Where Have All the Evangelical Southern Baptist Women Gone?

Last month, The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention posted an article by Laura Thigpen that they had gotten from from her post on the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's Women Life webpage. The difference in the separate postings is in the title. The original post on the SEBTS website is titled "The Voice of Evangelical Women." The ERLC's title is "Where are the Voices of Evangelical Women?"

I'm not going to address the article for the SEBTS Women's Life page. I understand why they need an article like this because of what happened in the conservative take-overs of the seminary 20 years ago.

But why would the ERLC even decide to post this article? Isn't their leadership the ones that were responsible for these very voices being silenced?

I will tell you that there are more evangelical women speaking out now than ever before. Thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other internet sources, evangelical women have a voice--even if their churches will not allow them to step behind a pulpit or teach men. We are talking. It is just that no one listens. And if they do listen, we tend to get mansplained.

However, for those in the Southern Baptist Convention who are perplexed, here is what happened:

Once in Southern Baptist life, there were strong women leaders. They were in Southern Baptist Churches all over the world. They taught the Sunday School classes; the mission classes; they stood up and prayed during worship; and, yes, they sometimes preached (though it may have been called a speech or something).

In my own life, I was a Southern Baptist girl from the time I was born. I went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. I was inspired by both the men and women in my church to seek out what God was calling me to do with my life. I went through Mission Friends, GAs, Acteens, and came to the realization that I was called to ministry--though it would be another decade before that ministry gift would be revealed. I did everything that I was supposed to do, but because I was female the SBC cut me out.

On the very Sunday after the "Baptist Faith & Message" was adopted in 2000. I left my SBC church and joined one that was affiliated with the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. This was due to the one statement, "While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture."

And many other women left the SBC because of that very reason. There was no place for them. These are women poised to preach and prophesy, but there was no room for them at the SBC table. They were told to be silent or get out.

One day, I believe that the SBC leaders of that time will have to answer for what they did in silencing the voices of women.

So the ERLC is now asking where the evangelical women are. Did it ever occur to them that there is a reason that SBC evangelical women don't speak out? That there a reason that SBC membership continues to decline? It is selective amnesia at its best: they did it to themselves.

Highest Calling

"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." ~Catherine of Siena

Once upon a time, I interviewed for ministry jobs. That's no big deal really. I have a Masters of Divinity degree. And no task ever feels so right as when I am standing in front of a congregation and preaching. I was a youth minister for a summer--just before I got pregnant with my last baby. But that didn't fit quite right.

When people came up to me after I preached a few weeks ago and told me that they enjoyed it, my mouth said thank you but my heart was saying that I was born to do this.

I finished divinity school 14 years ago. I was four months pregnant with my first child when I walked across the stage. It seemed pointless to look for a ministry job when I had a baby on the way. But I did send out a lot of resumes then and in the years that followed. I had a few interviews, never for a pastor position--still waiting on that interview, my own deep calling. But the interviews always ended up with someone telling me that I shouldn't be looking for ministry work. My children were too young; I should be home with them.

Those words still cut me today, and my youngest is now 8. When they were first said to me, they seemed so benign, yet they "tasted" wrong in my mind and in my heart. It took me a long time to realize that not living up to my highest calling was setting a bad example for my sons. So many Christians believe that the highest calling of a woman is to be a wife and mother. The progressive churches I interviewed with--ones that are not on the conservative end of baptist life--still believed that myth: that a woman's highest calling was to be a wife and mother. Why else would they write me off so quick.

However, I am here to say: my highest calling is so. much. more.

Seasons come and go in a woman's life--indeed in anyone's life, male or female. Maybe it was too difficult for a church to see past my babies. Maybe they thought the logistics of running a household would be too much for me (though marriage is a team, right?). Maybe they didn't think of what they were saying at all--at least in a theological sense. But those words have stayed in my mind, replayed every so often, making me feel less than adequate--even though my youngest is 8 now.

So...I reject the attempt to put me in a theological box. I am called to preach the gospel. I am called to be prophetic and thoughtful, to bring theological meaning into this world gone mad. Even if I don't have a church to preach in, I will still prepare as if I do. I will learn even more about my craft; I will read and listen and think.

To the churches that wrote me off, you were wrong.

To the world that says that I should settle, you lose.

To Christians that say motherhood is my highest calling, you don't know my God.

What prompted this post? Jenny Rae Armstrong posted a quote to a Facebook Group I belong to: Biblical Christian Egalitarians. The quote says:

Since last Friday when it was posted, I have been praying about my life and how to be a bit more courageous with my calling. Today, I post this because it is time to shatter non-biblical notions of what I am called to be. I will not bow down to the idols anymore.

Allergy Plans

My youngest child starts Kindergarten in the morning.  They stagger-entry the children, so they only have 4-5 in each day this week.  Then on Monday the whole class will be there.  Which is why I have spent today chasing down forms and meeting for over an hour with the school nurse--because we need a plan to deal with his allergies.

There are many things to consider when sending an allergic child to public school for the first time.  I have to have forms filled out to check the medicine into the school.  I have to tell them if I want the medicine also in the classrooms (I do).  I have to get a special sticker to put in his lunchbox.  I have to discuss how and when he will wash his hands before and/or after he eats, whether he will sit in a special seat for lunch and snack, and what the process is if he has an anaphylactic reaction.  There is a lot of paperwork involved.

But this little child of mine is a good advocate for himself.  His teacher has experience with allergic reactions and is trained to use the Epi-pen if it is needed.  My son knows how to ask if something has nuts in it and to refuse if other children try to offer him food. 

For a mom like me, here is my big adventure--sending my 5 year old off to school despite my anxiety, my worry and fears.  But isn't that what all parents are called to do? 

I have looked at my boys with the idea that I am here to raise them up and let them go.  That process comes through different events.  Already my 5 year old is quite independent in some ways.  I have been freed from the ever-persistent care of a baby.  I don't have to watch my son every minute of the day to keep him out of trouble. 

I am excited about sending my son off to Kindergarten.  He is going to learn so much.  He is on a journey to adulthood with a really big step in the morning.

Playtime

When I decided to become a Kindermusik educator three years ago, I had no idea that I would do the teaching myself.  I thought I would just hire some others and just do the marketing for them as business owner.  However, Kindermusik's model is to have all owners also be educators, so I took their semester-long course to be certified as an owner/educator.  When I taught my practice classes, I was surprised to discover that it was a lot of fun.  It was wonderful to interact with the children, and the Kindermusik curriculum was one that helped me to make the most of our 45 minute class times.

As a result, I get to play.  My work is literally child's play.  I plan for times that enrich and teach the children.  We talk about different sounds and imitate them.  We act like wild animals prowling, slithering, and swinging around.  We get to discover the many ways to play percussion instruments or new ways to dance.  These children give me energy--their play makes my day so much better. 

Three years ago, I was coming out of depression.  I had no energy, and I was sleeping a lot.  When I began teaching, I found purpose.  I found energy.  I found a calling to help these boys and girls and their families get the most out of their Kindermusik experience. 

Wow.  Isn't it amazing how some things drop into your life and change you?  Isn't it fun to play?

Secret Ministries

If you belong to a church, you know that a lot of how things get done is not about the church's polity.  It is not about committees or deacon boards.  It is not about any hierarchical structure.

Many things are done because someone sees a need and steps in to do something about it.

At my church, I have two things I do that most people don't know I do.  I keep the children's worship bags ready with paper, pencil, and crayons.  And I keep the women's bathroom stocked with feminine supplies.

I started putting together the children's bags because I have three children of my own, and I know it is a benefit to me when my middle son gets the bag to occupy himself during worship.  Some children take multiple bags.  Some end up taking them home accidentally.  Or leaving them on the seat or floor.  Occasionally someone a little older will use them, but I'm not sure how the crayons came to be melted in one of the bags a couple of years ago.  I find 15 minutes during the week to restock/redistribute the supplies.  Easy job, but I do believe that it would be missed if I didn't do my job.  It is really one of the things you never think about until it doesn't get done.

The other thing I do is supply pads and tampons in the women's restroom.  This involved buying a little basket to put next to the sinks and keeping it stocked.  I end up getting the pads and tampons free or almost free because I use coupons and wait for sales.  The real work is noticing when to bring more in--not really that difficult.  I do this service because when I was about 12 years old, there was a girl who came up to me in church during Sunday School one week.  She needed a pad, but I didn't have one to give her then.  I remember thinking about how frustrating it would be to need something so personal and embarrassing (at that age) and having to go around asking.  And that story has stayed in my mind all these years.  So I work to provide such supplies to the girls and women of my congregation. 

There are many little things in our church that get done on a weekly basis without ever being acknowledged.  The ones doing them don't ask for recognition, but maybe you can notice and offer a word of thanks sometimes.

Long Time, No Blog

As usual, life gets in the way of things that I'd like to do.  I often find myself saying, "I really should blog about ______."  It is usually a topic that matters to me, but I forget it when I sit at my computer.  And I usually get sucked into reading FB posts anyway. 

When I started blogging, the title "Longing for Home" was what came to me.  It isn't about where you live now--it is about that eternal Home--the aching inside you that says that you belong somewhere else.  I know that ache.  When I faced sending my children back to school today, the demands of a husband that thinks I should be out in a career, the longing of my own soul to leave something of myself on this earth to have an eternal legacy, I know the longing for my Home. 

I want to write a good deal more this year, but I didn't make any resolutions.  In the dreary January and February of the year, I focus on survival and dealing with seasonal depression.  Resolutions are better left to springtime and a time of renewal. 

Or I could do the one-word resolution that some of my friends post about.  But I'm not sure what my word would be.  I desire to do the thing I was called to do--which would be ministry, specifically pastoring--but I do not know how to jump back into the search for a place or how to define myself as a pastor from the place I now stand.  Maybe my word is rediscovery.

Rediscovery is internal as I find out who I am in my mid-30s.  How did I become this person I wouldn't ever have recognized a couple of decades ago.  Rediscovery is external as I incorporate the ones I love in this process.  I value my relationships and know they teach me more about the person I am becoming.

Is rediscovery too broad a word?  I feel on the verge of great things in my life, but there is something keeping me from taking the plunge.  I pray that I am able to see who I am to be in this world.

Big Ball of Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey

Introvert

I am reading a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.  I am very intrigued by what I have heard about this book.  It is also interesting because a couple of years ago, I decided to stop fighting what the world was telling me about how it was better to be outgoing.  Why be something I'm not?

Introverts are not necessarily shy--that is a perception that is placed on them by society.  I'm not shy.  I have things to say about many topics.

The world is more introverted than you think, too.  I would love to explore more about what that means for the Church and for those in leadership positions.

A few years ago when I was a youth minister for a summer, the pastor tried to make an extrovert out of me because it was the kind of person they expected should be a youth minister.  It didn't take.  It did leave me with feelings of self-loathing because I could not be what that kind of congregation wanted.  I told my therapist last year that I was happy to be an introvert, and I was finally at peace with that aspect of my personality.  I don't think she ever got what I was trying to say.  I'm not shy.  I'm not socially withdrawn.  I am just me.

I am this person God created.  My personality was created.  I will live within the traits that have made me wonderful up until this point in my life and until the end.

Moreover, I will encourage those whom the world labels as shy.  That is not a bad thing to be--it is only when we look upon those people as defective that that's what they become.

I am wonderfully made.

Reaction

Let nothing upset you,
Let nothing startle you.
All things pass;
God does not change.
Patience wins all it seeks.
Whoever has God lacks nothing:
God alone is enough.
---St. Teresa of Avila

I'm always working on how I react to things.  Most of the time I feel like I am yelling at the kids (or dh) for things they do wrong, i.e. spilling drinks, running through the house, fighting.  I need to memorize this poem.

The Me Who No Longer Exists

In the mail today, I received a "special one-time offer" for me to re-subscribe to Citizen Magazine which is published by Focus on the Family. This notice arrived about 14 years too late for it to do any good.

I'm not the same person I was fifteen years ago. In fact, the person I was a decade and a half ago wouldn't recognize me and would probably say I'm not even a Christian.

So what happened? I started thinking for myself. I gave up what I had been taught by the church as a fact, and I researched and studied to find out the truth. Divinity school is where it started; and since I graduated ten years ago, I've kept changing. I'm not the conservative evangelical that is being targeted by this offer that came in the mail.

If I had this magazine, I bet I would vote exactly opposite of what it says in its voter's guide. The "trustworthy Christian perspective" wouldn't be my Christian perspective. I am simply not the person to which this piece of mail is addressed.

That person died. Or maybe evolved is a better word.
I just know that I have never been more confident in my beliefs and values. I've never known better what to support and what to fight.

And above all, I wonder at how God can change a heart so radically as mine was changed.

The Facts About Amendment One

I'm against it. It would have to be rescinded in the future if it passes, so why not save us the trouble and vote no.

RIP Earl Scruggs

Interesting Quote

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. --Dwight Eisenhower in 1953

Feminization of the Church or Self-Domesticating Evolution?

Today I was listening to The State of Things on my local public radio station. The segment aired was about how animals are domesticated and become pets and what work the Humane Society is doing with the knowledge thereof. The process of domestication was explained and one experiment lasting over 50 years was that of a Russian scientist Dmitry Belyaev. You can read all about animal domestication in this National Geographic article.

When an animal is domesticated, there features change. They become cuter with floppy ears and different coloration. This is because the genes that affect those traits are the ones triggered when an animal is domesticated. Domestication comes when the population changes social aspects of itself like communication. There is a decrease in testosterone and a rise in cortisol as the body reacts differently to the stress of new social interaction. Even more interesting is that species of some animals have self-domesticated. Read this article about Bonobos which look like chimpanzees but act much different. This leads me with to interesting theory.

Humans are fundamentally animals, and I'm sure there have been some self-domestication times in human history. As with the bonobos, tight social bonds are being formed Could it be that with our new ways of communicating and relating to one another we have begun a new evolution of domesticating ourselves? And maybe it is why male evangelical, complementarian leaders have been saying the church is feminizing. With more communication and a lowering of testosterone, I would tend to agree. But that also means that society is feminizing as a whole.

Is that such a bad thing? If it leads to a more peaceful, altruistic society, I wouldn't think so. But the process is a work in progress and evolutionary trends aren't known for many millions of years.

My Own Business Part 2

I am a licensed Kindermusik educator now!! I am taking enrollments for the spring semester. I have a lot of responsibility all of a sudden, but I am excited about this venture.

I never thought anything like this would happen to me. Just goes to show that our lives can take unexpected turns every now and then.

Wish me luck!

My Own Business

A few weeks ago, our Kindermusik educator told all her students that she would no longer provide Kindermusik because it was time for her to focus on other areas of her life. It was heart-breaking for me even though I understand her intentions.

So, I want to be a Kindermusik educator for my area. Who knew it was so much work though? I only want to run the business and hire the old teachers to teach. But I have to take all the training of a Kindermusik teacher and the business training as well. And that is my life right now.

At least soon I'll have a positive answer for my baby who asks every morning, "Music?"

Woe Unto You

Woe unto all who decide to teach a children's Sunday School class. You will never be able to stop teaching it. And also that mid-week class that you volunteered for--how difficult it is to stop (especially when your own children are in the class).

I need a break!

In the midst of launching two new businesses in our household (my husband's staffing company and my potential ownership of Kindermusik in our community), I have to take time off from my church duties.

To say nothing of being burned out and needing renewal myself.

So why do I feel like I am getting dirty looks for wanting to stop teaching the classes? And how do I really get away from teaching them as new teachers have not been found? And I am still teaching Sunday School two years after I said I wanted to stop!

So I let them stew and fret over new teachers. There really has to be a better way to recruit, but so few people in our churches volunteer to serve. I thought our church would be different, but I've been in the discipleship team meetings and seen how it is so difficult to get people to step forward.

Tonight is the start-up of mid-week activities. No teacher for the preschoolers. Am I supposed to feel so guilty for wanting to not teach?

Churches need to assume that service only lasts for one year. That way a teacher doesn't feel trapped by his/her class forever.

I know I need a break, but I don't feel like anyone is believing me or encouraging me to take one. I can see now why people get burned out and leave churches.

Who is My Neighbor?

I teach our preschool Sunday School class at my church. Last week's lesson was on the Good Samaritan.

During the early hours of Monday morning, I awoke from a dream. In it, I was disagreeing with someone over abortion--I think it started with a disagreement over something else though. But as I awoke, I had only one thing in my mind--one question really...

Who is my neighbor?

It was so strange to awaken to that question, but all during this week I have remembered to ask myself that question at various times. When I saw the homeless man with a sign a couple of miles from my house...he is a neighbor. I discussed that idea with my oldest son right there in the car.

And as I see all the people I disagree with over personal convictions (a lot of them in DC today), I realize they are my neighbors, too. No matter if we see eye to eye.

It is very humbling to look at all people and see that God loves them. Our children, our actual neighbors, our pastor, our friends, our enemies, the people with whom we disagree, criminals, terrorists--God loves them all. It makes identifying your neighbor easier said than done.

This story of the Good Samaritan is not so simple when it is actually put into practice.

Far From Home

I grew up about 4 hours from where I live now. Some days it is difficult to be so far from home.

Like when there are complications with my brother and sister-in-law's pregnancy. Doctors are discussing the possibility that it is Downs Syndrome. And oh, how I wish I was there to sit beside them (and my Mom). Not so easy to do through the phone or on Facebook.

Hiding Place

I am blessed to have a not small walk-in closet. It isn't the biggest thing, but it is adequate. I am not talking about just clothes here. I have four small bookshelves in my closet--every one packed with books. Books I had in divinity school. Books that I have acquired since divinity school that are sermon helps. Books I just want to read because everyone else is reading them or they sparked some interest in me.

I have a giant floor pillow to lean against, and I can just read right there in my closet. It muffles the sounds of the rest of the house. It is a place to think, but mainly it is a place to get away into the world of a book. Getting caught up with the characters, and forgetting that I'm even in my closet.

When my husband and I have a disagreement, I sometimes escape. Sometimes, particularly after school, I go there to escape my boys' whining. They all know where to find me, but I think they realize that Mama needs a time out sometimes, too. Sometimes when my oldest son needs to read his book for school, he gets to go to my closet. It may end up being scared space in the house as we search for a place to pause and think and read and dream.

I designated my half of my closet as my own place in the house. I think it is very important to have a place like that. Silence is good. Self-reflection is good. It can bring renewal.