younger generation

i’ve blogged this before but i just have to rant again. it seems like more and more women have expressed to me how disgruntled and jaded they are with their church experiences. why? in short, they hate the content they hear from week to week. either it’s about women who have kids OR it’s about how to be a good wife. and well i can see how illustration after illustration about parenting and being a spouse would seem less and less relevant to a woman who has no spouse (or a widow for that matter), is highly educated, and is a working professional making bank.

now i’m a guy. i have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. i do know though what it’s like to be overlooked because of age and race and that quite honestly has created at times for me an immense uneasiness in how to function with my own gifting and calling in life. so in this way, i think i can relate to a woman’s need to hear these words: you can do more because you’re god’s creation and he made you to be powerfully used.

yes yes… gen. 1-2 says that woman was made from man and so was called a helper. yes, god said it was “very good”… i get it. god wanted someone like adam. and yes she was made to be a soul mate. i always saw that aspect as being the best friend adam needed because the man was unbelievably lonely. adam was never meant to experience god alone. eve, then, rounded the idea of what it meant to truly be comunity in the beg.  so i don’t refute that eve was made for adam…

but

woman was also made to be co-equal; woman was given the right to rule as well and so she ultimately was given intelligence, skills, and a deep soul that could connect and do more for the garden (kingdom) god had given to her care. she was given choice in matters. she was given the same rules and laws as adam. she was held just as accountable for her actions. she worshiped god. all of this is to simply say that it was never god’s intention that women be thought of as less valuable or less capable than men.

now you might say, we don’t belittle women in our christian communities. fair enough. i’m not in your community so i can’t really say what your church or organization does to support female leaders. i would ask you then to do one thing. look at your church’s existing structure and tell me how many women are visible leaders. do they teach? lead studies of all races and gender. if you have an org. chart of some sort, look at it and pick out how many women have oversight over broader functions other than admin. duties. how many women staff are there compared to men? review how many women missionaries you support compared to others. then do the unthinkable: see how much you support them. you don’t have to look too far to see if your church truly respects and sees women in ministry as equally valuable contributors in the kingdom.

before you accuse me of loosing my marbles here i need to clarify that i’m not suggesting that all women are meant to be leaders nor am i saying they should somehow be elders in the church (though i’d have to say that’s still very debatable). at the same time, i’m convinced that not all men should be leaders just because they’re available. i’m just asking myself to really reflect honestly and ask if women are truly being challenged spiritually, motivated to lead others, and supported in their god-inspired talents. if your community does it right then i tip my hat to you because  i’m learning more and more that in the past i don’t think i always promoted women in leadership and that was more the product of how i was raised to see women in the church.

now take the fact that women feel like they have no role in the church and step into a younger student’s world with me. i just got done attending a youth rally. great rally. lots of kids. great music. solid message. but as i looked at all the youth, specifically at the faces of young ladies, i also realized they aren’t seeing enough women leaders in their own churches. they don’t see women teaching. they hardly hear them praying over their members. they don’t have enough mentoring. they’re left speechless because very few have stepped up to be their voice.

they don’t always have the oppt. to look upfront and say, “dang. that’s awesome. i like how she lives. i like what she offers. i know what she means. i hear her voice. i like what she’s saying. and that’s something i gotta consider. i want to be like her one day!”

i’m realizing more and more that if we don’t advocate more for women in the church now, using them in their gifting, then we’ll loose a younger generation that will struggle in an organized structure that says it’s okay for women to be overlooked. they won’t enter the church. they’ll refuse to engage their faith. they’ll struggle with a culture that says the church oppresses women and they’ll have no compelling argument in their past or current church experiences to refute such arguments.

you see it matters because we’re talking about a church that eventually will grow obsolete if it fails to raise the entire church. you can’t raise 1/2 of the church (men) and somehow ignore the other 1/2 (women and really brilliant students) and suggest a younger generation will do fine with that structure when they inherit it. they won’t put up with it. they’ll leave it for something else that makes more sense to them.

and we, the older generation, will have to account before god why we stood for it. why we allowed his own image in young women throughout our communities to somehow be the afterthought to other issues in ministry. if we’re not careful and if we don’t mind the importance of building up the entire church, we miss out on empowering a generation that longs to do so much more.