The CBE Scroll

Servant Leadership or Christian Service?

“Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”
(Matthew 20:25-28, TNIV)

How many of us feel uneasy when we are told that men, rather than women, are called to be “servant leaders?” Perhaps we are confused by this notion—that men alone are to be “servant-leaders”—because it contains an important truth though it carries that truth only part of the way. What do I mean?

Scripture speaks of the Christian life, for both males and females, as one of service. Jesus said that unlike the Gentiles who exercised authority over others, among his followers those who wanted to be first must become like slaves, just as Christ came not to be served, but to serve. There is no mention of gender in this important passage in Matthew 20:25-28, nor is there any mention of authority.

Similarly, Paul also said that he became a slave to everyone for the sake of the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:19). Paul became a slave not because he was male but because he was being renewed in the image of Christ. The gospel calls that all Christians take up their cross and follow Jesus, not because of their gender, but because of their desire to be followers of Jesus.

Celebrating the servant-leadership of all God’s people!

Mimi Haddad, President of CBE

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We have a situation where recently, at the church where one of our sons and his family attend, the senior minister felt called to resign and accept a teaching position at a Theological college. Some years previously this same Baptist Church had agreed to inviting persons to become a part of the Pastoral team on the basis of giftedness, regardless of gender. This openness led them to appoint a male senior Pastor and a female Associate. The team worked very successfully with each bringing their unique contribution to the ministry and the church flourished in every area of its life. So much so that in time the Associate title was dropped in favor of both being recognized as Pastors.

The resignation of the Team leader placed the Board of Elders (which includes a woman) in an unforeseen dilemma because the female Pastor strongly feels the call of God to step up into the vacated position of Team leader. The ministry Team had discussed and prayed over this possible outcome and could readily affirm this could well be  what God has in mind for the church’s future. What needed to happen next was that the Board of Elders should be convinced of this possibility too and make a recommendation to the church membership in order to ratify such a decision.

Interestingly, initially, two members of the Elder Board could not see, from the Scriptures, that a woman could/should be placed in the position of Team leader. The sticking point for them was the issue of headship. One of the men felt really exercised, after a restless night, to have another, Spirit prompted look at Galatians 3:28 in the early hours of the morning. As a consequence he felt God was encouraging him to concede that gender should not be a reason for any person to be disqualified from holding a senior leadership responsibility within the church. When the Elders conferred again he shared his experience and declared his modified position.

Meanwhile, the other dissenting Elder felt, after much prayer and an expression of willingness to change his view if God so instructed him, to hold firm because he remained unconvinced even after reviewing the various arguments. He then offered to resign rather than be in disagreement with the other Elders. While this was admirable it was unacceptable because, up to this point, everything had been accomplished at Elder Board level by total unanimity. So he agreed to stay on and support the recommendation that the rest of the Board were wanting to put before the church membership.

It needs to be said in all of this that the female Pastor had exceeded all expectations in terms of ministry giftedness and performance and no one doubted her ability, under God, to lead the ministry Team and the Church into the future. As mentioned earlier, the sticking point for this one Elder, was the matter of headship even though, in every other way he conceded that she was, without doubt,  gifted and capable. It’s as if his heart said one thing and his head another.

For him the contentious passage is 1 Corinthians 11:3 where it states categorically, as expressed in the NLT (New Living Translation), “… A man is responsible to Christ, a woman is responsible to her husband, and Christ is responsible to God.” No amount of persuasive argument could help this Elder to see that this verse could be interpreted any differently than what it literally appears to say. For the present time he cannot get around his personal conviction that for some reason God has invested in men the responsibility to lead.

Which leads to the question for you our bloggers. In what ways have you been convinced from Scripture, or has God shown you, that male “headship”, or leadership, both in the Church and the home, is not what He had in mind at all?

I was shocked. I remembered the old Bryan*, the Bryan that put on the brakes during a discussion of Large Group speakers at our Coordinating Team planning retreat. “Why is it suddenly illegal to bring in white men?” he asked, frustrated. As Multi-Ethnicity Team Leader on our exec, I was pushing hard for more female and ethnic minority speakers during our weekly InterVarsity chapter meetings. Some of the other C-Team members were fairly supportive; Bryan was making it an uphill battle.

How did that same Bryan end up sitting next to me on a flight home to North Carolina, rattling on excitedly about speaker Brenda Salter-McNeill and other highlights of Urbana 06? I had noticed how carefully InterVarsity had crafted its triennial missions conference, putting women in the pulpit and using the gender-accurate TNIV, among other things. Nevertheless, I hadn’t imagined its potential effect on Bryan’s support for women in ministry. But he could not deny the voice of the Holy Spirit through these female speakers—who was he to silence God?

As I prepare to graduate, I realize the stark contrast between InterVarsity and much of the evangelical world—my female friends and I will no longer find widespread acceptance as leaders. However, regardless of our personal beliefs, when women are suddenly barred from such roles, we might actually miss them. Women like me have had invaluable experience leading in mission on campus, and men like Bryan have served alongside women, being blessed by their leadership.

Across a fairly wide spectrum of parachurch organizations, opportunities abound for the reconsideration of limiting views of women. Women lead in many mainstream evangelical ministries, large and small, and God’s work through them is not unnoticed. Christianity Today features articles by authors like Lauren Winner, and Joan Mussa and Julie Regnier serve as Senior Vice Presidents for World Vision. Women even teach future pastors at Fuller, Gordon-Conwell, and Trinity, three of the largest non-denominational evangelical seminaries. A female student leader from Campus Crusade organized UNC’s 24/7 Prayer week this year, and countless other local ministries depend on the time, vision, skills, and prayers of women who love Jesus. While varying in their official positions on women in ministry, each of these more missionally driven organizations senses a practical need for women’s participation.

Yes, it may seem contradictory at first: despite affirming women in their specific ministries, many parachurch organizations like InterVarsity remain silent about female deacons, elders, and pastors/priests in the local church. (Some organizations would say they oppose it, in fact!) I myself used to feel abandoned by this silence, but now I celebrate it. While I question the validity of this sharp church/parachurch distinction and would appreciate InterVarsity’s eventual allegiance to CBE’s egalitarian cause, I have begun to rejoice in the quietly strategic—even inadvertent—role of other parachurch organizations in advancing gender reconciliation and justice.

Especially among university students and other young adults, the parachurch, with its focused yet flexible structures, is often uniquely suited to interact with diverse constituencies otherwise lacking exposure to women in ministry. Indeed, perhaps one of the most significant things we can do to support gender equality is to remain invested in the parachurch organizations that are already informally, sometimes accidentally, changing minds and hearts about women. Regardless of what is or isn’t said about the issue, the mere presence of women in leadership transforms lives. By donating to humanitarian organizations, encouraging college-bound high schoolers to join a campus ministry, volunteering at a local level, or simply connecting others to a female author who has mentored us from a distance, we may be doing more than we realize to advance women’s ministry. Of course, I look forward to finding clearer allies to CBE’s mission. But I’m excited to see the Lord is already at work, sometimes in the places I least expect.

February 20 was the release date of Susan McLeod-Harrison’s first book Saving Women from the Church: How Jesus Mends a Divide (Barclay Press, 2008). Upfront I have to say I’m not sure I can review this book objectively. Susan’s story is very close to my own. Reading this book, I wished it had been published about eight years earlier. That is when I was going through my own struggle on whether or not to remain in the Church. And I do mean Church with a big C. I wasn’t thinking of only leaving my denomination, I was thinking of leaving the Church period. I was in seminary and on the ordination track. I did not see a place for myself in Christian ministry. I was single; I was evangelical; and I was called to preach and pastor. I was also asked in various churches if I was going to seminary to be a pastor’s wife. I had come to the point where I wanted to leave. I wanted to walk away. I just did not see a future for myself in the Church.

Saving Women from the Church addresses several of the myths that woman hear in church. Some of the chapter titles are: “If you’ve felt alienated and judged in the church,” “If you believe women are inferior to men,” “If as a single woman, your gifts have been rejected or overlooked,” and “If you’ve been encouraged to deify motherhood.” In the Introduction, she starts with my favorite starting point on women in the church: creation. Both men and women are created in the image of God, and therefore, image God with their gifts and talents God has given them. In each chapter she starts with a fictional account of a woman who is experiencing and living one of the myths. She follows it with an imaginative portrayal of how Jesus treated women in a similar position in the New Testament. She follows the biblical story by explaining what Jesus was doing and with questions for discussion. Each chapter ends with a meditation meant for healing. Saving Women does a great job of translating theology into practical, everyday examples in language normal people use. The history and sociological work she does for each passage, explaining the culture of the people at the time, is also well done.

I think this book would make an excellent woman’s study or small group study. It addresses most of the myths women in the evangelical church have grown up with and still deal with. It would be a great conversation starter, and it is a valuable addition to other books on this subject. The language and tone of the book make it much more accessible and understandable to the typical lay person than most books in this genre. In the conclusion, Susan recommends women in abusive churches leave and gives a list of churches that are egalitarian and open to women in ministry. Saving Women does a good job of acknowledging and describing the myths, and encourages women to get out of these environments. The Recommended Reading at the end of the book also has books that would help in this regard.

Overall I am very pleased that this book is on the market. It starts with the premise that women are made in the image of God and called to build God’s kingdom. Then it deals chapter-by-chapter with the destructive myths that have prevailed in evangelical culture to keep women as second-class citizens and powerless in the pews. It is an excellent resource to begin busting these myths and helping women find their God-given ability to be equal partners in building God’s kingdom with their brothers.

I grew up in patriarchal churches. I got used to hearing Scripture readings and having to internally translate “man” to “humanity” or “people;” to seeing women behind the piano but not the pulpit or conducting the children’s choir but not the adult musicians; to being allowed to ask public questions in my high school Sunday school class but then denied the same opportunity later when I became an adult. So when, a few years ago, all my searching and questioning finally produced a permanent shift to egalitarianism, the smallest acts of justice in the church were great sources of encouragement to me.

At the time I was a member of a patriarchal but relatively supportive congregation, and when “liberal” forces within the congregation led to invitations to serve on the vision team, to usher, or to give a public testimony, these opportunities seemed vastly liberating compared to what I had previously known. My husband and I didn’t want to change churches over one issue – especially if our willing service could be an example of winsome egalitarianism – so we stuck around. But the completion of graduate school and the beginning of a nationwide job search recently opened the door for us to explore other denominations and particular congregations that would share our egalitarian commitment. We’re still in the job search process and haven’t settled permanently, but we’re currently attending a small Episcopal church that we appreciate for its lovely and historic liturgy, warm people, and obvious dedication to the outworking of the gospel through social justice.

The reason for this rather rambling biography is to help you understand the significance of what happened last Sunday. Longtime Episcopalians probably think nothing of it, being used to women represented as equals. But when, during the celebration of the Eucharist, the rector addressed his prayer to “God of our ancestors: God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God of Sarah, Rebekah, and Ruth,” I was stunned. Never in my life had I heard our spiritual fathers and mothers held up together with equal significance at a public ceremony. There was no elaboration, no qualification of the statement as hinging on a “correct” understanding of manhood and womanhood derived elsewhere; just a prayer that acknowledged men and women recorded in the Bible as being among those God spoke through and to in millennia past.

Kneeling there in my pew, the congregation continuing to pray aloud around me, I repeated that phrase over and over, startled to find my eyes filling with tears. I am generally the last person to “get emotional” during worship. But I was overwhelmed with gratitude for a God who never discriminates, who loves his daughters as he loves his sons, who loves me as he loves his other children, and loves me so much that he would speak to me in such simple but profoundly moving and comforting words. That morning I received the bread and wine with a suddenly-deeper gratitude for the transforming grace of Christ.

On the one hand, this is a sad story about just how oppressive our wrong-headed attitudes are when all it takes is a simple acknowledgment of God’s work in both men and women to open the floodgates of the heart. And yet, on the other, it is a testimony to the amazing power of truth offered without hesitation and with humility, the solidarity of the people of God standing together on equal footing before the cross of Christ. I would have missed the sweetness of that moment of communion had I not experienced the previous oppression, and therefore I am grateful to God for both.

And so I am prompted to ask this question: have any of you, who like me converted to egalitarianism from a patriarchal background, ever had such an “a-ha!” moment – a time when the full significance of your equality before God hit you unexpectedly? I’d love to hear where you were and just what it was that took you by surprise. I’m certain your story will be an encouragement to others – so do tell!