To what other source could I attribute these gifts and desires than to God?

Long after I encountered this living example though, I started to notice that many of those most adamant about enforcing those passages of Scripture which at first blush seem to limit women’s place seemed to ignore other whole swaths of Scripture without even blinking. I don’t refer here to the cavalier dismissal of the shellfish prohibition, but of major Biblical motifs such as caring for the poor or creation stewardship. How we do stand above the Word, declaring that this part (wearing tassels on our garments!!) is culturally conditioned while this other part — about women — is acontextual and applies at all times and in all places.

I chaired the CMA Canada Board of Directors as we wrestled through this. I finally had to accept that there are intelligent, strong-willed, committed and good people on both sides. We have to respect each other and not call one side radical nor the other dinosaurs.