I never thought much about women in ministry. I was raised in churches where women were limited in the ways they could express their talents: they served as secretaries, pianists, volunteer cooks (I can still taste those Wednesday night beef tips), community organizers, kids’ teachers, and men’s cheerleaders. They could read a Bible story to the kids during the “Children’s story” portion of the Sunday service and close in prayer, but they weren’t allowed to pray or teach the congregation at large— this seems ridiculous to me now as we were all in the same room. They could organize Vacation Bible School and Wednesday night dinners and Jazzercise classes, but they couldn’t be trusted to count money or inform sermon series or make decisions about much of anything.
So clearly they weren’t limited in the expression of their gifts (just read through those examples above!), they were just made to feel that their gifts were 1) limited by their gender, and 2) less valuable than the gifts of the men in the room. The women weren’t limited in serving, only in the recognition and pay they received for doing so.
But I never thought much about it. I didn’t want to be a pastor. None of my friends wanted to be pastors. Honestly, none of the women I knew wanted to be pastors (or they didn’t express that they wanted to). They knew they couldn’t and that’s just the way it was. I honestly didn’t give it any attention. I was going to get married, have a lot of kids, be a teacher, and not be affected.
My husband entered vocational ministry when we were both nineteen and had been together for two years. We were married two years later and soon moved to a megachurch in Dallas where women could not hold the title of pastor. Although I’m sure the policies and restrictions were similar on paper, the megachurch felt different than the rural church we had left in West Texas.
The women of our West Texas church were not serving on staff at the church because the church was small and there were only a handful of paid ministers. Almost everyone was a volunteer, both men and women. But the Dallas megachurch had countless women on staff who worked crazy hours just like the men did. They held official titles, just not “pastor”: they were “director”s, “coordinator”s, “assistant”s. They did just as much work as the men but without the recognition or pay.
The men said were just following “the Billy Graham rule”: never eat, travel, or be “alone” (even in public) with any woman who is not your wife. If a woman was riding the elevator alone at our church, a male pastor would wait for the next one. If a woman needed counseling, either another person had to be present or she had to be counseled by a woman. To put it plainly, in a church of 42,000 people (!!!), a lot of women were either not being served or were being served by women who did not receive the recognition or pay they deserved.
When we could no longer stomach the megachurch, my husband quit and we started attending an egalitarian church where women were esteemed, utilized, and valued for their gifts. It was unlike anything we had ever seen, both professionally and personally.
Women led in pastoral roles. They preached (and were not immediately struck down by God!). Our pastor opened eldership to women during my husband’s time on staff and while many in the church world cried heresy, the pastor stayed the course in order to turn that big, wieldy ship toward equality for women.
And the church was better for it. I remember some of the male elders expressing envy for the women’s ability to care for the hurting within the church, commenting on the beauty of one female elder literally crawling into a hospital bed with a dying congregant. None of the men would have even thought to do so, much less attempted to comfort someone in this way.
When we planted our church, Restore, my husband knew that he did not want to continue the legacy of patriarchy that we had been handed. But there was a catch: he would need to meet with women one on one without me present. I had a job and had no interest in being present for his work day activities, and I needed to be okay with this change.
The thought of him being “alone” (in public, mind you, this now makes me laugh) with other women concerned me at first— I wasn’t used to it and I didn’t like the idea. Plus I had been told all of my life that this was the slippery slope to affairs and “moral failure.” But there was no women’s minister. There were literally five of us: my husband, myself, our baby, and our music minister and his wife who had moved with us. If Zach didn’t do it, there was no one to do it; and if we wanted the church to make it, we needed some women to get involved.
We set the ground rules to make sure that he was being wise and no one would be able to accuse him of misconduct: he would meet with women one-on-one in public places only, and he would let me know when, where, and with whom those meetings would occur. They would always happen during work hours and would typically be at a restaurant or coffee shop. If a woman asked to meet with him multiple times, he would refer out to another professional (this has only happened a handful of times in eleven years), which became his rule for all church members as my husband is not a professional counselor.
It feels silly to me now but these were our baby steps toward full equality for women within our church. It’s also scary to think that I potentially had the power to sway the ship away from full inclusion and equal rights for women had I been too insecure to support my husband in his efforts to make sure that women were treated with dignity and respect.
I’m not going to lie, it was hard at first! Girls and women within our former churches were warned of the dangers of our men being wooed away by the vixens that were waiting to pounce at the first opportunity (because women are, at their core, sexual beings whose only mission is to seduce men). I was terrified that my husband was going to leave me and our baby for some woman he met at a Starbucks to discuss our little church plant.
But that didn’t happen. The church grew and so did women’s leadership within it. I watched my husband support women by hiring them, learning from them, and accommodating their specific needs. He adjusted meetings around working moms’ schedules. He gave flexibility to the dads on staff who were equally parenting the kids while their wives worked.
And guess what? Our church culture is so much more family centric than any other we have been a part of. You can say that your church prioritizes families while it actually make no effort to accommodate parents who are trying to parent well while being involved in their communities and the church. You can talk about how women are valuable and preach egalitarianism but not adjust the workplace to match the needs of women who are often caregiving for children, parents, and their communities at large.
I have also watched some of my dear friends benefit from this model by becoming pastors amongst our people. Our church is better for their talent, time, and leadership. I have seen the fruit of men learning from women as they work alongside female pastors as equals. I have watched as little girls (and boys!) see women in every area of leadership without thinking twice about their gender. And I have watched women get paid equally for their work, something that isn’t true of many companies, not just patriarchal churches.
Lastly, I have seen women treated as full image bearers rather than sexual beings who serve the sole purposes of gratifying men and bearing their babies. Women aren’t seen as a temptation to the men in leadership at our church because the men see them as fully human contributors to the work being done for our community, not just objects to be used or people to be controlled. Women aren’t sexualized and villainized as temptresses to the pastors who are actively avoiding a “moral failure.” (That sentence was hard to type but this way of thinking is still present in many churches today.)
No, women are involved in leadership at every level. They are valued for their intellect, service, and talents. They aren’t expected to dress in a certain way (either fully covering themselves or dressing to please men, depending on the setting) or cater to the men’s preferences. They work alongside men to accomplish the beautiful, messy, holistic work of caring for a body of believers who need the diverse leadership of all God’s people, regardless of gender.
What if I had believed the lie that women are only out to snag a man? Especially a prominent man?
What if I had let my own insecurities and anxiety prevent our church from growing into the diverse collection of faces and voices that it has become? A place where everyone is welcome to experience the extravagant love of God as a co-inheritor and contributor regardless of their gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, ability, etc?
Which of my now friends would have been sidelined and prevented from holding a leadership position? And how many women would not feel safe to participate because they did not see themselves reflected in the church staff?
How many little girls would believe that God thought they were a little dumber, a little less competent, and a little less important than their male peers? And how many boys would follow in the footsteps of generations of men who pushed women to the side in order to maintain their comfort and control?
Thank God for a husband who asked me to push beyond the realm of what was comfortable and consider something better.
Thank God for a church who welcomes everyone (actually!) and says, “You can sit with me at God’s table” no matter your station. I’m grateful for the ongoing nudging of the Spirit to become evermore inclusive and loving, no matter my previous biases.
Thank God for a big, beautiful, unwieldy faith that requires more of me than asking him to be my gift-giving-genie, granting wishes of fortune and ease while those around me suffer.
Because God is not limited by our physical vessels— by our gender, age, intellect, status, abilities, or anything else about us. If the Spirit of God truly lives within us— and that Spirit is not gendered!— then we all have the same access to God and opportunity to serve according to our own (non-gendered) gifts.
The body of Christ is better for our diversity, not in spite of it, and it needs all of us. May we continue to builder longer tables for absolutely everyone around us.
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I likewise grew up in a church tradition that did not fully recognize leadership roles for women outside of women’s and children’s ministries.
Since 2016, my family and I have attended a church here in the South Bay of Los Angeles, and we have been deeply blessed by the women pastors who serve on its leadership team. I’m especially grateful that my daughter was able to grow up seeing, hearing, and experiencing gifted women teaching, leading, shepherding, and serving as a normal part of her faith and spiritual formation.
I recognize that faithful Christians interpret the relevant biblical texts differently. But my own experience has made me wonder how much wisdom, gifting, leadership, and spiritual fruit the Body of Christ has forfeited over the centuries when cultural assumptions about patriarchy have been allowed to shape our understanding of who God may call and equip.
If we truly pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” it seems worth asking whether our churches are making room for the full measure of gifts God has given His people.
Grateful to your ministry at Restore and the faithful sharing of your and Zach's journey.
Patriarchy performs a strange theological trick: women can organize the church, teach children, counsel the wounded, feed everyone, and keep the operation from collapsing, but when they approach a pulpit, suddenly God has technical difficulties. If the Spirit can descend as fire, wind, and a dove, I suspect She can survive a woman holding a microphone. Maybe the problem was never divine order. Maybe some men just hated sharing the good chair.