Secret Women's Business

I heard a beautiful story from a Churches of Christ minister recently... whom I shall call “Priscilla” for the sake of anonymity... about a retired gentleman whom I shall call “Jack”. Priscilla was on the ministry team of a church that had a policy that sermon notes should be copied and distributed to the congregation. One day after she had preached, Jack (a newcomer at the church) bowled up to her and announced “I don’t believe in women ministers”. “Oh, that’s interesting” she replied. “And I don’t agree with this!” He then thrust at her the day’s sermon notes with furious circles all over the sermon. “Would you like to discuss this further?” she enquired. He agreed that he would, so she dutifully went to his house the next day and had a long conversation about exegesis, theology, etc. etc. They parted on very cordial terms. The next time Priscilla preached, the man bowled up to her and proclaimed: “I don’t believe in women ministers. And I don’t agree with this! ” He once more thrust...

I have spent a bit of time in the blogosphere of late reading (and commenting upon) articles about women's ministry. (Not like me I know... ha ha!) Those of you who can't bear to wait for the CBE conference next year, and who would like to engage in some biblical discussions around this issue, might want to look at: Peggy Brown's article at "The Next Wave" and Peggy's reflections on the "women must keep silent" passage in Corinthians and How Junia became a male, then became a woman again and my earlier post about headship, etc. (Thanks to Matt Stone who has inspired me to use "blogger help" to learn about some of the zillion things I don't know about blogging. Let's just see if the links actually work...)

One of my life passions is seeing women step into their God-given vocation; to exercise the gifts and step into the calling that will be fruitful for them and a blessing to others. For some women, this calling is to parent well, or to teach, or to nurse, or to work in a variety of industries, or to engage in the creative arts, or to volunteer their services for the good of others, or a myriad of other possibilities… while for some, this involves a call to formal Christian ministry. I’ve recently discovered that the international “Christians for Biblical Equality” conference will be held in Melbourne next year. You can find out more information about this here I’m delighted to support this group, who provide solid evangelical explanations of the “tricky passages” that are used to block the leadership of women in conservative churches. This “blocking” is understandable in groups that sincerely want to come under the authority of scripture, and live faithfully to God. It is strange howeve...

Well, I've been kept somewhat busy lately with events. The Churches of Christ Vic/ Tas AGM and minister's retreat were held last Friday and Saturday. The "Inspire" conference for women will be held at Ballarat next weekend (see http://cofcaustralia.org/cofc-cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56& Itemid =118& PHPSESSID =6044b43e1c542 cedd 6c8b37d2026a75d for for details.) And on this Monday night I'm conducting a lecture at CCTC (Churches of Christ Theological College) on women in the church. In preparation for this lecture, one of the things I've done in the past couple of days is tally up the statistics for women employed in local churches in ministry positions. I suspect these are a good "litmus test" of the capacity of women to exercise their gifts fully at a local church level. At the moment, 25 % of our ministry employees are women, which suggests a marked trend of improved participation. There are considerably fe...