A Woman in a SBC Church Pulpit Draws Interest

[Gene Scarborough]

This is a most interesting story of a father whose daughter had a call to ministry. He was opposed to women ordained in typical SBC fashion. He got sick with cancer and resigned. Now she has been called to become pastor despite Associational objections which might result in the church's ouster! Some church members have left.

It has all the parameters conflict between stated position and actual needs in SBC circles.

Is this one way God is challenging the SBC position on women in BF&M 2000?

[Dave Roberts]

The worst that the association can do is oust the church which for most churches frees several dollars for doing actual mission work instead of paying for another level of bureaucracy.

[William Thornton]

I fixed your link, Gene. I will be watching this. I'm with Dave in that churches may begin to recognize that they aren't getting much value for their investment in traditional associations.

[Gene Scarborough]

Thanks, William!

I see some strange working of God on the BF&M 2000 male arrogance!

[Lamar Wadsworth]

Right here is what happens when new wine gets poured into old wineskins. Many local associations, state conventions, and the SBC itself have become old wineskins with regard to the working of God who calls sons and daughters to prophesy and pours his spirit out on all flesh.

[Stephen Fox]

Lamar,met a neighbor of yours last night here in Bama at the Mtn Grill Restaurant.
Commented on your truck and said you werea warm hearted fellow.

I said, That's him.

Fellow is a fan of Shorter baseball, for whom his Grandson plays

As for Women preacher's my friend David Sisk,Lawnmower repair and revenant of the Independent Calvary Baptist Church not far from where my Momma was born, said a woman can preach if she's "God Called."

I agree with him.

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archi ... _all_nuns/

[Sandy]

It doesn't look like there was a problem with the daughter occupying the interim pulpit. It was only when the church decided to call her as pastor that the association made their request.

And I would also agree that the church is probably not going to miss out on much with regard to the association. They're autonomous and independent, and obviously know the consequences of their decision. Of course, there is another can of worms they are opening here by calling the child of their former pastor to follow in her father's footsteps. I know that conventional wisdom advises churches against doing that, though it seems that in the megachurch world, grooming a son to take over after Daddy is common practice.

A pastor search is not easy, and situations like this sometimes seem like a shortcut to an easy solution. But problems can't always be foreseen, and it looks like some families have already left the church because of this decision.

[Gene Scarborough]

Why should it be divisive when Jesus clearly respected women and allowed them into his inner circle of followers?

[Stephen Fox]

One reason it is divisive in many quarters is because the Civil War happened since Jesus and Gene of all people should know that.

It lessens resolution when Gene and his ilk refuse to read or have never heard of The Southern Cross and will make no attempt to get their hands on it.

And worse will most likely be another ten years if not a millenium before he cracks the first page of Diarmaich McCulloch's magisterial 1,000 page history of Christianity.

The altar of enlightenment is waiting on Gene Scarborough.

Randall Lolley and I are at the front waiting to extend the right hand of enlightened Fellowship to Gene and all who will read more and pontificate less

[Ed Pettibone]

Sandy notes in the discussion at hand "A pastor search is not easy, and situations like this sometimes seem like a shortcut to an easy solution. But problems can't always be foreseen, and it looks like some families have already left the church because of this decision.

Ed: Sandy a pastor friend who is male, and a bit to my right, calls folk leaving over such issues "Blessed Subtraction"

[Gene Scarborough]

Stephen----If I was enlightened as much as you, then you would have to respect me, brother

[Sandy]

[Gene Scarborough]

All the NT writers were men---so why should they make it a point in their Jewish outlook?

What does it take to admit women were accepted by Jesus than the fact 2 women and 1 man stayed at the cross to the end?

Who discovered the empty tomb?

Why have Gnostic Gospels telling the story from the female perspective been banned?

I see a conspiracy you can't deny to put women on the fringe of Judeo-Christian thinking!!!!

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Who prepared his body for burial and who where the First to learn of his resurrection. These women where not strangers to our Christ and his followers . And When Jesus and his male followers visited the home of Mary and Martha & their Brother Lazarus, Jesus you may recall defended Mary's siting with he and the others while Martha was busy with the traditional task of women. His acceptance of women was indeed a new thing in their culture and did require time to take hold.

Beside permitting women pastors in the ABC-USA, like the WMU in many SBC churches it is the ABW made up primarily of female laity who have kept many of our churches alive.

[Gene Scarborough]

Ed---thanks for the additional input on women.

Frankly, no church I pastored would have gotten anything really done without the women!

My own mother took up the RA's when no man cared enough to be our leader. She was a graduate of the Carver School of Missions and always active in our churches. My wife was the same "helpmeet." She would do anything to help me and lead GA's and other important things. She plays the piano and would always fill in when needed.

Any Pastor who wants to tangle with the women in his church is a total fool!

[Sandy]

I have no doubt there are many churches which would not be around today had it not been for the work of women in the congregation. Gene keeps arguing as if the perspective of women serving pastors is some kind of "all or nothing" proposition. It's not. The involvement of women in the ministry of Southern Baptist churches is at as high a level as it is in any other kinds of churches, and perhaps higher than in many which claim to be more "progressive" because they slap an ordination label on them and give them a pulpit. You can equate what women do in a Southern Baptist church with those who followed Jesus during his public ministry, with Mary and Martha, with those who were with him at the cross, with Mary in the garden at the tomb, and with the other women who are named in the New Testament as servants of the church. Most of those I know who serve their church do it gratefully and joyfully, and with a sense of fulfilled calling. And since it's more of a Protestant thing for the pastoral ministry of a church to be connected to the teaching and preaching via the "sermon," fewer women find themselves in a preaching role, but I've not encountered very many Southern Baptists who deny their "daughters" the ability to practice their prophetic gift. You don't have to be a pastor to proclaim God's word or exercise your gift of prophecy.

But there is no instance where Jesus called a woman into leadership, and made her an apostle. Perhaps you'd like to blame that on his Jewish maleness. It would be hard to reconcile that with his perfection as God's son, but then, if you think divinely inspired scripture could be tainted by that perspective, why not?

[Haruo]

Paul tends to get a bad rap on sexual issues these days, at least from "progressives", but it's true that he gives considerably more evidence and approval of female church leaders, whether deacon, apostle, or founder of a church plant, than do the gospel writers. Of course, there were no "churches" to lead in the gospel period, and given the evidence of the succeeding generations, it is not at all clear that the purpose of calling the Twelve (or even the Seventy) was really about pastoral leadership grooming.

[Gene Scarborough]

There is just no point in discriminating against women in the pulpit. If they have a calling, then it is not based on their sex.

The SBC for years has told women and young girls that God does not call women to preach. Stangely, He's not listening to them!

[Lamar Wadsworth]

As for apostles, there is Junia. We know nothing about her except her name and the fact that she is called an apostle. Phoebe was a deacon/minister/servant of the church in Cenchrea. Knowing what we do about the churches in the first century, and the fact that they generally met in homes and that the many house churches together constitued the church in that particular city--it seems reasonable to conclude that the DIAKONOI as described in the Pastoral Epistles were pastors/leaders of the house congregations and the EPISKOPOI (chosen from among those who had proved themselves as DIAKNOI) circulated among the house churches and gave leadership to the Christian movement in the city. Clearly both men and women served at least as DIAKONOI, and "the women" of I Tim 3:11 are women deacons, not merely deacons' wives. I take the "elect lady" of II John to be a house church pastor.

[Dave Roberts]

Don't forget the daughters of Phillip identified as preachers in Acts.

[Sandy]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed Sandy, while in English fellow may or may not refer to a person of male gender. Strong's Concordance suggest Greek: 4904. συνεργός (sunergos) -- a fellow worker. meaning a companion in work, not necessarily denoting gender.

[Gene Scarborough]

Look----you can argue til the cows come home over gender endings in the New Testament.

Just look around under direction of the living and breathing Holy Spirit and I can't believe women should not be welcome to the pulpit nor other places of responsibility in a church.

I had my own misgivings as to whether women were capable of dealing with some of the harsh spiritual matters in assisting the Pastor in ministry. Once I had the priviledge of working with women deacons and neighboring female pastors, I learned better in a practical way.

The Holy Spirit simple leads me to repent of my former assumptions and get into contemporary church ministry with women fully welcome!

[Lamar Wadsworth]