This post is linked to The Week of Mutuality that Rachel Held Evans is hosting at her blog this week.
I was 18 and it was my first time preaching. I stood in the pulpit and gave my oft-practiced, now very memorized message. It was well-received and most of the people in my congregation were affirming and positive. What I remembered was the man at the front who, as soon as I began to speak, turned and walked out of the sanctuary.
***
“I’m quitting my program; I want to go to a Christian university and become a youth pastor,” I told my father.
“That’s stupid,” was his response. “It will be hard for you to find work. It’s mostly men who do that.”
I went anyway. I’m stubborn.
***
We sat around a table in the student lounge. He was loud, abrasive and proclaiming the absurdity of a woman preaching, of a woman being a pastor, of those churches that allowed such a travesty. I sat, silently raging and saying nothing. My boyfriend later told me he was proud of me for not entering into a debate. I mostly felt like a coward who was afraid he was right.
***
It was the weekly service at the church plant my husband and I were attending. The pastor was a talented speaker. He opened his Bible to 1 Timothy and began to preach on the place of women in the church. Not elders. Not youth pastors. Certainly not standing behind a pulpit. But we could help in the nursery or children’s church. This was what God said.
I decided not to stay silent this time. I called him and we talked for over an hour. He said he didn’t think he remembered John Wesley having women minister with him (he did). Yes, women could be children’s pastors, but the Youth & Family Pastor (a male) was always the one to communicate with the parents, to exert any leadership over the men in our congregation. This was what the Bible taught us.
We didn’t go back.
***
A group of teenage girls in my basement. We laughed and ate junk food and watched romantic comedies. We talked about high school, boys and relationships, body image. I had been there. I had been a teenage girl. I got it.
***
He was in grade 8, a little short, a little awkward. But he was funny, and he needed someone to talk to, someone to hang out with him and remind him that he mattered. So we played basketball in the gym. He hung out with me and my husband and we played video games. He had found acceptance.
***
One Sunday after I preached, an older gentleman approached me.
“How old are you?” He asked.
“Twenty-five.”
“God has given you a gift. He is using you.”
***
When I was 17 and I felt like God was calling me to work with teenagers, I never once considered that being a woman would stand in my way (that will tell you a lot about the church I grew up in). It did, though. I’ve had to defend my choices far too many times. I’ve had Corinthians and Timothy and Ephesians spouted at me more times than I can count. But here’s the thing:
God made me a woman.
And God gave me the gifts of leading, teaching and preaching. He gave me a gift of being able to build relationships and care for people. He gave me a passion and a heart for teenagers.
As a young woman, I sat and read the words from Jeremiah 1 and felt the Spirit stirring inside my soul. I knew that he was calling me. And he has continued to call me over the past 13 years, over and over, despite the resistance from parts of the church community.
These are some of my stories.
They are the stories of so many other women who have had to fight to be seen as a legitimate pastor, teacher, writer, speaker. If I have anything to say about it, they will not be my daughter’s stories. They will not be the stories the young women of today will tell 10 years from now.
It is time for different stories.
Thank you for your vulnerability in sharing these moments of your life. As a woman just starting seminary, I’m entering into a lot of these reactions and conversations. Some of these could be moments I’ve lived. It’s good to hear that someone’s on the other side, and not only surviving but thriving.
It’s sad that it connected so well with you, Kate, but I’m glad that I can absolutely offer to you that there is hope and an ability to thrive and minister well. Honestly, my being a woman has opened different doors and allowed me to connect with people in ways that I don’t think I could have if I were a man. When I think of “my” teenage girls and the moments we shared, relationships we built, I know that God brought me there, a woman, for that. So blessings on you as you begin your seminary career and enter into ministry.
My first time preaching, it was a whole pew full of people who walked out.
Oh, Sharmini, I am so sorry. That is heartbreaking. I hope you have found affirmation and support in other places.
Indeed I have; some places online (like here – I guess I knew my experience wasn’t unique, but I’ve never met anyone else who has had that happen to her) and some less virtual communities
Beautiful. You are right on – it is time for our stories to be told.
Thank you so much, Sarah. Yes, and here’s hoping women will continue to tell their stories and let God move through them.
I was 48 when I first was licensed to preach. I had the same experience as you – when I got up to preach a man walked out. I knew him. His daughters babysat my children. I thought he was ill and enquired after him and was told the truth. He also got up and walked away when I administered communion. They can say it’s not personal but it feels it.
Yes, Anne, it always feels personal, because it is. It is a rejection of who God has made us to be, the gifts he has given us, the things we love to do. That is personal.
Thanks for sharing your stories and your hope. I pray that things will continue to change and all can use their gifts.
Thank you Lisa. I pray that too.
This is one of the issues I am having with my church right now – and the issue they are about to start having with me – I have a meeting with my pastor in 10 days time. It is not the only problem I have with the church and if I lived in the city where there are a range of churches I think I would have been on my way well before now. I have no real desire to be up front preaching, but I know what I can do and love doing is leading small group discussions (apparantly that is teaching/leadership too so I can’t do it) or doing a small thought at the start of our prayer meeting. It’s not just about me exercising my teaching gift but also because I would like to hear the spiritual reflections, insights and experiences of Barbara, Margaret, Norma, Carene, Kirsty and Bridget, not just those of Grant, Donald, Tommy and Euan. I think we could all learn and be encouraged by them too. I also don’t know where they draw the line of women in leadership and teaching. Women are allowed to teach and lead Sunday School. So, what about the youth group (not yet birthed)? And how are those lines drawn? I have no idea, which means I feel entirely restricted as I don’t know what I am allowed to do or not, or why. So I am opting out and disassociating myself from church more and more and more. And that is not at all good for me or my relationship with Christ or my ability to fulfil the work He has for me here. Don’t know what to do or how to do it.
That’s so hard, and I think that’s why these issues of patriarchy are so challenging. Where is the line? How can we discount a person’s gifts based solely on their gender? Why can’t these female voices have something to offer men? And the fact that it is affecting your ability to connect with your church community is so upsetting and frustrating. And I of course know what gifts you have to offer, that you are a gifted teacher and leader. I’m frustrated for you! I’ll be praying for you, that God gives you wisdom in this. Thinking of you, Ebby.
Amazing stuff, Lindsay.
I have heard the conversations and debates…the family of churches I used to associate myself with have had a number of large scale arguments over this issue. So sad.
There are many people who need to open their eyes to the larger redemptive movement of what God is doing in and through the story of scripture when it comes to women. With rock-star pastors like Mark Driscoll expounding his drivel on women and their place in the church, I am not thinking this is going to change anytime soon. As a man, I apologize for that.
Know that there are some of us who are with you in the commitment to tell new stories.
Wow thanks for sharing your stories! Some of them make me angry- people refusing to listen to you because you’re a woman. That’s ridiculous.
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I am so glad you are boldly telling your stories, for I am a firm believer that in telling stories we not only help ourselves in our process of growth and healing, but we help others discover their own story as they listen to ours.
I quoted and linked to this in my blog post today. Thank you Lindsay for telling it true and telling it strong!
http://www.pamhogeweide.com/2012/06/06/the-justice-issue-of-women-and-complementarianism/
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the work of Teju Cole and his “Small Fates” on Twitter, but you should check them out; your moments are reminiscent of these brief flashes of story. In many ways, our lives are built from such moments–this is how memory works, and our identities are framed and founded on both the painful and blessed recollections from our past. I’m pleased that your moments have led you to pursue your calling.
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It does feel personal. But you know who it’s really personal for? God. Because they are rejecting both the daughters he loves so much, and the God who lives inside you– the same God who lives inside them and they claim to love (and perhaps they do). It’s pretty schizo.
While I am not, and have never been a woman (not have I playe done on TV), I have certainly been told I couldn’t do things because I wasn’t qualified. We finally left a church we’d been in for years over such issues. God really opened up the ministry opportunities outside the church (a youth pastor without a church? No way!). And God made it clear “there are no boxes”.
Lindsay, thanks for sharing. All of you, I’m so sorry the family has treated you this way. Be free. Be blessed. Be you.
(I found you through Rachel’s blog, BTW.)
Re John Wesley – his mother, Susannah, would teach a bible study when her husband was out of town. When a local pastor complained (he was jealous that she had bigger crowds), her husband suggested that she have someone else teach. She refused, and told him that he would have to order her to stop it, at which point he could answer to God. The bible studies continued.
http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/Wesley/susannawesley.stm
love it!!
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if a pastor started preaching on “women can’t,” and all the women got up and walked out.
Kristin, I’ve done that more times than I care to admit. I just couldn’t listen to that type of marginalizing any more. Eventually, I just attended for the worship part of the service and left after that. I didn’t do it as much to make a statement as my conscience just wouldn’t allow me to listen to it any more.
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I haven’t had anyone walk out while I was preaching, but one couple only came the first Sunday of my first congregation as a Minister. They left because they couldn’t cope with a woman minister.
your stories reminded me of when I started studying engineering, about 30 years ago, and a friend at youth group asked if I was an apprentice male.
I think there are starting to be different stories, or maybe non-stories. women treated as people, without any thought of exclusion or unusualness associated with being in ministry, or any other profession.
Yes, I think you’re right about different stories being told. Thankfully, my more recent experiences (within the last few years) have been very positive and affirming, although I must admit part of that is because I don’t walk into churches unaware anymore. I think part of the frustration for me all those years ago came from the fact that I attended a church within a denomination that ordained women and affirmed women as pastors. I think things are changing; I hope they are. I’m no longer the only female youth pastor in a room, and that’s changed even since I entered the field, so good things are happening. Thanks for the comment. Blessings on you and your ministry.