by Sandy » Thu Dec 05, 2013 12:22 pm
Haruo, they were not pastors. The church used the practice of "ordination" as a setting aside, but they've never ordained a female who has actually expressed an interest in serving as the pastor of a church. Many SBC churches wouldn't extend formal ordination to females, regardless of where they served, but most churches recognize that ordination is not really a formally prescribed process or ceremony from a scriptural perspective, but it is a recognition of a call to ministry. The formal ceremony and the piece of paper, in this country, largely has to do with tax status, not church credentials.
Timothy, I think district bishops and their cabinets can make decisions about pastoral placement and ministry calling based on preferences stated either by churches, or by the relationships they have formed, or to make a statement, as much as a search committee in a church can do. They, too, are human and fallible. I've observed several search committees, and served on two. I've seen them move from "Let's get out the resumes and find what we want," to understanding that unity of purpose, guidance of the Holy Spirit and sensing the gifts and the calling that God has placed on a person's life is more important than what the church thinks it wants or needs.
In CBF, even without the issue of calling women to the pastorate, the competition for the available pulpits is intense. The fellowship is loaded with individuals who are already trained, ordained and experienced. And a lot of those available potential pastors are from the time in the SBC when you lined up your influential friends and acquaintances to help you lobby for the pulpit you wanted. I saw at least one effort in which an individual pulled out all the stops to get a pulpit in a particular CBF church, including several university professors and a provost, and a fairly high ranking CBF coordinating council member. And I think that sort of thing is also contributing to keeping women out of CBF pulpits. Then, too, I've heard several stories of churches where women came to pastor, and the church disbanded under their ministry. Maybe they contributed to that, maybe not, but it happened.
Even in connectional denominations where the decisions are made by regional clergy, there are situations that come up where a fit doesn't happen, but they keep pushing it anyway. The Sunday School class of seniors that I taught in the last church I served in Houston had a nice, somewhat unexpected growth spurt for a period of about a year, as members from a nearby UMC that had called a female pastor began to drift in. I got ten new class members, and the church saw about 40 people altogether who left. They felt that no one was listening to their concerns. The older folks were more traditional and conservative, but we also picked up a couple of younger families.