Chapel: Kate Nunneley, February 16, 2018

good morning Westmont I have the honor and the privilege of introducing a dear friend Kate Wallis Nunley she's the co-founder of the Jenaya project a ministry that advocates for women leaders in the church she's an associate pastor of wellspring Free Methodist Church in Bakersfield Bakersfield where she lives with her husband Leif and therefore a baby boo little random fact about leaf as Leif used to be the clark rd back in the day so he's a clarkster but we're not gonna talk about Leif we're talking about Kate Kate holds a bachelor's degree from APU a master's degree from the London School of Economics and is currently pursuing her m.div at Azusa Pacific Seminary our hope and our joy is in the opportunity to dialogue we recognize that for some in our community they may think or believe differently but we hope that the words and the sermon that Kate offers will just bring a vibrant conversation on this campus one where we get to hear and learn from one another as we have conversations about women in leadership in the church so with absolute honor and joy I get to introduce Kate and with that if you want to hear more from Kate the woman Westmont feminist society will be hosting a lunch QA right after in founders so that you can hear a little bit more or offer direct questions to Kate after her sermon today so Kate come on to stage and share a good word with us [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good morning it's wonderful to be with you all here at Westmont College as Shannon said my husband Leif used to be an RD here so when we first started dating I would come up here on weekends so last month has a dear place in my heart because of that I want to say a quick thank you to Shannon and also to the feminist society here at Westmont and pastor ben also for inviting me here this morning it's an honor to be speaking with all of you well I was invited here this morning to talk about women in the church because I run a ministry with my mom called the junior project and it exists to advocate for women being leaders in the church and for mutuality in marriage and over the last few years that's been around about five years God has taken us on kind of a crazy journey and allowed us to speak with churches and pastors and colleges and students to broaden the conversation about men and women and how they relate to one another in the church and Christian community and we believe at the junior project that this is one of the most important topics of our day not only because our culture has confusing messages about what it means to be a man or a woman not only because our culture over sexualizes every relationship between a man and a woman but also because today in 2018 we find ourselves in the middle of a three decade long debate on the role in place of women in the evangelical church and on one side you have what's called complementarian theology which teaches that men and women are created to be equal but are intended by God to have different roles and responsibilities and these roles and responsibilities mean that women will never hold positions of authority over men in the church or in the home and it requires the unilateral submission of women to men in the family and in the Christian community compliment Aryans use terms like biblical manhood and biblical womanhood and they believe that men are given a special authority over women in the church and home and Christian community and on the other side of this debate you have egalitarian theology which teaches that God created men and women to be equal and that roles and responsibilities aren't given to them based on their gender gender neither privileges nor hurts a believers call to ministry men and women minister together in the church and practice mutual submission and marriage egalitarians don't believe that the Bible teaches one definition of manhood or one definition of womanhood but that the Bible tells lots of different stories of different men and women who are gifted and called by God to do different things and this debate might be familiar to some of us but if we're honest it's a little bit confusing or scary to enter into because we have pastors and mentors that fall on one side of the debate or the other we come from families and churches that fall on one side of the debate or the other we have friends and boyfriends or girlfriends that fall on one side of the debate or the other and we hear evangelical leaders saying things about this conversation like slippery slope or low view of Scripture or feminism and that's scary because that means if we enter into this debate and try to figure out what we think for ourselves we too could be labeled with those terms now I know that this is kind of a scary topic but for those of us in the church whether we've figured out what we believe on this or not yet this debate has already had profound implications on our theology our view of God on our relationships with other people and on our view of ourselves it is very likely that this topic will influence the kind of jobs you choose to enter into the kind of marriages that you enter into and the kind of things that you think God will or will not call you to in your lifetime now I know that this conversation is intimidating but I have good news for us this is not the first time in church history that Christians have disagreed on this topic this goes back well to the second century of the church but in recent times you the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century when all of those different Protestant groups broke off of the Catholic Church and from those groups came things like Wesley and holiness theology and reformed theology and Lutheran theology and those different groups and ways of thinking have morphed and formed and influenced many of the denominations we have today and although those denominations are Orthodox Christian denominations they all believe Jesus Christ son of God lived dies and rose again to defeat death and save us from sin they differ on some theological issues we all know this like predestination or infant baptism or communion practices and yes also on the role in place of women so what this conversation actually is between these two different groups is a difference of opinion on how God chooses to work in and through God's people it's a clashing of long-held the ologies there's no need to be afraid of entering into this conversation to figure out what you think for yourself because so many Christians before you have walked that path and God will meet you there as you do that this is not a secular conversation this is a thoroughly Christian conversation and I too have heard those comments that this is really just culture versus the church or it's feminism infiltrating the church but history teaches us that two hundred and fifty years before the start of feminism in the Western world Christian women were preaching and teaching and traveling as evangelists and other Christians were teaching that they shouldn't this is a long history of the Christian Church there's no need to be afraid and I too have waded through this stuff before not knowing what I believed and my story is probably different from yours but this morning I feel that God is asking me to tell you some of that story my own story began in eighth grade when I began attending a private Christian school for the first time and that school was adamant about teaching their particular view of the role in place of women so I sat in Bible class as I was taught things like because Adam was created first he had authority over Eve and therefore all men have authority over all women they taught me that because Eve was described as helper in Genesis that all women are merely meant to help men and they're calling for God they taught me that because a woman was the first to sin all women are easily deceived and therefore required the leadership of men I was taught that God only gifts gifts of leadership to men and God only calls men to lead in the church I was taught that Paul didn't want any woman in any church in any time to lead and that he said so in 1st Timothy 2:12 I was taught that 1st Timothy 3 only used male pronouns and when describing elders so only men could be elders and I was told that anyone who taught me anything different from this was influenced by culture and had a low view of Scripture now this was not a topic my childhood Church talked much about and I was in eighth grade so I did what any eighth grader would do I ran home and asked my parents what do we believe on this I don't know what to believe tell me but my parents are academics and so instead of telling me what to believe they gave me three stacks of books on complementarian theology and patriarchal theology and egalitarian theology I was an eighth grade so I jumped in the deep end and waded through that stuff from eighth grade through college just reading and studying and looking through the word and praying and begging anyone who would talk to me to talk to me about this because more than anything in the world I wanted to honor God with my life but as a woman I didn't know what to do until I knew what God wanted from me on this so I dove in and I quickly learned that this debate is not one between people who have a high view of Scripture and people who have a low view this is not one between people who are influenced by culture and people who somehow magically are not I learned that this debate is between people who love God and are trying to put this Bible into practice to put God's teaching into practice well I also learned that egalitarians teach things very differently than my school was teaching me I learned that you got Ariens pointed out that the order of creation must not mean Authority because animals are created for humans but animals don't have authority over humans logical they taught that the Hebrew word translated as helper to describe Eve is really a zerkin egg dough which means a rescuing strength equal and opposite to Adam they taught that Eve sin has no more to say about all womankind than Judas's betrayal has to say about all mankind they pointed out that in Scripture the gifts of the Spirit are not given to believers based on their gender they talked that while Paul seemed to be limiting the role of some women in 1st Timothy he seems to expect the leadership and teaching of other women because he thanks them for it and Romans and Corinthians and they taught that while our English translations for the qualifications of elders in 1st Timothy 3 have male pronouns the original Greek does not and they talked about all these women leaders in the New Testament church like Phoebe the deacon and Junia the Apostle and Priscilla the great teacher who taught and corrected a man and the daughters of Philip who prophesied all these women who my Bible teachers just must have forgotten to tell me and for a while I lived in this tension between what my school seemed to be teaching me and what I was seeing in the church at large and what God seemed to be teaching me in my own study and I think that was really good for me because I had to honestly grapple with what I believed not what my church believed not what my parents believed but what was God calling me to and if I'm honest both sides had good scriptural support for their beliefs but do you know what it came down to for me the biggest influence on me and debate was how Jesus interacted with women in the Gospels I had to really weigh the things that I was seeing in churches versus what I saw in the life of Jesus Jesus who told a woman to preach the good news of his resurrection yet some in the church won't let a woman preach that same message from the pulpit Jesus who discipled women in Luke chapter 10 but many teach that this is somehow overly dangerous for male pastors to do Jesus depended on the financial provision of women for the welfare of his ministry in Luke chapter 3 Joop chapter 8 but many in the church teach that when men are to be the sole providers in Christian communities Jesus use female examples in his teachings and spoke about women and his stories Luke 15 and 13 but one popular preacher is saying that Christianity is supposed to have a masculine feel a young woman carried the body and blood of Jesus within her for nine months yet some of the church won't let a woman serve Communion and service Jesus denied that there was hierarchy in his kingdom in Matthew 20 but some teach that there is a hierarchy between men and women isn't the difference striking there really are a lot of things being said today in the church about women that just don't add up when faced with the life of Jesus and through my studies I came to believe that both men and women are called to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations I came to believe that the culture of the church that teaches men have authority over women misses the point of a God that says to be first you must be last and if you want to be a leader you've got to be a servant I came to believe instead of being concerned about wielding authority over one another we should be concerned about loving one another I came to believe that instead of creating hierarchy amongst God's people based on race or gender or socioeconomic latts that we should recognize the words of Galatians 3:28 that in Christ there is doon our Greek slave nor free Knorr they're male and female for we are all one in other words I came to believe that the difference between the church practice and the life of Jesus matters that our words and our beliefs that they matter because women you and I have grown up in a church culture where our Worth and dignity are openly debated because they aren't a given but women your Worth and dignity are not determined by how well you fit into someone's definition of biblical womanhood they're not determined by getting married or having babies or learning to be submissive and men the same thing goes for you your Worth and dignity are not determined by how well you fit into biblical manhood they're not determined by the job you have by the kind of money you make and certainly not by your ability to exert authority over other people men and women your Worth and dignity or determine the moment you are created in the image of the Living God and your place in the kingdom are determined the moment your sins were nailed to the cross of the risen Christ men and women your Worth and dignity are not things to be debated because they're not things that can be lost or stolen or even earned they simply are and it is important that you know that it is important because this world is in desperate need for all of God's people men and women to follow their call to stand up to be in justices of this world and to lead the church in the way that we should go because if you look around the majority of humanitarian crises are happening to women according to the UN the World Health Organization and US government sources seventy percent of those living in poverty today are women 100 to 200 million girls are missing from today's generation due to preference of sons of her daughters gender-based violence and the killing of baby girls and fetuses rape is a primary weapon of war especially in some African countries forty-eight women are estimated to be raped every hour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo one-third of the world's girls are married before the age of 18 and one and nine are married before the age of 15 that's child marriages to adult men more than a hundred and twenty five million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation sex trafficking is thought to be the second large largest criminal industry in the world and more than 80 percent of the feet of the victims are female in the u.s. one of five women report being raped seven and ten assaults against women are purged but perpetrated by an intimate partner that's a husband or an ex-husband a boyfriend or an ex-boyfriend women are in desperate need to hear the message that they too are created in the image of God that they too were created to have dominion over this earth and that they too can use their gifts and their callings to lead in the church and I know some of you women in here today have thought about this before maybe you felt that leading of God or heard that still small voice and said it's God calling me in to the leadership in the church and just as Jesus told Mary Magdalene to preach the good news of the resurrection Jesus is calling many of you women in here today to do the same so go and do preach the gospel pastor God's people lead with wisdom and a sound mind do it because you've been gifted to do it do it because God is calling you to do it do it because the church and the world need you to do it and oh how we need you to do that and women when you go and do if they tell you that you need a man's covering to do so you tell them that Jesus Christ died for you as much as anyone else and his blood is the only covering you need and if they tell you that your husband should be your spiritual head and should be making the decisions and having the final say you say that the debut became a Christian Jesus became your spiritual head and Jesus makes your decisions and Jesus has the final say and if they tell you that women are weak you tell them that you come from a long line of godly women who led the army of Israel to victory who saved God's people from genocide and who birthed the savior of the world and if they tell you that you're just trying to be like a man you say yes I am I'm trying to be like that poor Jewish carpenter turned preacher who turned away from the conventional in order to preach the unconventional I'm trying to be like that man who surrounded himself with men and women and rich and poor and educated and uneducated and who died for them all I'm trying to be like Jesus trying to be like Jesus I'm gonna end with a poem that I wrote a while back it is addressed to God and it illustrates part of my journey and I hope that it brings encouragement to some of you it's called they gave me a box I grew up learning about you I saw you and the love shared by everyone around me I heard about you and the sermons and sing about you and the songs I read about you and thought about you and so I came to you and you met me you loved and cared for me you grew and taught me you fashioned me and called me and I took what you had given me and I went back to the place I'd first heard about you I was filled with anticipation what would they have me do you had given me so many gifts perhaps I could speak about you perhaps I could teach others about you perhaps spread your message to the world perhaps I could invite others to your table to partake in your supper for they had always prayed for people of my generation to raise up and be leaders in the church they had always said how desperately your kingdom needed more voices more hands and more feet so with anticipation I presented myself to them only to be confused with their response for when I offered them this voice you had given me when I offered them these hands that you had strengthened in these feet that you had guided they gave me a box they gave me a box in which to keep my passion they gave me a box in which to keep my wisdom they gave me a box in which to put my words in a box to put my hands in my feet they gave me a box and they told me that it was your will for me as a woman when I asked if they had a box that fit a bit better they told me that I should be happy with what you had given me when I told them you had given me things that wouldn't fit inside the box they told me I must be mistaken when I asked if there was anything else they could offer they told me that the box was a perfect place to keep my questions and so I come to you me and everything you have given me me and everything you have called me to me and everything you've created me to be and the Box I'm a bit bruised from trying to fit inside of it and now that I'm standing in front of you I realized that you don't want me to I see that I have a choice I can keep the box they have given me and throw out all the things that don't fit I can ignore the time I spent with you the gifts you've given me the calling you gave me I can dismember my soul in order to fit into the dimensions of the box I can live for them and let their box define me or I can trust the way you made me the way you prepared me the way you called me I can learn lean on you for guidance and walk in the footsteps of brave women who've gone before I can live fully alive and you and trust that you are a God who's bigger than the box I can set the Box down and walk away I can live for you and let you define me they gave me a box and called it yours you offer me freedom and call it mine so I take the box and I put it on a shelf and I label it history then I take your hand and we walk away because life with you is better than life in a box let's pray together gracious and living God we thank you that when we were still far off you met us in Christ Jesus and brought us home god I pray that your spirit stirs in the hearts of the students here today and that anyone who is feeling a call to ministry man or woman feels you're leading and encouragement to follow that call god I pray for all the questions that might come up and I pray for your leading and your guidance because we know that you meet us there in our questions god I pray for the student body that you would walk with them and the rest of their semester that you would teach them about any box that someone has given you that is not yours teach us to let the Box go and follow instead what your freedom brings in Jesus name we pray this amen you're dismissed [Applause]

Channel: Westmont College

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Keywords: Westmont, Westmont College

Id: 7xIm3vD7Meg

Length: 25min 36sec (1536 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2018