Don't Overlook Half the Church!
Thoughts and Reflections from a Recent Conference Presentation
I was thrilled at the opportunity to recently share with church leaders 18 tips for creating a truly egalitarian church or ministry, which you can listen to HERE or below (recorded from a phone so apologies for the amateur sound quality!).
What was so encouraging was the engagement by church leaders.
Unofficially, but according to the conference app and anecdotal confirmation, the second offering of the session was the most well-attended single workshop at the conference, and that's not including people who attended the first session. The sessions were also fairly equally attended by both men and women.
What that tells me is people want to talk about this, see the need to address it, and are hopefully eager to CHANGE how we do things.
Here's a few comments from attendees, which were shared on the conference app:
"All lead pastors should go to this session! It was absolutely excellent, and the practicality of it was super helpful."
"Practical and deeply theological. Joseph unpacked great insights and gave a lot of doable and thoughtful ways to live them out."
"[This Presentation] shows that the action we have taken thus far, while valuable, is not enough."
Below is an excerpt from just one of the suggestions for creating a more egalitarian church or ministry:
#5 Have Women Regularly Preach
Here’s a picture of 7 different females recently preaching at our church, some of whom preach regularly.
This sounds so obvious, but my experience (and research) demonstrates that you can sit in many Pentecostal churches that are supposedly egalitarian for years and never hear a women preach on a Sunday morning.
For example, I worked in one PAOC church for six years (not in a lead role) and never once did a women preach on a Sunday. Furthermore, my wife was on staff there and had the same exact position as me, and in fact had more theological education and qualifications than me at the time, and yet I was asked to preach, and she never was.
The best way to change the minds of your congregation about women in leadership is not to teach about it, it’s to let them experience the ministry of women, which benefits men and also encourages future women leaders because as the saying goes, “If you can see her, you can be her.”
I can tell you that a lot of people in our congregation have changed their mind on women in leadership and preaching not from me teaching about it, but from experiencing the anointed ministry of our called women pastors.
In other words, you need to show, not just tell, from the pulpit.
If you don’t have women on your staff, or even if you do, you may need to find lay people in your congregation to preach or bring in women guest speakers.
We do a series every year called Oceanside’s Own where people from the congregation preach, and the policy is that it has to be equal amount women as men.
Women regularly preaching is vitally important because it’s probably the main activity of the church that people associate with authority and leadership.
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Don't yet have The Pentecostal Gender Paradox book?
Special conference discount code for 35% off all formats is still good!
Enter code GLR AQ4 (with space) at https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/pentecostal-gender-paradox-9780567713650/
RELATED POSTS:
"How Many Women Are on Your Church Board?"
"An 'Easy' Solution to the Pastor Shortage"
"What Do Women Church Leaders Need Most? Opportunity!"
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ABOUT JOSEPH
Pastor, Author, and sometimes pretends to be a Scholar
Joseph (PhD, University of Birmingham) is the author of The Pentecostal Gender Paradox: Eschatology and the Search for Equality.
Since 2015, he and his wife have together pastored Oceanside Community Church on Vancouver Island, where they live with their four children.
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