Felicity at Simply Church has a short but thought-provoking post entitled The Hemiplegic Bride. She cites the following:

• In China, around 80% of house churches are planted by ordinary women
• In India there is a significant harvest being reaped by women of all castes. Two years ago, I met two women–ordinary, middle aged housewives–one of whom was responsible for starting 2,000 churches and the other, 6,000 churches.
• In many nations where there is restricted access for the gospel, women are planting churches–they have easy access to homes and naturally share their testimony with others, pray for the sick and demonized and find persons of peace.

David and I were discussing these statistics and the sad state of the church in the United States. We wonder if the reason the church is so ineffective here is simply due to the restrictions put on women. The USA was a great missionary sending country at one time with women missionaries leading the way into many areas. Now it is sadly in need of missionaries coming here. But the most vocal and prominent Christian leaders in this country continue to focus their efforts on fine-tuning the complementarian gospel and casting suspicion on anyone who doesn’t agree with their specific views on women functioning in the Body of Christ.

I agree with Felicity:

Are there women in this country who are willing to break out of the stereotypical role assigned to them by tradition? Who will follow the Great Shepherd into the harvest? Who will dare to break out of their boxes of convention, who will color outside the lines of expectation?

If God is using women in extraordinary ways elsewhere, (and he is) then why not here too?

Even asking these questions will be seen as threatening to some. But I think it betrays our hyper-Westernized focus. The church here is so consumed with their own pet issues (like gender roles) that they really are missing the bigger picture of what God is doing around the world. As I said before, Reformed North American pastors are not the center of the universe or the church.  When will people stop listening to the talking heads of the church and start listening to the Holy Spirit?