They like Jesus but not the Church part 3

Can't we all Get along? ~this peculiar picture was taken in Maui on our Honeymoon

In Dan Kimball’s book he expresses how people think that the Church is dominated by males and oppresses females.  He talks about how women are often times not included in the leadership of the church because of how people interpret small pieces of scripture.  One women remarked that if they want to be a leader that they can’t become priests but only have the choice of becoming a nun.  I never really saw much of this played out in my life as I grew up in a United Methodist Church that empowers and ordains women.  One of my buddies included an interesting link on his website that speaks a little more about the United Metghodist Chruch.  Check it out:  Methodist Mavericks, “Methodist Mavericks: May 2008,” http://methodistmavericks.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html.

Once I reached College however, I saw how women were not allowed in leadership roles and was given the same small pieces of scripture to abide by.  I felt that there was something wrong with this yet when looking at the Bible these guys and some gals had a point.  I was forced to search more and ended up decided that because there is neither greek nor jew, male nor female,… we are all one in Christ Jesus that when it comes to leadership it is not male or female only jesus through that person that speaks.  Furthermore looking at the practices of the early church and Jesus empowering women to preach I felt led that these verses must be misplaced in the culture and context of who or whomever Paul was writing to.  I recognize that there is a lot more to this question but I feel that women have very important roles in God’s plan for the church as leaders.  In fact, I married one of those women.  When it comes down to it, Jenn is probably one of my favorite most thoughtful Preachers.  She is very gifted at sharing God’s truth to the masses.  I feel that men and women can learn a lot from her.  The Lance and Jenn combo is an amazing duo I prefer the smaller groups and Jenn is just naturally gifted with larger groups.  I would love to share more of our story but we’ll save that for another post.

I completely agree with Dan Kimball that no matter what your theological interpretation is of these few verses we must find ways to empower women in the church.  God’s attributes throughout scripture are both feminine and masculine, we ought to experience those same attributes in our services from males and femals as we are all one in Christ Jesus.

Cheers,

lance