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?
Sallie, I must ask to which reformed church do you belong? You have such similar ideas to my own and yet I find myself in the PCA currently! Do you find that your church challenges your views on women. 🙂
oops…forgot the question mark on that last part!
Futher, I feel the need to go way out on a limb here and ask about your homeschool curriculum. We are homeschooling our kinder girl with a bit of this and that. I am finding a great deal of difficulty finding sources that do not promote a hidden agenda. For instance, I loved the look of Veritas Press. However, upon finding out who was behind much of their material, I don’t know that I can use it!
Katy,
We are in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). We ended up in the CRC for a couple of reasons. The women’s issue was by far the most significant issue.
The CRC has a policy of each classis (regional group of congregations) deciding whether or not they will ordain women. The classes vary greatly. Some will not have women deacons, some have women deacons but not elders, and some allow women to be in every office (including senior pastor). The church we are in does not have women elders. My understanding is that the last time it was discussed by the congregation (before we came to the church) it was about 50-50 on allowing women to be elders. Reading between the lines in conversations I’ve had with people there, I would guess it is simply a matter of time before we have women elders in our congregation.
The CRC went through a lot of turmoil over this issue in the past. Many churches left the CRC and formed other Reformed denominations. So this was a contentious issue. There are still CRC churches that are absolutely opposed to women in office so each CRC congregation would have to be evaluated individually if someone were looking for a church.
Having a daughter was a pivotal event for us in making this decision. I’ve struggled to fit in for many years, trying to deny my gifts and fit the “traditional” view of women. Neither David nor I were ever happy when we chose to be in a church that significantly limited women. Each time we tried, we were both miserable. Once we had a daughter, we knew we couldn’t mess around with this issue any longer. We had to be true to what we knew God had shown us about freedom for women, my gifts, etc. no matter how many people around us didn’t understand or support our decision.
In our church, women participate in every aspect of the service. This was critically important to us. I really can’t overstate how much this matters to us. We want Caroline to see godly, gifted women leading in prayer, teaching the children’s sermon, reading Scripture, singing, taking the offering, etc. This church is blessed with some great godly women and I’m so thankful for that.
Making the decision to go to the CRC was a major one for me as it meant I had to change my views on baptism. I’ve always held to the believer’s baptism view by immersion. In some ways I still do. But I can accept the Reformed view of infant baptism as it does not teach that it saves the child. In all honesty, we will probably encourage Caroline to be baptized by immersion when she professes faith in Christ. I wouldn’t make a big deal about it in our church, but I can’t deny I still hold to those views in some ways. So Caroline has been dedicated in a Baptist church and baptized in a CRC church.
In the end, the treatment of women and their freedom to exercise their Holy Spirit bestowed gifts were significantly more important to me than the mode of baptism. I know some people might not hold the same convictions about these issues and that is fine. But when I think of standing before God some day, I’m far more concerned about having been faithful with my gifts and raising my daughter to follow Christ as a godly woman than I am which baptism mode we chose.
I hope that helps! Feel free to ask any other questions!
Katy,
Re: homeschool curriculum… This is a harder question than the first one!
Like Charlotte Mason, I believe children are born persons. This is such a foundational belief for me. Caroline was created by God with a divine purpose. She is already her own person. She belongs to Him. Ultimately she does not belong to me. She belongs to God. I’m just here to steward her life until she can take responsibility for it herself. So there is much about Charlotte Mason that resonates with me. But we’re not “doing” Ambleside curriculum at this point. It’s too heavy and demanding for us at this point.
So far we have been quasi-unschoolers which has just been shocking to me in many ways. I never would have guessed this. Part of it is my personality (INFJ) and part of it is Caroline’s personality. She’s learning all the time and is very curious. I do some structured things with her to try to keep her on track with other kids her age. But we’re also very much fly by the seat of our pants learners.
I also learned early on after I had her that if you wait until a child is really, truly ready for something then it is SO MUCH easier than if you try to follow an artificial schedule that is really just designed for parental ease or public education of the masses. I’m not trying to be derogatory in saying that, but it is the truth. Whether it is potty training or what have you. Public education (well, almost all classroom education) is designed for educating a group of children, not individuals. It is driven by an overarching schedule to get as many children through as possible in the correct amount of time. I’ve learned that the best learning does not happen according to an artificial schedule.
So in some ways Caroline is way ahead of her peers. In other areas she is probably a bit behind. It really doesn’t matter to me. When she is ready to learn something, it is usually almost effortless because she’s just THERE mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Re: choosing curriculum and the hidden agendas. I’m going to sidestep that issue a bit as I don’t want to say too much about this topic. But, yes, I think anyone who holds to a more open view of women in the church has to really consider their curriculum options carefully. Most Christian materials have a specific world view behind them as one would expect. You have to determine if that world view generally fits with yours and if you can work around it where it doesn’t.
I should have also said that another big bonus for us at our current church was the fact that there were already three homeschooling families in the church. That might not seem like a big deal, but the CRC heavily promotes Christian school. So to go into a CRC church that already had homeschooling families (with strong moms) was a HUGE positive for us. I think there are now five homeschooling families as another started this year. I was SO thankful we weren’t the homeschooling pioneers in that congregation. Major, major bonus for us.
Thank you, Sallie! Please know that I was not trying to pin you down on the curriculum question…just something on my mind lately. 🙂
Katy – I understand! I gave some lengthy answers because there are many people who read this blog and not my other one. They probably haven’t read my posts about why we are in the CRC, etc. that I’ve written on my other blog. So it was a good opportunity to answer your question and also give some additional background to what I’m doing here on this site. 🙂
Thanks for your thoughtful comments on the blog post I wrote. I’d like to add something to your suggestion that the restrictions on women are what is preventing a move of God here in the West.
In 1983, Tony (my husband) and I visited Dr Yonggi Cho’s church in Seoul, Korea. Much to our surprise, we were asked if we would like a conversation with Dr Cho. He had three main points he wanted to convey to us. Two were concerning prayer. His third, however, was this. “You will never see a move of God in the West until you are willing to use your women.”
What if it’s true? That it’s the restrictions on women that are preventing a move of God here? I personally believe that one of the next major moves of God is going to be women set free into their full potential. Not a feminist movement, but both women and men, co-laboring together for the sake of the Kingdom.
As I read church history, almost without exception, every new move of the Holy Spirit has been accompanied by increased freedom for women in ministry. And then, almost without exception, as soon as the new movement becomes respectable and established, the first thing it does is make its women sit down and shut up.