The Role of Women in Ministry

I want to thank y'all looking forward to this conversation as we discuss the role of women in ministry and really want to jump off and ask this question where do we start like where do we see women in the scriptures and what roles do we see women playing throughout the Scriptures let's start there so I you know I think you can go almost anywhere in any genre and see women playing key roles in in the kingdom of God I think the place you need to start though for you to understand what you're seeing everywhere else is actually in the creation narrative itself where where you got Adam and he's got everything you would think you need for flourishing except right the Lord's blessing yeah and so it's God who sees Adam and goes hey this is not good it's not good for him to be alone and so then he gives him a helper he gives him Eve so that the big plan of God involves a man who has a mirror a woman not not a servant not a butt but a partner in accomplishing what God had intended creation to to accomplish in regards to it reflecting God's glory by being in a very real way pictures of his stewarding grace and so I think once you've got that then you've got the right lenses on by which you can see the rest of the Bible I think if you start anywhere else then you start saying things like well I mean yeah I can see Deborah there but it was such a dark time in the history of Israel and so that was that so without the lenses of this is God's good right thing and it wasn't a good right thing until Adam had Eve woman a mirror in which he could see and understand himself and so I think if you don't start and start there you you you can lose sight of the fact that the man wouldn't even understand himself with it without being able to look into the eyes of a woman out of me this is like me not this is different than me but this is like me and a gift to me so that right so so I think that's where we start would you highlight anything else yeah I think that the thing that's intriguing about the creation narrative is well first of all that I think when we speak about these things we're often spending all of our time and managing a post Genesis 3 environment rather than asking ourselves is there some way we could be moving back toward what things were supposed to have looked like anything and what they're gonna look like in the new heavens and the new earth and this whole idea of the woman's contributions when she is created are not just this nice additive to the picture that what she's going to bring to human flourishing and to the cultural mandate and the the ruling reign of God going forward her contributions are not nice sort of afterthoughts they are essential and indispensable to the mission and I think that sometimes in the church what we have ended up doing is kind of figuring out how can we kind of like work that in as an extra thing instead of understanding that the mission of the church goes forward only through the essential and indispensable contributions of both men and women ok so I want to stay on this just for a little bit because I do think to your point Jen that this is not the starting point for this conversation more often than not and so if we go back to Genesis and we go back to the creation account what's often called the creation mandate or the cultural mandate who is that mandate given to give an equally to the man and woman absolutely and so that mandate given not just to the man but to the man and the woman means they are both doing what in that mandate just big picture high-level ruling and subduing bringing order out of chaos all of those things and them be fruitful and multiply you know and I think it's significant for us to notice too that all of those pieces that are there in Genesis 1 are brought back to play when Jesus gives the Great Commission in Matthew 28 he's saying rule and subdue be fruitful and multiply and make more image bearers and he's not just saying it to man he saying it to the church so we should understand that there's there was a literal understanding of what that meant you know obviously when there's one man and one woman in a garden and then there is a spiritual element to that as well that is a picture for the church to emulate because you keep seeing it too right you see it then again at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit falls and then you see it again throughout the Pauline epistles where you've got these pictures of really unique gospel partnerships I think of priscilla and aquila I mean you just have all of these pictures of what we're talking about all harkening back to Genesis one so so there is the Genesis one cultural mandate that is given both to man and woman you've got the Great Commission given both to men and women to the church that they are to be involved in this and yet here we find ourselves around the topic that man it's a there's division or there's disagreement or there's different camps and so let's talk a little bit again at a high level about some of those differences so why don't you talk about the difference between complementarianism and egalitarian so that's that's kind of the two big kind of sweeping camps what what's what are the what are the differences there so I think the only way to have this conversation and the time allotted is to be really broad strokes which really isn't fair but but I just think if we don't have time to kind of nuance it like like would be most fair to nuance when all said and done I think egalitarians are going to believe on a sliding kind of spectrum that there are no real differences between the man and woman in regards to leadership and the home or the church in regards to whether or not there's male headship or not that they're gonna just do away with that so I don't know that everything's available to both sexes everything is designed for both sexes to operate in that complementarianism is going to say that no no the man and the woman are created unique and valued dignity and Worth and yet have been given specific roles by God for the flourishing of human life both in church and home and so again there's great nuance and both of those so any galaxy Louisville actually and and I would just totally say yes and amen compliment Aryans ago well because I think even especially so I the camp that I'm in on complementarian I mean I know some that are so far right there barely compliment Aryans they're more kind of in that patriarchy place or so far left they're actually more in that egalitarian place and I would say that the same things true about some egalitarians I know that they're in that same space to where there's other egalitarians that are on the left side of that who would say how actually are just a compliment Aryan and then those on the right who would say to the left actually you're more of a Christian feminists that it so we've said this there there's a sliding scale there's a spectrum in each camp so in the egalitarian camp there's a spectrum and the complementarian camp there's a spectrum and so are there other views that would still be in the broad spectrum of Orthodoxy that are not in the egalitarian or complementarian camp any that we need to address talk about I mean I think there are those who would say that their view is Orthodox but I don't know that we would acknowledge it as such so like those extremes that Matt just mentioned Christian feminism would say that not just that all roles are available two men or two women but that men and women are interchangeable that there's really no that that sort of gender is a social construct all those kinds of messages and then on the other side of it patriarchy says that there's a something ontological about about men and women that means that men lead and women submit as a category so whereas a complementarian view would say there are certain instances where that is true it is not universally true all women don't submit to all men and so I would sure that people in those camps would make an argument for orthodoxy around their views but I would say it's difficult to sustain based on at least my reading of Scripture further and again just to I was on this want to be as charitable as humanly possible I think that I know many of men and women in that kind of patriarchy and even there they know it's even a sliding scale here yeah and then there would be many in the kind of Christian feminism world who surely would believe most of what you just described and would say but but no I don't believe that that so so it's always important to know that and and this is why I love this conversation because this is a place for us to exercise a ton of charity towards people who just land differently then then say that this circle of people would and almost everybody except maybe one of those categories is gonna argue passionately from Scripture that this is what it says and so I always want to give just a little bit of grace in regards to the sliding scales in each of these circles so just to give some appreciation to the nuances we've we've been through a process you know that we have not changed our beliefs but refined them and brought clarity to them I've had people ask how long does that process take and sometimes I say I think 14 years but the the most recent iteration of this endeavour was probably two years yeah does that feel right yeah we were all involved in that along with the entire elder board and Jen you were part of that team that that helped write and read and think alongside with the church and so I want to talk about what's the villages position here what camp do we land in you've already said it but I want to kind of reiterate it and then ask this question have our beliefs and convictions changed theologically and have they changed in practice and so Matt you want to talk yes so we we have always been for 15 years and in fact my you know yeah 15 years we we've just said we're complementarian so we're gonna order that way we're gonna we're gonna preach that way we teach that we're gonna be unapologetic about we still are we still are and we're gonna swear I was gonna win that we that has never changed and so when we said men we we've got working on this we weren't we weren't like wasn't like culture was bearing its weight and we thought oh my gosh we're not gonna be people people don't people don't respond to this message anymore because that has not been our experience but but we begin to see that our practice of the doctrine right was probably out of step with what we see in the scriptures and and so what's what's hard about that I think for people is that in a day and age in which the internet exists there's no space to kind of grow in your understanding and practice of anything and so it's well you said you know in 2004 and you're like well yeah and I was 32 and I've read a lot more and prayed a lot more and lived a lot more and understand the Scriptures a lot more and so so so again it's the philosophy and practice that has shifted not our passionate conviction and I would say this not necessarily shifted but more clearly flowed out of the theological yeah that's that's but it's a better one said that that that link that theology philosophy practice link it was hard to see how this practice over here tied back to this theological connection and I feel like the work we did was to clarify those connections so that you can kind of move back and forth between those and I've been super encouraged to get about that or I feel like you have to say you feel good about don't feel like I mean you know if you had told me ten years ago that this would be what we would come up with I don't think I would have believed not because I you know doubt the sincerity or the the well-meant intentions of the church I just couldn't have seen it and and I don't and I didn't want to think about it to like I just thought you know I've got all of these ministry demands I would rather think about this then try to figure out where to land on come I know we all kind of felt that way it's like we don't really want to talk about this but we need to and and I had seen you know increasingly not just at the village but elsewhere that there were women who were beginning to believe that they had to make a theological trade to to utilize their gifting in the local church and I didn't see it as a theological issue clearly or I wouldn't still be in a complementarian church and and so to be able to articulate a vision for this that is faithfully complementarianism and that shows women like that hey it's not a theological problem it was really just kind of a practice thing where we we needed to think through a lot of times I think it was like where where are we taking a fear-based approach versus a love approach like where are we where we looked for is there Christian freedom around this I loved the conversations that we had about Adele Foy about brothers and sisters I felt like now there's an emphasis that I love hearing and hadn't really given a lot of thought to before we started looking into some of this and so I'm deeply encouraged by the conversations that we had I am too let's let's highlight what some of those changes have been so long process started theological and really ended in terms of practice and maybe you need this maybe you don't need this but it's a 60-page exegetical paper it's a like it wasn't yeah 79 page exegetical paper so if there really was heavy lifting done here who wasn't kind of got intuitive you know let's that's good where were you going yes so just what flowed out of that like what what were you so encouraged about i guess i should say what were some of those points that just kind of stand out to you that this changed in light of that and i'm super encouraged by these changes i think that until we sat down and did the hard work on it and i include myself in this entirely it just hadn't it hadn't occurred to us to think through like well why why do we put a man in this role and not consider putting a woman in this role like do we have a reason for that or does it just feel more natural is it just sort of the more intuitive thing to do and you know we are as compliment Aryans we're always going to have men in the highest levels of leadership but to recognize oh gosh there are real implications for that in terms of how we structure meetings and how we have channels of input for women within the body and so I think one of the most encouraging changes that I saw coming out of it was this notion of a broad application of the concept of it is not good for the man to be alone when it comes to key decision-making moments in the life of the church that we would want to solicit genuine credible input from women in rooms where maybe it wasn't getting in there before not because we're bad people who don't want the voices of women to be heard we just hadn't thought about it let me jump in on that and to clarify and not just when those guys are talking about women's issues that's right right we're talking about key critical issues periods right outside perspective and that was I think something that was sort of revealing to all of us was to begin to think through like okay yeah we need the voices of women as women but we also just need people who are men and women in rooms talking about issues because it's gonna it's gonna change the way that the conversation goes and ways that are healthy for the life of the church okay I want to close with this with this question what's at stake here what's and I'm a kind of talk through this a little bit myself as I think about what's at stake here but let's say let's say it's just man and have the energy it doesn't have the resources or whatever it is there is not whatever it needs to be present to move them forward to consider this and to do the hard heavy lifting and we just kind of stay with an unclear practice around complementarianism or baby they're in a totally different camp what's at stake here for men women boys and girls in the life of the church well you know I I think you could talk for a long time about this also but I think if I could simplified you're really looking at either the flourishing of a body of people and the development of young men who understand the dynamics at play with women as sisters rather than as either objects or servants and and you're looking at the flourishing of women who have been gifted by God for all sorts of different things not being able to use their gifts in the local body which then what well it shrinks the effectiveness of the church it it trains little boys and little girls on on a real kind of perverse twisted view of male-female relationships and and and so I think the humanity withers yeah if you don't give some time to thinking about how this is exercised in practice I think about my own son yeah and and I want him that like I want him to serve as sisters and serve his mom and do sacrificial leadership not because his sisters are weak but because he he needs to love and serve and lay down his life for something greater than him but I want my daughters also to love the idea that they don't have to act dumb theologically in order to win a boy's affection you know I I don't I want my daughters to flourish theologically I want my son to flourish in regards to understanding what it means to be a man yeah which I like it's like you can't even have that conversation anymore about what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman and and so I think the church has to enter this space where there's so much confusion then and point back to God's good right design and in a way that for for the majority of people go that's more beautiful than anything else I've heard yeah so I'm gonna save my piece and then you close it we had a ton of conversation around this for a long time and I can remember one of the conversations being about I've got three got three daughters in the Sun and one was about Lily and and kind of her being able to look to role models and leaders women leaders in the church that go beyond her time in elementary school right right and and that was compelling for me to be able to think about where where my daughter's seen vibrant female leadership in the life of the church that extends beyond their elementary school leaders and the thing that sunk in through the study was was yes for my daughters but also for Luke yeah like he's got to see vibrant female leaders in the church when and leading that he looks to and says I admire her right there's so much in her that is to be praiseworthy has to be right and good and if he doesn't then he grows up as a stunted man yeah and that combination because that's complementarianism that the men and the women the boys and the girls see this and grow in togetherness and so closing word yeah I mean that embodiment issue is really important to me and I can feel it even in my own ministry opportunities I have too many opportunities and the reason I have too many opportunities is because we don't currently have enough women in the church as a whole who are embodying what it means to and not just a Bible teacher I mean I'm probably the most obvious example that people think of when they think of women's gifting that is embodiment but there are all kinds of ways that women embody ministry in the local church in a way that young girls and young boys need to look to and learn from and so you know my hope through all of this has been and I think we had part of our conversation about this is that I want to leave the church a more gracious place for my daughters and my sons with regard to these issues I want the church to be a place where they see both what it means to be a man and a woman who is wholeheartedly following the Lord visibly represented and celebrated and and also resourced and and and and matured a man yeah well that paper that long long paper my eye starts Twitter every time its online along with isn't but there's a shorter version that's online just to go back and review anything that somebody may want not to look at but again as always thank you guys for the conversation appreciate you both

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 134,770

Rating: 4.5006471 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, Jen Wilkin, Josh Patterson

Id: FuOFGtNHMLw

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2017