Women in Leadership

I appreciate the opportunity to propose the topic of our next discussion. There are wise thoughts and wise people on this blog and it is an honour to wrestle with you. I'd like us to wrestle this month with a topic that is rather controversial to many people as I am very eager to hear all your thoughts on it. So here it goes.

Are certain gifts of leadership reserved by God for men and men only; gifts such as teaching and preaching? Can a woman lead men in the Christian context? Can a woman be the prime leader of a church? Can a wife be the leader in a home?

Are Paul's teachings on women in 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 merely instructions for a time and culture that when understood in context do not need to be applied literally today? Or is there something to be said for the fact that Paul draws a distinction in the leadership roles of men and women in the early church? Why did Jesus have only male apostles?

I believe that Paul's instructions regarding women were true and had a purpose for their time as did Jesus surrounding himself with 12 male apostles, but that in reality when the New Testament is taken as a whole we see revolutionary treatment of women. This is true especially in the actions of Jesus such as his treatment of the Samaritan woman at the well.

Paul's instructions for women to be silent cannot be considered apart from his teaching that in Christ there is no longer male or female, and Jesus surrounding himself with 12 male apostles cannot be separated from the important leadership role women played in the early church and in Jesus' ministry on earth as well. Jesus first appeared to women after his resurrection and instructed them to go tell the men he was risen.

I believe that roles in the church and even in the home should be based on people's gifts and not on their gender. I believe that the progression shown by Jesus and the early church toward women was meant to keep progressing. I believe that many of our modern Christian churches are missing out on great leaders in their midst due to limiting the role of these gifted leaders because they are women.

I would follow and be taught by a female lead pastor. I follow my wife in the areas that God has gifted her, especially when I do not have the same gifts.

Your thoughts?

Love, tony tanti

The Case of the Troubling Trend

Great discussion on the last topic. And I'd like to extend a warm Holy Crap welcome to newcomer Underachiever (great username, J.)

Okay, here's the topic:

In my 3.15 decades, I've seen church trends come and go. Among them...

• I've seen the decline of evening service...
• I've seen the decline of the Wednesday night prayer meeting...
• I've seen the rise and fall of bus ministry (man, if your church didn't have a bus in the 80's you WEREN'T a church!)...
• I've seen the rise of small groups or care groups over "bible study".
  
  

These church programming trends seemed to add some kind of value to how the church operated but just augmented how church was done.

There is one church programming trend that really troubles me because it doesn't seem to enhance church ministries, it seems to change how we "do church" altogether.

I'm talking about the

seeker sensitive church

The gloves are off: I am unabashedly opposed to seeker sensitive church; I think it's just ChurchLite (great tasting, less filling) and I don't think it has a place in our ecclesionomy. I suspect there are similar viewpoints among my honored colleagues.

In our discussion, I'd like to talk about...

How would we define a seeker sensitive church? How does it look different than "traditional" (i.e., non-seeker sensitive) churches? What is the difference between a contemporary church and a seeker sensitive church? Is there a Biblical basis for changing church so dramatically? What value (if any) does the seeker sensitive church provide? What are the drawbacks of this kind of church? What is the church's role in evangelism? If it works, does that make it good? Lastly, I sense that this trend has hit a maturity and will be on the decline in the near future. What trend do you think will replace it? (i.e., where will all these new converts go when their seeker sensitive church is no longer seeker sensitive).

At the end of the day I think churches are annoyingly resistant to change... and I don't like that resistance. But this is a change many churches are embracing that really bothers me.