Further Thoughts on the Shape of Women's Ministry
This week, Kate Shellnutt of Christianity Today published a piece that examines the shape of women's ministry in the white evangelical church. The article comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding popular speaker and author Jen Hatmaker's public support of gay marriage. In response to her new position, LifeWay will no longer sell Hatmaker's books and products.
While I don't agree with Hatmaker's position, I also don't think folks are necessarily seeing the big picture. Hatmaker is not one individual who suddenly and unexpectedly went rogue. She represents the larger shape of evangelical women's ministry that is very often detached from the established Church. Erin Straza and I tackled this question in a recent Persuasion podcast in which we argue that much of women's spiritual formation has been outsourced to the marketplace. We shouldn't be surprised when it's shaped by influences other than the Church.
Kate's article at CT taps several leaders in ministry and tries to set the larger frame for what's happening, particularly among white evangelical women. For example, while most pastors have probably never heard of Hatmaker, she has a FB following larger than John Piper, Tim Keller, or Gary Chapman. Kate reached out to me for her article and I asked her if I could publish more of our email exchange here:
Kate: What do you see as some of the pros and cons of having so much momentum around women’s ministry at a national level?
Hannah: Positively, I think we need to recognize that the Spirit of God is at work. Because the digital age has changed how ideas spread, women (who have historically existed in the margins of theological conversation) have an opportunity to add to the conversation without ever leaving their desks. In the past, a lack of infrastructure would have held them back; but today, women who are gifted to teach, lead, or encourage have opportunity to actualize these gifts in a public way.
The advantage, of course, is that the Church at large can benefit from these gifted women. They become a channel of the Holy Spirit’s power and blessing as they fulfill their calling for the good of the Church and the glory of God. One practical affect is that new topics come up for discussion and application—topics that male leaders simply wouldn’t know to address or can’t address. Female leaders are also uniquely positioned to apply the teachings of the Church to the needs of half her members.
On the other hand, because so many female spiritual leaders are operating in parachurch contexts, their ministries have the potential to lose the doctrinal and structural accountability that the established Church provides. The digital age may free women from the gendered constraints of traditional ministry, but this means that they also have the potential to become free agents.
Consider how few female evangelical leaders are visibly attached to an institution such as a church, seminary, or non-profit that did not grow up around their personality. Name a male leader like Rick Warren and you immediately think of Saddleback Church. Say Beth Moore or Ann Voskamp or Jen Hatmaker and most of us will draw a blank about which local church these women affiliate with. This is not to say that they aren't connected, but their local church isn't a visible or central a component to their public ministry.
Being distanced from ecclesiastical institutions also means women’s ministry inadvertently becomes shaped by market forces. Nationally known female spiritual leaders are by-and-large entrepreneurs and most often, out of necessity. Because women struggle to find space in the established Church, they end up creating their own institutions, whether as collectives or around themselves. The latter is both fed by and feeds evangelical celebrity culture.
This entrepreneurial dynamic also affects the shape and philosophy of women’s ministry, even if only inadvertently. When a woman has to create her own position and then maintain that position apart from the contribution (both financial and spiritual) of a larger institution, her target demographic can disproportionately affect the shape of her ministry. This is true of many entrepreneurial endeavors, not simply women’s ministry; but if the majority of female leaders are operating in the marketplace (as opposed to the institutional Church), women’s ministry as a whole can reach a point of critical mass where an audience-centric philosophy creates wider expectations about style, topics, and content.
Practically speaking, this broader culture locks both leaders and followers into a matrix built on audience consumption of the personal spirituality of the celebrity. The “product” is not robust spiritual formation so much as spirituality mediated through the experience and passions of the tribal leader. Of course, not all nationally known female leaders and ministries operate this way, but building “tribe” is a significant emphasis for many.
Kate: Also, the tweet from you that stood out most to me was about how female leaders don’t need to “show their work” theologically. Could you expand on that? What is the role you see theology playing? And why shouldn’t we be tempted to write off these women as overly inspirational or shallow? Hannah: I believe that market forces are unduly shaping women’s ministry. And part of what the market wants is simple, practical spirituality. In a robust learning environment, a teacher works to create a curriculum and syllabus that suits the needs (not the wants) of the learner. But teachers operating in the marketplace must always consider what the market can bear. They themselves aren’t necessarily a-theological (although some may be), but they may feel a tension to craft their teaching in a way that minimizes theological book work in favor of inspiration, lifestyle advice, or practical mission.
The problem is that if lay women don’t see their teachers modeling theological investigation or healthy engagement with the Scripture, they won’t be able to develop these abilities themselves. They won’t even know they need to develop them. It’s like learning to cook from a recipe that calls for pre-packaged ingredients like “cake mix” vs. a recipe that calls for flour, sugar, dry milk, baking soda, and salt. The shortcuts may seem helpful at the moment, but have we really learned to cook? Have we grown in our spiritual understanding?
I do not believe that all female leaders must have an M.Div. or theology degree to teach or lead. I don't have one myself. But we do need to raise the expectation for what passes for spiritual formation. In an article in the Washington Post last year, Karen E. Yates reflects on the last two decades of women’s involvement in Christian publishing and notes that “women today are publishing at an incredible rate without the title of pastor, without a seminary degree and without a traditional pulpit.”
If nothing else, this should get our attention. Not because women aren’t capable of the higher thinking associated with formal teaching ministry, but because of the very real possibility that half the Church is being trained in mission by people with a limited number of tools in their toolkits. As a woman, this also concerns me because a haphazard approach to theology could reinforce prejudices against women teachers. In some ways, we have to be better and more faithful than our male counterparts in order to overcome entrenched biases.
This doesn’t mean we should write off women leaders as uneducated, un-theological, or shallow. You do not gain the following necessary to be a nationally known leader without a great deal of gifting, self-education, and hard work. What women leaders often are, however, is isolated. Isolated from the very Church they are seeking to build. If Paul is correct that the Church is “the pillar and ground of truth,” the way forward is not to shame female leaders for using their gifts without theological credentials. The way forward is for the Church to identify and support gifted women, partnering with them via theological training and commissioned ministry positions.
If you don’t want women breaking down the doors, simply open them for them.
Hillbilly Elegy
Many of you know that I live in the mountains of western Virginia. We're hardworking bunch, knit together by family, shared sense of community, and a particular love for this region. Here, my kids go to local schools, and my husband pastors a small church at a bend of a long country road. A graveyard sits on the right and a cow pasture on the left. A small stream runs through the pasture and is home to minnows, tadpoles, lizards, and crawdads.
But not everything is idyllic. Like many other communities, we're increasingly affected by income disparity, drug use, & the breakdown of the nuclear family, Travel just a bit farther west and you'll hit the coal fields of southern WV and eastern KY. The challenges these folks face make ours seem like child's play. It's hard to understand the challenges of rural life because outsiders tend to idealize it (Mayberry) or mock it (Beverly Hillbillies). What we don't do is take a careful look at the complexities of it.
In the recently released, Hillbilly Elegy, author J.D. Vance chronicles the story of "his people"--from growing up an Ohio factory town to returning to his ancestral home in the hills of eastern Kentucky. Vance's childhood was marked by family chaos and underachievement. It was a childhood and family that he loves deeply nonetheless. But Vance doesn't mince words: he honors the humanity of these self-described "hillbillies" at the same time he calls them to own their potential.
One of the most enlightening aspects of the book is Vance's take on how religion plays out in working class communities. There's often a deep-seated sense of faith or belief in God, but for the most part, the rural poor are detached from local churches. Vance wonders out loud how much this is their own fault and how much it is the fault of church. I've wondered the same thing myself. Many times.
Are our church's even accessible to folks outside a certain demographic? And if they aren't, how can we change that?
Here's my longer review of the book and a podcast in which I argue that it will be among the most influential books of 2016.
Learning to Speak Up
A little over four years ago, I started down a path that I thought would lead me on a relaxing Sunday afternoon stroll through the woods. Little did I know I was actually starting a hike through the mountains.
When I hit "publish" on the first post here at SAL, I had no ambitions or plan for what God might do with me. I knew that I needed to do something--that I needed to cultivate certain gifts and desires--but there was no plan. At least from my perspective. As the path has twisted and turned, I've simply taken the next step in front of me. Sometimes those steps opened onto breathtaking vistas where I could pause and marvel at all that God had done; sometimes they led me up increasingly steep and narrow paths that made me doubt the wisdom of having ever left the couch.
This year, one of those uphill climbs has been doing more traveling and speaking.
If you're a regularly follower of this blog, you've probably noticed that I've been a little... um... absent lately. But if I've been absent here, it's only because I've been present in many new places speaking and teaching on the truth of living as image bearers. And like most uphill climbs, it has been immensely rewarding--once I was able to pause long enough to catch my breath.
Despite the challenges--whether it's been covering my responsibilities at home or overcoming the strange panic that inevitably settles on me right before I leave--I've relished each opportunity. Hand me a mic and watch out. The truth of imago Dei is so large--so all of life encompassing--that I'm never at a loss for words even if it's sometimes hard to know exactly where to land. Whether we're talking about how being image bearers affects our approach to work or learning how the gospel is both the means and model of for our transformation, I feel like I could spend the rest of my life teasing out the daily realities of being made like Christ.
So that's exactly what I have and am doing. Traveling and speaking has allowed me to develop ideas that I didn't get to explore fully in Made for More. I've been able to dig more deeply into the relationship between the Creation Mandate and the Great Commission; to explore how the gospel informs and enables the process of Christlikeness; and to focus more specifically on a woman's calling in the home, church, and society. It's been wonderful.
This year has also taught me how to "speak up" through the chance to co-host a weekly podcast with Erin Straza. The goal of Persuasionis to provide a space where "fine ladies, rational minds, and the best kind of company" can gather to discuss ideas and issues. We noticed that there were a lot of Christian podcasts focused on"women's issues" and there were a lot of podcasts for women Bible teachers; but we wanted to do something different. We want to amplify women's voices and perspectives beyond the typical conversations--to apply Christian truth to the issues around us, whether it is doing chores, failed attempts at authenticity, or funeral traditions. After all "when you're a woman, all issues are women's issues."
So consider this your invitation. Whether you're cleaning house, wrapping presents for the coming holidays, or running errands, grab a pair of earbuds or download the file and listen along!
Leveling the Playing Field: Professional Sports and the Success of Women's Ministry
This weekend the Indiana Fever and the Minnesota Lynx will face off in the first game of the WNBA finals. Now, if you didn’t know the WNBA finals were happening this weekend, don’t worry; you’re in good company. By and large, women’s professional sports have failed to gain the attention that men’s team sports enjoy. And despite your brother-in-law’s assertions, the disconnect probably has little to do with women being less athletic or less interesting than men. Thank you, US Women’s National Soccer Team.
Famed sports’ commentator Frank Deford recently joined NPR’s Steve Inskeep to discuss why women’s professional sports get less attention then men's sports. His conclusion? Inertia. The media is used to covering sports a certain way, and the public is used to watching sports a certain way. So that even as Title IX invited girls and women into the world of sports, they are still limited by how far they can go.
As I listened, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels to women in the Church. Generally, I’ve been encouraged by how women are taking ownership of their faith and are teaching others to do the same. They love their families, are active in social justice, and committed to personal growth through the means of grace. At the same time, I do worry that this growth could be stalled if we don’t take a hard look at infrastructure.
Like sports’ fans, many of us are accustomed to church ministry happening a certain way. And unless we change this, women’s contributions to the Kingdom will end up mirroring what’s happened in professional sports. Yes, women will have opportunities, but they will continue to exist outside the mainstream. Simply having Christian women top the NYT’s best seller list doesn’t mean that Christian women are flourishing in the Church any more than the existence of the WNBA finals means that women are flourishing in professional sports.
So what can we do? Deford offers some valuable insights to how women’s sports can gain more visibility and credibility, and most of them relate to changes in infrastructure. As I listened, I realized that his insights could be equally valuable to us.
1. Tie it to money. In order to raise the profile of women’s professional sports, Deford recommends that league officials high tail it to Vegas and open betting lines. Without realizing it, Deford is echoing something that Christ himself taught: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” So while I don’t recommend taking bets on who will lead your church's women’s ministry next year, I do think money is part of the equation. If we don’t invest our resources in equipping women, our hearts won’t be invested either. For a local congregation, this may mean budgeting to bring in a female speaker, hiring more women on staff, or helping women afford theological education. When resources are on the line, we're more likely to care about the final outcome. In other words, when we place a bet, we'll watch the game.
2. Link women’s efforts to men’s efforts. Another part of the WNBA’s trouble is that their season runs during the summer, with the playoffs hitting just as football season is opening. For many sports fans, this sends a subtle signal that the WNBA is not *really* basketball because it doesn’t happen during “basketball season.” Deford notes that women athletes who enjoy the most visibility are those who compete in tournaments alongside their male peers, such as in golf or tennis. Women and men don’t compete against each other, but they compete at the same time and place. So that in the public eye, women athletes have just as much credibility as the men do.
When it comes to local churches, it is very common for women’s ministry to be siloed from the main mission of the church. For many church leaders, the “women’s auxiliary” is precisely that—auxiliary to the day to day functioning of the church which is often led and conducted by men. This presents several dangers including sending the signal to the congregation that what the women are doing is not truly “ministry” in much the same way the public sees the WNBA as something less than “basketball.”
Because men are already established in places of visibility and influence in the Church, the surest way to promote women’s calling is to tie it to them and the central mission of the Church. When male leaders visibly work alongside female leaders, the congregation learns that female contributions are just as valuable and necessary as male.
3. Work as a team. The third thing Deford notes is that women’s sports will only gain visibility through team efforts. The success of women like Serena Williams or Lindsey Vonn does not mean that female athletes are meeting success across the board. Correspondingly, the success of a Beth Moore, Ann Voskamp, or Jen Hatmaker does not mean that women are flourishing or that their gifts are being used in local churches.
The reality is that most women working for the Kingdom are working in isolation. Part of this stems from an emphasis on home and family as a significant part of a woman’s calling. As an eleven-year veteran of the “domestic industry,” I can assure you that home can be a very lonely place. But beyond this, women leaders are simply not networked the way men are. Men in ministry often develop professional ties during their undergrad and seminary years and maintain them through professional conferences. Most of the women leaders I know came into their calling, not through academia, but through their passion and gifting. They are paraprofessionals and lack the professional support and network of other leaders.
Thankfully, the digital age offers women more opportunities to work as a team; but online interaction is not enough. Our most effective efforts happen in community, growing out of our work in local churches. Women leaders need to be invited onto the team of the church; they need to be present at staff meetings, prayer times, and leadership retreats. Otherwise, they will continue to serve in isolation and only a certain type of woman—those gifted with communication and extroverted personalities—will gain visibility and influence.
I’m sure that some will question the significance of women’s contributions to the Church much the same way some question the significance of women’s contributions to professional sports. But given the rampant sexuality, substance abuse, and violence that’s part of the ethos of professional sports, I can’t help but believe that we’d all be better with a stronger female presence. For me at least, I’d rather see women contributing to what’s happening on the field than on the sidelines as sex objects.
If you are a pastor or a women’s ministry leader, remember this: Women make up over half the human population and over 60% of your congregation. As presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina says, “We are not a special interest group.” Ultimately this isn’t a question of representation or fairness; it is a question of organizational effectiveness. When women are free to flourish—whether on the tennis court or in the Church—everybody wins.
Why I Stayed in the Church
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If you spend time in the Christian blogosphere, you'll know that there's been a lot of talk over the last few days about leaving and returning to the church. Most of the conversation has been sparked by uber-blogger Rachel Held Evans' newest release Searching for Sunday. In it, Evans recounts her journey of the last few years that has taken her out of the conservative church of her childhood to a being part of a church plant to full-on disillusionment to eventually returning to a mainline Episcopal church. Like others of the Millennial generation, Evans believes her process was, in part, instigated by the failures of the conservatism of her childhood. If you follow Evans' blog, you'll know that this is not a new theme for her. Or for other bloggers in her network. In fact, this disillusionment with the church is a major component of what has made Evans so successful--she voices what a lot of people are feeling. As you can image, this makes her pretty controversial or as the Washington Post called her recently, "the more polarizing woman in evangelicalism."
And yet.
And yet, I don't believe that Evans is the only voice for how the Millennial generation is engaging with the church. Nor do I believe that Millennials are leaving the church en masse . But I do believe we are wrestling. We are wrestling with the same questions that Evans is asking, even if some of us come to different answers. At least, I know I have and am.
Part of what I think might be happening is that those of us who are staying, despite (and sometimes because of) our doubts and frustrations, simply aren't speaking as loudly as Evans and others. I know I'm not. In many ways, I'm not speaking up because of how quickly the conversation turns messy and vitriolic, and quite frankly I spend enough time refereeing fights between my kids. I don't need more online.
Still, I wonder if I'm doing a disservice to my peers. What if I could offer good answers for our questions? Or at least, I could offer different answers than the ones we're hearing? Well, at that point, at least we'd have a choice. At least, we'd know that the only solution to our frustrations isn't to leave the church. We could stay. We could stay and be part of the change we want to see.
A few months after I'd started blogging here at SAL, I wrote a post entitled, "15 Reasons I Stayed in the Church." I thought now might be a good opportunity to rehearse those reasons. I re-read them this morning and they are just as true as when I first wrote them.
First a bit of background: my husband pastors a small country church in Virginia. We were both reared in conservativism and have experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of ministry life. We've spent time overseas in mission work, struggled through a difficult pastorate (which we eventually left), and walked through a period of doubt where we questioned both our call to ministry and God's goodness. (It was during this time that I remember telling my husband we had to stay if only because we'd make very bad atheists--even if we didn't want to believe in God, we'd always have a chip on our shoulder and nothing's more irritating than a friend with issues. If we couldn't be happy atheists, it wasn't worth walking away.)
So when I offer these reasons for why we stayed in the church, I do so as a woman who has wrestled with the church's messiness--and my own. In the end, they may not answer your questions fully, but at least they'll be a place to start: Fifteen Reasons I Stayed in the Church
I believe that there is no such thing as Church (with a capital “C”) without church (with a lower case “c”)–as messy and as difficult as that may be.
I want to be the change in the world that I seek. And that means engaging the problems closest to me. Like in the next pew. Like in this pew. Like in my own seat.
I believe that reconciling nations and people starts at home. If I can’t work toward reconciliation in my own church, there is no way I will be able to accomplish it on a broader level anywhere else.
I’m not a militant separatist. I don’t believe that everybody has to think EXACTLY the way I do before I will worship with them. Even if they are more conservative than I am.
I don’t expect the church to be anything other than it is—a group of difficult, broken people plodding their way to glory. The kingdom of God is coming; it isn’t here yet.
I believe the church is bigger than political parties even if the people attending it don’t understand that. Even if the people who leave it don’t seem to understand that either.
I believe Jesus can and wants to redeem Pharisees as much as publicans.
I believe that by staying in the church I earn the right to speak about the problems I see. It’s the old adage that you can criticize your family but no one else can. By staying with “my family,” I can speak about our failures and the doubts I wrestle with.
I believe that 2000 years of church history holds a bit more weight than my personal experience.
I have Christian brothers and sisters who have been imprisoned and lost their lives for doing the very thing that I would be giving up.
I do not want to lose people I love and who love me and my family. And while there are times that conviction must trump relationships, these relationships act as a grid to help me determine whether my convictions are sufficient enough to risk losing these people from my life.
I need the church to regularly remind me about the things that I don’t like in the Scripture. Things like God’s anger and my sinfulness–things that if left to myself, I would conveniently ignore or rationalize.
I am not an island. My choice to leave church affects everyone else in the congregation. Remove one part from the whole and it is no longer the same entity.
I have children. And while I’ll be the first to admit that it’s dangerous to raise your children in a church that distorts the gospel, it’s also dangerous to raise them apart from church altogether. One way the gospel is expressed is in the loving covenant relationship that happens in the church – I want that to be part of the warp and weave of their experience. I want them to know that real commitment means taking the good with the bad.
Jesus hasn’t left the church. I don’t mean this in a sanctimonious way. I mean simply that after he threw out the money changers, Jesus continued to worship and sacrifice in the temple. His work is to purify and redeem, not to alienate or destroy.
I'll be honest with you, even as a pastor's wife, there are days that I struggle with being in a local church. There are also days I struggle with being in a marriage. All of us do. But these struggles don't necessarily mean that something is wrong. Sometimes they mean that something is very, very right. They might mean that God is using my church and my marriage to transform me in to His own image. And if He is doing that, then the worst thing I could do is try to get out of it.
Note: I want to make it clear that some church environments (and marriages) are abusive. Please do not read this post as supporting abusive religious contexts. I'm simply arguing for the validity of the church as a whole. Entrust yourself to the True Shepherd and He will guide you.
John Updike's "Seven Stanzas at Easter"
Seven Stanzas at Easter
by John Updike
Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles; it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes, the same valved heart that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then regathered out of enduring Might new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping transcendence; making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages: let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb, make it a real angel, weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed by the miracle, and crushed by remonstrance.
From ‘Telephone Poles and Other Poems’ © 1961 by John Updike.
Houses on Sand
If you show up at our church at 10:15 Sunday morning, you’ll find me in a small corner room, my knees wedged beneath a two-foot-tall table, surrounded by 4 and 5-year-olds. We’ll probably be in the middle of a Bible story by then; but if you come a little earlier, we might be using a hand play for a verse or singing a song to get the wiggles out. In our class, we know all the old standards: “Young David,” “This is the Day,” “I Will Enter His Gates," and of course, “The Wise Man Built His House.”
Those of you who grew up in church probably know this last one (and might be already be singing along.) The lyrics are taken from Matthew 7: 24-27:
24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
“So build you life on the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessings will come down…”
There’s only one problem with this: it isn’t accurate. This isn’t the message of Matthew 7: 24-27.
Several weeks ago, I read this passage in its broader context and was hit with the unsettling realization that for 30+ years I’d been missing the whole point. I’d understood it as the tension between Jesus and “the world” and that a life of making the right choices would result in blessing. In reality, the parable of the wise and foolish man is about an entirely different tension.
Jesus used the story of the wise and foolish man to conclude His Sermon on the Mount. He had been addressing the crowds assembled on a Galilean hillside, giving them perhaps the most nuanced explanation of kingdom living of His earthly ministry. And like any good preacher, He finishes with an application and illustration. Those who hear His words and do them will be like a wise man who builds his house on the rock; those who reject them will do so at their own peril.
So what were these “words” that the people had to either accept or reject? What had Jesus just taught them?
Among other things, He’d given them the Beatitudes, teachings on divorce, advice about money, the Golden Rule, and warnings against false teachers. On the surface, these topics seem to be very different, and yet, they are united by one central thread. A thread that runs through the entire message, binding it together in a cohesive whole. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is calling people to a deeper understanding of their faith. He is internalizing the Law, pressing them past the superficiality of just “doing the right things.”
He warns them that their own righteousness will never be enough and will even deceive them. In fact, there are false prophets so deceitful that they trick even themselves, believing that they are doing their righteous acts in Jesus’ name. But far from calling the people to abandon the law, He is calling them to a better, more encompassing faith. A faith that actually changes them from the inside out. And he concludes all this with the warning to build your life on His words and on not “the sand.”
So what is “the sand?” The sand is our righteous works.
It is not the world’s system as we tend to envision it. It is not the danger of power or ambition or the love of money or lust or greed. Jesus is warning against the danger is self-reliance. We must not place our confidence in our ability to exceed the “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.” Because if we do, when the storms come, when the thunder crashes, and the lightning strikes, everything we’ve been building—our families, our homes, our work, even our own sense of self—will collapse into one massive pile of twisted, broken wreckage.
Just look around you. Read the blogs. Hear the stories of men and women who tried for so long and so hard to be “righteous” people. They wore the right clothes, they had the right family structures, they used the right translations, they signed the right pledges, they listened to the right music, they had the right theology, and they went to the right churches.
But when the storms came, all of this “rightness” wasn’t enough.
Several weeks ago, I shared the story of Vyckie Garrison who walked away from a legalistic faith straight into the arms of atheism. Many Christians were confused by her story. They wondered how she made such a dramatic change. Why couldn’t she simply shift to a different, perhaps more moderate understanding of Christianity? Why couldn’t she simply become more “balanced”? She couldn’t become more balanced because all the leveling in the world couldn’t change that her life had been built on the sand.
This is also why those who have grown up in other forms of legalism often walk away from “the faith.” This is why there are so many walking wounded among us. And this is why even those of us who think we’re building our lives on Jesus must be humble. Because the minute we look down on those who didn’t rely on Him, we reveal that our own hearts aren’t relying on Him either. We are putting our confidence in our own ability to be "wise" enough to embrace Him.
I understand why rules and roles and theological paradigms are so appealing. In an uncertain world, they give us safety. A checklist can tell me exactly who I’m supposed to be and where I fit in all this chaos and confusion. And for a time, it will make me feel stable and give me a sense of order. But when the storms come--and they will—the bottom will quite literally fall out because my “house” was really only ever resting on itself.
Instead, Jesus is calling us to something better. He’s calling us to be wise men and women, who know that we will never be enough in ourselves. He’s calling us to humility and the security that even if we aren’t, He is. And ultimately, He’s calling us to Himself.
So You Want to Be in "The Ministry"
When I was in college, a lot of my friends were preparing to go into “The Ministry.” Some were full of holy zeal for mission work, some had plans for pastoral ministry, and some were simply caught up in the whirlwind of surrender. The “Preacher Boys” dated and married the girls called to be “Pastors’ Wives” and we all dreamed of future service.
Somehow when the dust had settled, I found myself married to one of those “Preacher Boys” despite no pressing need to be a "Pastor's Wife" or to be in vocational ministry. Our first years together were spent finishing up school, going through the process of ordination, and eventually launching out into “The Ministry.” But nearly a decade and a half later, I’ve learned a few things. And most of them bear no resemblance to what I thought I knew.
I was reminded of this today when I read this piece from Jared Wilson about watching one of his parishioners waste away in hospice. Wilson is a popular blogger and author, but he spends most of his time in the trenches as a pastor, and this piece particularly captures the realities of ministry. The pain, the heartbreak, the inexplicable hope of the gospel. The joy of watching people triumph over death through the power of Christ.
We didn't talk about these things in college.
So to those you who want to go into "The Ministry," let me offer a few words of unsolicited advice: What you think is “The Ministry” probably isn’t.
- ”The Ministry” is not carefully crafted schedules and specific days off. It means working holidays, late nights, and weekends.
- “The Ministry” doesn’t read the popular blogs, know the latest buzzwords, or buy the best-selling books. It doesn’t always understand things like “small groups” or “missional living” or all those marks that you plan to evaluate a church by.
- “The Ministry” does not consist of praying several hours every day, talking with other folks in “The Ministry,” or having your nose in one of the 1,542 books that flank your office walls. You’ll do those things, but in between the hospital visits and Wal-mart runs and counseling sessions.
- “The Ministry” is not a source of affirmation for your own insecurities.
- “The Ministry” doesn’t mean making a name for yourself, working the network, or using people as stepping stones. If you’re not content with obscurity, don’t go into “The Ministry.”
- “The Ministry” does not inoculate you from suffering and your own sin.
Today, my husband and I have a bit of unconventional advice for people weighing the call to ministry:
“Do anything else that you can do—try everything else—for heaven’s sake, please, please, make sure this is the only thing that you can do.” You see, none of us chooses to go into ministry. We are sent. Sometimes kicking and screaming. And eventually, surrendered and docile because we understand that there is no use resisting the King of the Universe. But when the King calls, you go.
You go because nothing else fits. You go because He has placed a love for His people and His word deep inside you and to resist it would be to resist your own self. You go because you know that despite the challenges, despite the struggles, you will be happy no where else.
And when you do, you realize that “The Ministry” is better than all your pre-conceived notions and pipe dreams. It is more layered, more challenging, more beautiful than anything you could have ever envisioned. It is more because He is more and the people being transformed to His likeness are more--more than objects, more than templates, and more than spreadsheets, charts, or trends.
So what is “The Ministry”?
It means tie-dying t-shirts at VBS and occasionally dressing up like Elijah.
It’s packing backpacks of food to send home with at-risk kids.
It’s poring over the Scripture, crafting a sermon, and then teaching with the passion and care that only someone who has been changed by the Spirit can.
It’s taking your life in your hands to ride the curves and twists of the mountains with an 88-year-old man who wants to take you to see a model steam engine.
It’s rearranging your family’s schedule because you must preach a funeral.
It’s having the courage and love to approach a member/friend about an area of sin.
It’s being humble enough to confess your own short-comings and failures.
It means sorting out the details of who misplaced the key to the janitor’s closet and grabbing a bucket when the roof leaks (again).
It’s carrying the sadness of your congregation, sitting with them in the hospital or crying with them when a wife leaves. Just sitting and bearing. No Psalm 23, no platitudes, no answers.
It’s rejoicing with the angels over each soul that comes in repentance, each new job, and each new life swaddled in Dreft-scented blankets.
Sorry folks. There are no pedestals. No boys' clubs. No making a name for yourself. But there is a lot of giving and loving and serving. There is a lot of Jesus and very little of you. There is a lot of dying to yourself so that others might live. And this girl who never had any intentions of marrying a “Preacher Boy” wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Made Like Him... Like Him We Rise
This year, the folks in our congregation have decided to stage an outdoor drama on Easter Morning. It's something of a tradition for our little church, and as in the past, it will take place in the neighboring cow pasture. This is the first year that my husband and I will be taking part, but I can already feel the excitement. The choir's been working on music for several weeks; I've been busy writing and rewriting a scrip; and other folks are tackling costumes, props, and sound. There are even rumors of flooding the creek to create the Sea of Galilee and setting off dynamite to reenact the Resurrection morning earthquake. I'll be sure to keep you updated.
One of the things that I love about all this busyness is that it's creating a sense of anticipation and excitement for the coming holiday. Too often, Easter can come and go without even so much as a notice. But not this year. This year, Easter is going be quite the production and it's going to require something from every member of our congregation.
Today over at Pick Your Portion, I had to opportunity to reflect on Easter and making sure that we don't miss the big picture:
To co-opt C. S. Lewis, the “deeper magic” of Easter is not simply that Christ suffered under the curse but that He overcame the curse entirely! When He emerged from the tomb, He proved that His creation was not subject to death because her Creator was not subject to death. When He emerged from the tomb, He proved that there was nothing stronger, nothing more powerful, nothing greater than the One who is Life Himself.
The One in whose image we are made.
And suddenly the words of Charles Wesley’s famous Easter anthem make sense: “Made like Him, like Him we rise. Alleluia!” The beauty of the Easter is that the God, who at that first dawn cried out “Let there be light!” once again shines light into our darkness in the face of His Son. The beauty of Easter is that the God, who stooped down into the dust to form us in His image at creation, again stoops down into the mire of our lives to transform us into His image through Jesus Christ.
You can read the rest here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. Also, Pick Your Portion has been generous enough to host a giveaway of Made for More. Head on over and check it out!
Why Made For More?
If you're a regular reader of Sometimes A Light, you probably know that I have my first book coming out soon. I'm not sure how you could miss it given the constant stream of Twitter and Facebook updates and the fact that my mother has actually replaced her Facebook profile with an image of the book. (Thanks, Mom!) Entering this process, my three biggest fears were:
- Starting a book that I would not be able to finish.
- Writing a book that even I would not want to read.
- Writing a book that would end up in The Dollar Tree.
We’ll have to see what happens with #3, but as far as the first two, let me say that God has been faithful. I. actually. wrote. a. book. And not just any book but a book about a topic I love: How does the truth of being made in God’s image change our daily lives?
As excited as I am, a funny thing has happened. When you spend this much time with a subject, it’s easy to forget that others haven’t. When you become so familiar with your book, it’s easy to forget that very few people have even read it yet. Your own paradigm has shifted and you actually begin to forget why you wrote it in the first place.
But recently I read several blog posts that reminded me why I did.
The posts themselves weren’t in any way earth-shattering. They were basic defenses of conservative positions about gender and marriage. In one post, the writer rooted his arguments in Genesis 2, and not surprisingly, those who disagreed with him were quick to point to other Scripture that seemed to contradict his applications. It’s the kind of debate that has dominated the church for decades, and with the advent of the internet, has been multiplied thousands of times over.
So what was significant about these conversations? These conversations reminded of how quickly we all—conservatives and progressives alike—miss the big picture. They reminded me of how quickly we give lip service toimago dei but then root our definitions of human flourishing in very secular notions of personhood, calling, and identity. They reminded me of how essential it is to start at the beginning.
I am convinced that we cannot understand the lives we lead and the choices we make if we do not first understand what it means to be image bearers. Simply put, we cannot understand what is happening in Genesis 2 (or any other text) if we don’t first unpack Genesis 1. To do this, imago dei must become more than a caveat or a starting point.Imago dei must become the paradigm by which we understand the entirety of the human experience.
>Think about how the conversation would change if a woman’s calling were not defined primarily by a man's identity but by God’s identity.
>Think about how the conversation would change if the ability to give birth were not simply about producing offspring but about sacrificing our bodies to produce new life—the same way Jesus Christ did.
>Think about how the conversation would change if we realized that all work is defined by working like God does, whether that happens in an office, a school cafeteria, or a subdivision.
>Think about how the conversation would change if education became less about preparing for a career (whether it be mothering or accounting) and more about being image bearers of the divine Logos, the source of all thought and wisdom Himself!
Next Tuesday, Moody Publishers will release Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God’s Image. Made for More is not a theological treatise. It is not a defense of a specific position on womanhood or family structure. It is, in fact, not even an academic book. Instead, Made for More is for those of us who have been caught in the middle, those of us who feel like the current conversations miss the larger point--even if we don't always know what that is.
It is for the mama who’s lost herself in the midst of dishes and diapers. It is for the single woman who doubts her worth because she isn’t married or a mother. It is for pastors and counselors who are guiding the rest of us to the abundant life in Christ. And it is for my brothers who, whether they realize it or not, have an invested stake in the lives of their fellow image bearers.
In this sense, Made for More is an invitation to fundamentally change the way we think about ourselves.
Over the next several weeks, I hope to write more about it. If you’d like to join the conversation, please comment here, share these posts, or write your own! (File under #madeformore.) If you’d like to review Made for More or host a giveaway, contact me at hannah(dot)anderson(at)live(dot)com. It's also available on Net Galley for review.
So why Made for More? Well, I'll let the book speak for itself:
"If we are to find any lasting stability in this life, if we are to really answer the question: "Who am I and why am I here?" we must move past these categories--we must stop talking simply in terms of home vs. career; we must dig deeper than biology or gifting. We must find something more stable, more fixed, more permanent on which to base our sense of self. We must find a North Star. And not simply because our circumstances change, but because we ourselves are more than the roles we play in this present world. We are large, deep, eternal beings, and only something larger and deeper and more eternal will satisfy the questions in our souls."
We are made for more.
O Zion, Haste
I grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in a region dotted by dilapidated family farms and former coal towns. We are the second poorest county in the state and the most exotic animal we ever saw was the occasional bear or mountain lion. But within the church I discovered the world.
I met women like Amy Carmichael and Mary Slessor and learned that the measure of womanhood was not your relationship status or professional accomplishments, but whether you lived your life in service of God and others. In elementary school, I knew the flags of over thirty nations—not because of the Olympics but because we hung them from the ceiling every year during our missions’ conference week. I became versed in cold-war politics when for two summers we sent our VBS nickels and dimes to the underground church in the Soviet Union.
The story of Christian missions is a complicated one. When I was young, it was all about adventure and holy passion and converting cannibals. As I grew older, I discovered that mission efforts often ran parallel to and sometimes intersected the darker story of western colonization. I read Achebe and Paton and Forster and had to face the reality that when David Livingston was taking the gospel to free souls in the interior of Africa, the United States was embroiled in a civil war to keep their cousins enslaved.
Until recently, sorting through the complicated picture of Christian missions has been more a question of presuppositions and sanitized history. And to some degree, it always will be; but thanks to sociologist Robert Woodberry, it might be getting a bit clearer. In the latest edition of Christianity Today, Andrea Palpant Dilley writes about Woodberry’s work to find a “significant statistical link” between democracy and Protestantism. And after years of detailed research, extensive travel, and with the help of some elaborate computer models, he has.
Woodberry’s research can be summed up by this claim:
“Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.”
In a word, when I was learning about Amy Carmichael and Mary Slessor, I was learning about the greatest promoters of sustainable democracy.
If my childhood was shaped by the stories of missionaries and conversion, my adult life has been shaped by the stories of soldiers and violence. I was a newly-married 22-year-old on September 11, 2001, still naïve enough to believe that our response would be limited to fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. But over the subsequent decade, our attempts to “bring democracy’ to the Middle East have failed; and if this has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot win “hearts and minds” with guns and tanks. In fact, if Woodberry’s claims are correct, this is best accomplished through the gospel of peace.
But it’s even more startling than that.
According to Woodberry, the missionaries who had the most profound influence on developing democracies were “conversionary Protestants.” They were missionaries whose social work—the work of building schools and hospitals and advocating for the rights of the oppressed--was motivated directly by their evangelistic impulses. In other words, these missionaries did not go to the far-flung corners of the world in the name of social activism; they went to convert souls in the name of Jesus Christ and in the process, changed the world.
So my question is why? Why must conversion be a vital part of missiology in order to affect real and lasting social change?
I think the answer is wrapped up in what conversion is. True, gospel conversion is fundamentally about change. It changes how we understand God, ourselves, and each other. For people like David Livingstone and Amy Carmichael, the gospel so profoundly changed them that they ended up changing the world. Perhaps without even realizing it.
At the same time, Woodberry’s research also reminds us that the gospel is not simply about future flourishing. The gospel changes life here and now by reconciling us to God and each other. When the gospel teaches us to fight greed, violence, and apathy in our own hearts—when it teaches us that we are truly our brother’s keeper because God is ours—the gospel sets the foundation for societies that can flourish.
And if it isn’t doing this, you can be pretty sure it’s not the gospel.
More than anything Woodberry’s research confirms what the Scripture already teaches us. It confirms that where the Prince of Peace reigns, there is peace; where the Bread of Life grows, hunger will not; where the Great Physician is at work, disease and death flee. And ultimately, it confirms that when the Author of Life is allowed to write the story of our lives, we will finally be free to live in the abundant life that He has promised.
They Also Serve
And most of the time, I feel like I’m failing on all counts.
Every morning, I wake up with more on my “to do” list than is humanly possible, and every night I go bed having proven it. But instead of simply acknowledging my limitations, I regularly feel discouraged and overwhelmed. In fact, I have been feeling this way so often that I finally had to face a harsh reality. I am a prime candidate to join that particular type of support group that meets in musty church basements. I need to draw my chair up into the circle and when it’s my turn, bravely stand and say, “Hello, my name is Hannah and I have a messiah complex.” But I don’t think I’ll be alone there.
I’ve noticed a certain agitation among women of my age, a longing to do more. We are tempted to believe that what we are already doing is not enough, that the dishes and laundry and school lunches are not “real,” that ministry that is not global or public or exciting (like reconciling races or saving orphans) is not true ministry. We see the brokenness around us. We want to change the world. We are ready.
But I worry. I worry because if this impulse is not properly rooted, it will very quickly lead to burnout.
I've seen it in my own life. All that holy passion and zeal, the joy of finally discovering my voice, of finding my place in the kingdom can quickly be replaced by needing to save the kingdom all by myself. And when I can’t—when I’m busy with more mundane things—the guilt creeps in. I hear a voice saying, “You have so much to do. Don't you dare rest yet.” And “How selfish of you—you live a life of privilege and ease. Why aren’t you suffering for the gospel?”
I grew up in a context that, for good or bad, heavily emphasized what we needed to do for God. We were told to sacrifice this life for the next, to be sold out, to be surrendered, to be on fire, to be radical. And I was. And I am. But the older I grow and the busier I become, the more I believe that being sold out to God means first learning about my own limitations.
In order to work for Him, I must first learn to rest in Him.
Micah 6:8 has become something of a theme song for our generation. “What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” The cause of justice and equality pulses through our veins. We long to “proclaim good news to the poor… to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
But can I say something? Can I ask you to stop trying to save the world? Can I encourage you to embrace your life of limitation? Because here in the weakness, in the failure, in the inability, He is strong. And here, only in your limitation, will you ever learn to walk humbly with Him.
And it is only when you learn to walk humbly with Him that you will be able to do justice and love kindness the way that He does.
Almost 400 years ago, there was a man who had a tremendous gift. He was a poet and statesman, an active political thinker and even deeper personal philosopher. But then the lights went out. By the time he was 44, he was completely blind. It seemed like a cruel joke--how did God expect him to use his talent for the kingdom when he couldn’t even see to write? “Does God exact day-labour, light denied?” he asked.
The answer he found is one that we need today:
"God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts: who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed And post o'er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait."
God is inviting us to work in His kingdom. He is calling us to something more than this world can offer. But He is calling us first to Himself, to remember that He is the Messiah. Not us. And He is calling us to believe that those “who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.”
Even if they only stand and wait.
Just Words
Sunday mornings in a pastor’s family are the stuff of legend. Besides having to feed, wash, and dress everyone, we are also expected to actually get to church on time. In our family, this means that my husband and I usually end up driving separately (our apologies to planet earth).
This last Sunday was no different. My husband had already left with our two boys, leaving my daughter behind with me as I finished getting ready. For some reason, I was feeling a bit spiritually disheveled that morning and so I did something I’ve never done before in my life. I asked my daugher to read to me while I was doing my hair and makeup.
It went something like this:
“Phoebe, get your Bible and come here to my bathroom. Now, open it. What day is today?… I know it’s Sunday. What day of the month is it?… The 12th? Okay. Find Psalms and read me chapter 12.”
So much for intentional parenting. Thankfully, God is always intentional, and in the next few moments, my baby-girl-turned-fourth-grader read me words of life and hope.
Psalm 12, like many of the psalms, opens with a lament for the brokenness around us.
“The godly one is gone,” David cries. “The faithful have vanished from among the children of man.”
And how does David know this? Is it the violence he sees in the streets? Is it the sexual promiscuity rampant in the marketplace? Is it that the wrong parties rule in government? No, David knows that the world is broken by the words he hears.
“Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.” They say, “With our tongue we will prevail, out lips are with us; who is master over us?”
According to David, evil men have a weapon and it is their words.
I’ll admit it: I don’t think about words this way. Even as a writer and blogger, I tend to undervalue words. Maybe it’s some sort of linguistic inflation that occurs when I write: the more words I produce, the less valuable they seem. In my world, words are a dime a dozen and what can they really accomplish anyway?
Apparently, a lot.
The truth is that despite being all around us, words are powerful. They are powerful because they are tied directly to our true selves. Jesus taught that “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” So more than simply being a set of sounds or shapes, our words are actually the embodiment—the incarnation—of our hearts. What we say with our mouths or type with our fingers reveals what is going on inside us.
And suddenly we understand why David feared them so much. The evil in men’s hearts takes form in the words they use; worse still, evil men will use their words to act out the evil in their hearts. But this truth—that our words are directly tied to our hearts—cuts both ways. It is also why David can proclaim that we will be saved by the words of the Lord.
“’Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will arise,’ says the Lord; ‘I will place him in the safety for which he longs.’ The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace.”
The safety we can find in God’s words isn’t in the words themselves. It’s in what these words reveal about the Father’s heart toward us. It’s what they reveal about His power, what they reveal about His faithfulness. When David says that “the words of the Lord are pure words,” he is reminding us that unlike all the deceitful, untrustworthy people around us, the Lord Himself is pure. He is faithful.
And suddenly we understand why John called Jesus “the Word” of God. Jesus Christ is the embodiment—the incarnation—of the Father’s heart. What we could not see, what previously had had no form, reveals itself to us in Him. To paraphrase His own words, “Out of the abundance of God’s heart, Jesus is.”
And this is why the Lord can guard us from the evil around us. Even as the wicked prowl, deceiving and flattering on every side, we will be saved by the final Word of the Lord because His words represent His nature. His words are trustworthy because He is trustworthy. His words are pure because He is pure. And because He justice, His words will never be “just” words.
Even if they are delivered to us from the lips of a petite 9-year-old girl on a frantic Sunday morning.
Teach Like a Girl
Doris Day in "Teacher's Pet" (1958)
One of the books I discovered over the holidays is a collection of vignettes about the women of the New Testament. I was prepping for this year’s women’s Bible study at church and like any good teacher (who is consistently running just shy of deadline), my first stop was the Amazon search engine. I typed in “Women of the New Testament” and one of the first entries was written by, of all people, Abraham Kuyper. Apparently in the midst of reforming turn-of-the-century Dutch society, establishing an entire branch of theology, and pastoring multiple congregations, Kuyper also had time to write on women of the Bible. (Abraham Kuyper: Statesman, Theologian, and Father of the Modern Women’s Bible Study?)
I snagged a 1933 English edition (complete with “Suggested Questions for Study and Discussion”) for a little over a $1. Presumably Kuyper wrote his Women of the New Testament in the late 1800s (I couldn’t find an exact date), and so it’s not surprising that he affirms a fairly traditional understanding of womanhood. What is surprising, however, is that his traditionalism has been thoroughly informed by the gospel and in some respects, doesn’t look like traditionalism at all.
Take this gem from the chapter about Mary of Rome. In writing about the work a woman is called to as a Christian, Kuyper says:
A woman who really loves Jesus must place all she has upon His altar… therefore Jesus may expect that those who love Him exert their energies strenuously to help His sacred cause to prosper. In this matter, too, talents are too frequently buried; gifts are allowed to lie fallow, and energies to remain latent. This does not imply that a woman must forsake her home… but a woman frequently proves to be amazingly ingenious and energetic in the care of her husband and children. She should give full expression to that same ingenuity and energy in her endeavors for the Lord. (p.86)
He reiterates the same thought in discussing Priscilla, who with her husband Aquilla, actively taught and discipled early converts:
A woman such as Priscilla was, is a potent influence in any congregation to which she happens to belong, and we might wish that we could point out ten or twenty such women in each of our larger congregations. From her position in the Word of God, she affirms that a woman, also a married woman, has another calling besides those of dispatching daily duties and engaging in activities of mercy. A woman, too, must have faith, and that faith must borrow its strength from a knowledge of the truth… In that lies the strength of a Priscilla. She knows the truth, and knows how to present it with perfect clarity. Beside, she has the ingratiating tenderness of feminine appeal, a quality no man has… (p. 105).
There is a lot of debate about the role of women in Church and society. And while I’ll quickly identify as a conservative, I’ll also quickly admit that women who use their gifts to teach the Scripture—whether through writing or speaking—can sometimes feel like their femininity is a weakness. Teaching is something they do despite being women rather than an outgrowth of their full personhood which includes being a woman. But for Kuyper at least, Priscilla’s womanhood was an asset that allowed her to communicate the truth in a distinct way—in a way no man could.
Thinking about this reminded me of another woman I read about over the holidays who “expounded the way of God more perfectly.” For Christmas, my husband gave me a copy of Laura K. Simmons’ Creed without Chaos: Exploring Theology in the Writings of Dorothy L. Sayers. (Don’t assume too much about us—he also gave me the first three seasons of Duck Dynasty, the juxtaposition of which reveals more about me than I care to admit.)
Dorothy Sayers is best known for her detective stories, but she was also an academic translator and lay theologian who actively argued for orthodox Christianity in the public sphere. Simmons writes that Sayers
had a unique combinations of talents: a keen theological sense coupled with tremendous writing skill and a concern for how ordinary people understand Christianity. In an increasingly complex and fragmented world, we need these gifts more than ever. (p.12) So to all you Priscillas and Dorothys out there who have been gifted to communicate the word of God, do so; and do so out of your femininity. Do not be afraid of your curves or what Kuyper calls the “tenderness of feminine appeal.” Do not believe that you must adopt a masculine voice or be something other than you are to be heard. At the same time, do not hide behind your femininity; do not give yourself a pass for sloppy work or careless study because you are “a woman” and less may be expected of you in theological circles. You must do the work because, in the end, logic and clarity and beauty are not masculine concerns but human ones.
Do the work because you love Jesus and you are offering Him your talents and energies. Do the work and engage in it with all He has created you to be—including your womanhood. Remember that being a wife or mother or aunt or sister or niece or daughter is as much a part of God’s calling on you as your ability to teach His Word in the first place. Because if Abraham Kuyper has anything to say about it, your womanhood might just be the very means by which you communicate it best.
Who's Afraid of Proverbs 31?
But recently, several women have been challenging a typical approach to this text. At the recent Q event, Women and Calling, progressive blogger and author Rachel Held Evans reiterated her long-standing concern that we tend to misuse this passage, making it more of a “Pintrest page come to life” than the poem it is. Sarah Bessey makes the same point in the recently released Jesus Feminist. She writes:
Some evangelicals have turned Proverbs 31 into a woman’s job description instead of what it actually is: the blessing and affirmation of valor for the lives of women… It is meant as a celebration for the everyday moments of valor for everyday women, not as an impossible exhausting standard.
These women have a legitimate concern. How many Mother’s Day sermons or Bible studies have turned Proverbs 31 into a checklist? How many times have teachers used it to reinforce their private applications of gender? How many times have you felt defeated from just listening to such sermons? So let me go on record as saying that I agree with Evans and Bessey. With one caveat.
Proverbs 31 is intended as a blessing and affirmation, not of all women, but of a certain kind of woman: a wise one.
Because while Proverbs 31 isn’t prescriptive, it is descriptive. It is designed to tell us the kind of woman who deserves honor and praise. In this sense, the poem is the culmination of an entire book whose main goal is to teach the difference between wisdom and foolishness. But as the beginning and end of Proverbs point out, you don’t become wise via a checklist; you become wise by fearing the Lord.
To be fair, it’s easy to confuse prescriptive and descriptive passages. Obviously it happens in Proverbs 31, but it happens just as often in less controversial texts. The Beatitudes or the Fruit of the Spirit can quickly become metaphysical checklists if we divorce them from their Source and view them as goals to meet in our own strength.
Just be peaceful. Check. Just be kind. Check. Just be humble. Check.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…
But while these passages are not intended as “To Do” lists, they are a kind of “field guide” given to describe what we will look like if our hearts are being changed by God. They describe the fruit and bark and leaves of the tree so you can know what kind of tree you’re looking at. In the case of Proverbs 31, the poem shows how wisdom embodies itself in feminine form; so that in a beauty only God Himself could conceive, a book written primarily to young men doesn't climax with a description of a mature man but with a description of a mature woman.
Evans rightly pointed this out during the Q event. She noted that the original audience of Proverbs 31 was men, and joked, “Can you imagine a men's conference where that was the central text?“ (It was a pretty funny thought.) But even this isn’t the whole picture. The main audience of Proverbs 31 is men—true—but it’s given to men in order to teach them the kind of women they should celebrate. One of the assumed purposes is to distinguish wise women from foolish ones in order to help men “find” a good wife.
Talk about sexist.
Or maybe not. Maybe this actually affirms a woman’s imago dei. To understand what I mean, consider Proverbs as a whole. Throughout it, you’ll find this recurring theme: weak men can be ruined by strong men but strong men can be ruined by foolish… women. Yes, women.
And here’s why: Women are men’s spiritual equal.
Think about it. If a woman were not equal to a man, then her spiritual life would be of little consequence to him. She simply wouldn't be able to influence him for either good or bad. But if, as we are, equal image bearers, reigning as queens alongside earthly kings, then the kind of women we become is of supreme significance. We have intrinsic power that we can use for either great benefit or great destruction.
Because of this, Proverbs is intent on teaching young men to flee from foolish women in order to embrace and affirm wise women. This is why they are to avoid the adulteress but to delight in the wife of their youth. They are to avoid women who are quarrelsome but to celebrate those who speak with kindness. They are to avoid women who tear down their homes and to run to those who build them up.
In other words, a wise woman can make a man; and a foolish one can break him.
This assumption of a woman’s power is implicit in the description of the Proverbs 31 woman who wields influence over both her home and society. Because of her wisdom, her husband sits in the gates. Because of her wisdom, her household doesn’t fear the coming winter. Because of her wisdom, her children rise up and call her blessed.
In this sense, Proverbs 31 is both a song of affirmation AND a standard of what maturity looks like. We must not shy away from the descriptive principles simply because they have been misused. Apart from them—apart from knowing that a wise women “stretches out her hand to the needy”—we wouldn’t be able to distinguish her from a foolish one and we’d end up assuming that ALL women deserve praise when in reality, not all of us do.
To quote The Incredibles: “When everyone’s super, no one is.”
Not all women are sacrificial. Not all women work hard. Not all women are kind. Not all women are generous Not all women are joyful.
Some women are selfish. Some women are lazy. Some women are mean. Some women are stingy. Some women are bitter.
But a woman who is wise, a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. She is such a rare find, so exceptionally valuable that Proverbs 31 describes her as more precious than a jewel. A beautiful, expensive, glittering jewel. So that just like light reflects and radiates through a diamond, the light of God’s nature reflects and radiates through her, bursting forth in resplendent glory.
And for this kind of wise woman, wise men get up on their feet and cheer.
So, yes, please don’t reduce Proverbs 31 to a checklist or a Pintrest page come to life. But let’s also remember a harder truth. Wisdom doesn’t come naturally to any of us. Our only hope of being this kind of noble woman comes by looking into the face of the One who is Wisdom Himself and allowing Him to conform us to His own likeness. And when we do, He will make us the fully formed image bearers we are destined to be. He will make us women of kindness and grace and sacrifice and love and joy. He will make us like Himself.
Walking Wounded
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the religious disposition of Millennials, but being a pastor’s wife in a rural, southern setting, I have to admit that all this angst and alienation from the Church isn’t all that unusual. In fact, if you spend any reasonable amount of time around the Church, you’re sure to meet those who have been harmed by it. My husband seems to get the lion’s share of these stories, often at the most unexpected moments; sometimes it’s when he’s out running errands or when he’s picking up the kids or making hospital visits. And more often than not, they start something like this: “I used to go to church, but then this pastor…”
Now, I’ll be the first to argue for the legitimacy of the Church. In fact, I have argued for it quite extensively; for goodness' sake, not only am I a pastor’s wife, I am a religious writer. My entire life is invested in the established religious structure. (Because as much as we hate to admit it, as much as we like to believe that we are the “independent voice,” every faith blogger, by definition, is part of the reigning religious order.)
And yet.
And yet, there’s something that those of us who embrace the Church must remember about those struggling to do so--especially those who have recently emerged from a religious context empty of the gospel. When you have been taught false things about God, when leaders have spoken blasphemy in His name, when you have endured, not simply the failures of good men, but the manipulation of bad, recovering from it will not be easy. Doubt will be strong and alienation deep.
Ironically, those of us most committed to elevating the gospel in Church practice are the first to miss this. Even as we proclaim that the gospel is life, we forget that the absence of it is death. We forget that religion devoid of the gospel starves, maims, and pummels those trapped in it so that when they are finally liberated, they walk out wounded. And just like the Allied Forces were shocked when they liberated the concentration camps of WWII Europe, we continue to be shocked when we encounter those who have been harmed by religion and struggle because of it.
Notable Christian author Latayne C. Scott writes about her own struggle after leaving the religious, but gospel-absent, context in which she grew up.[i] She recounts that even after recognizing the distortions that she had been taught to believe, even after coming to understand grace, even after committing herself to the faithfulness and generosity of a community of believers; she still could not feel its safety because “nobody knew how to address the needs of a heart broken by a church.” She writes,
The unarticulated and untargeted sense of betrayal I felt became the permanent inner garment of my soul… How, I ask, would one assess all the hours of church attendance, all the vulnerabilities of prayer and fasting and secret sacrifice? …How utter the sense of loss, how unrecoverable the hours and years, how foolishly squandered the hopes.
Who do you blame when you have been duped by a church?
For me, I couldn’t find anyone to blame. Not my friends, I knew their good hearts… I wanted to reproach myself for being suckered—but how could I hold responsible the trusting eleven-year-old? The trusting teenager? The trusting college student…
If there is no loss as great as the loss of one’s god, there are few tasks to compare with setting out to learn to serve another one. If you’ve been burned by a god, how do you learn to trust another one? Make no mistake about it, I knew I needed what only he could provide; forgiveness of sins, eternal life, church and community based on truth, not beloved fictions…[but] I knew from the beginning that I would walk with a spiritual limp the rest of my life. I came to a time when I hung on only by my fingernails and Scripture passages… I hungered so desperately for the ability to trust and be vulnerable to God that I asked him to take my life if I could not experience that…
Theologically speaking, [that church] was my first love; and it broke my heart. Nothing about leaving [it] seemed courageous or noble at the time: It was pure spiritual survival, the escape from the burning building into the arms of strangers. Some of us go still-singed into atheism or simmer in anger, or distract ourselves with other things… Some of us, through the grace of God, learn to love him. Often that one act can be the greatest sacrifice of will in our lives, to respond and surrender to his love for us. And so those of us who know the safety of the Church must learn to understand those who don’t. We must learn to differentiate between those who limp across the finish line and those who aren’t even in the race. We must remember that the fight for orthodoxy isn’t simply a fight for right doctrine or an ideological battle between legalism and grace. It is a fight for souls. It is a fight to free those who have been held captive and abused in Hell’s prison camps. And we must not be surprised when they cannot run out to meet us.
We must not be surprised when they need medical attention. We must not be surprised when they can’t trust someone in uniform. We must not be surprised when their empty stomachs cannot handle a full meal. We must not be surprised when we have to pick them up and carry them. We must not be surprised if they turn out to be the most vulnerable among us.
Because as quickly as their experience will enable them to spot a false gospel, it will just as quickly make it difficult for them to embrace the truth. This should not lead us to judge them, but to judge ourselves. To confirm that we are teaching only grace and truth. To question whether we have wept with those who weep. To ask whether, like Christ the Good Samaritan, we have stopped by the way to rescue those who have been beaten and abused, robbed and abandoned.
And above all, it must make us determined to give them Jesus. We must hold out His grace and mercy; we must hold out His truth and love. Because it is here, in His presence, that these starved, helpless souls will finally find hope. Here with the One who causes the blind to see, who makes the lame to walk, and who sets the captives free. Here, only here, will they find--will any of us find—the victory we so desperately need.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ [i] I purposefully omitted Scott’s religious background in order to let her words speak for those caught in a variety of gospel-less, but religious, paradigms. These paragraphs are take from Scott's book, The Mormon Mirage, pp.274-276, 292.
The Grace of Scandal
This week has been a big one for scandal. Whether it’s been inside the Church, inside the Beltway, or inside a Philadelphia courtroom, it seems like our collective dirty laundry has finally spilled out of the hamper and onto the floor. And while I don’t delight in scandal, I realized this week--after being bombarded by it on every side--that scandal offers a strange kind of comfort. Perhaps it’s not the scandal itself, but that the revelation of scandal stands testimony to a God Who is faithful to His promises.
When you’ve suffered because of another person’s sin, one of hardest parts is the helplessness that comes when no one else knows or even seems to care about it. In this place, it’s easy to begin to believe that God doesn’t either. You begin to doubt, you begin to fear, you begin to worry that the truth will never be revealed. You reconcile yourself to the fact that justice will never be done—you question whether it even exists at all.
But it does. And that is never clearer than when a scandal finally breaks.
When a scandal breaks—when painful truths finally come to light—we are watching God fulfill His promise that “nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.” We are watching Him actively “bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and disclose the purposes of the heart.” We are watching Him prove that day and night are alike to him and that He sees the pain of His children and will vindicate them.
In this sense, scandal is grace. Scandal is grace because it restores our hope in God’s justice. Sin will be found out no matter how expertly we cover it or pretend that it doesn’t exist. But scandal is also grace because it reminds us of our own need to confess—of our own need to submit to this same justice. Because if we don’t voluntarily confess our sin today, it promises to be a scandal tomorrow.
You see, scandal only happens when we refuse to repent. But when we do—when we willingly uncover the hidden secrets of our heart--the only scandal left is the scandal of His mercy. The scandal of a mercy that remembers that these now confessed sins have been already been atoned for. The scandal of a justice that refuses to punish us twice. The scandal of a God who says: “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy."
And so when we confess our sin to Him and those we’ve wronged, He covers them. He does not minimize them and He does not always remove the consequences, but one thing He does not do is flaunt them. He does not hold a press conference to shame or humiliate us in the midst of them. He does not make a scandal of them.
So when the Gosnell verdict was finally announced this week, I found myself unexpectedly crying—not tears of relief so much as tears of thankfulness. Thankfulness for a God Who promises to reveal the hidden things. Thankfulness for a God who sees every time a child suffers, every time a government abuses its power, every time I convince myself that my own sin can be covered. I cried tears of thankfulness for a God who loves us too much to allow darkness to continue and Who joyfully receives us with open arms when we finally come running out of it.
Trusting the True Shepherd
And I guess we could leave well enough alone if spiritual abuse didn’t cut both ways. If ministries didn’t routinely supplement budgets by underpaying staff with the caveat that they’ll be eligible for welfare. If pastors’ wives and children weren’t targeted for the sake of simply existing. If 1,700 pastors didn’t leave ministry every month—many out of despair and discouragement.
But they do.
And so we must talk about spiritual abuse, because we must remember that the danger isn’t in how dramatic it is but in how common it is. The danger of spiritual abuse isn’t simply in the extremes but in how quickly, how easily any of us can use another person’s love of God to pursue our own goals and our own agendas.
I myself don’t have a salacious story to offer—no tragic account of childhood abuse or breaking away from some cult-like congregation. And yet, my husband and I have wrestled through the pain of working in the Church, of rejection and false accusation, of feeling abandoned by those to whom we looked for advice and care. We’ve also watched as friends have walked darker paths and still bear scars from those who wielded power over them. And we’ve watched as they have wandered from church to church—not because they’re troublesome—but because they’re looking for Jesus and He’s simply not as present in most churches as He should be.
So when I speak about spiritual abuse within the Church, I do so from a place of trying to grapple with the brokenness of Christ’s body. It is not about adding fuel to the fire or airing grievances. It’s not about “getting back.” (Although this will be a legitimate temptation for people who have been deeply hurt.) When I write about spiritual abuse, I do so with the express purpose of finding healing, of learning to be whole again.
Because while my husband and I have chosen to stay in the organized church—even to make it central to our lives--the choice didn’t come easily. It came through tears and brokenness and times of angry questioning. It came through feeling abandoned by God and wondering why He thought it was such a good idea to gather a bunch of dysfunctional people together in the first place.
Yet, for all that I don’t understand, I do know this: Jesus is the only answer to the brokenness.
Rejecting the Church will not heal the pain. Harboring bitterness will not heal the pain. Denying these stories will not heal the pain.
Only Jesus can.
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across Ezekiel 34 in which God speaks against those who have abused and scattered His flock. He speaks against their greed and self-service and warns that He is coming against them in judgment and vengeance. But to the broken, hurting lambs, He says this:
Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out... I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered... I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.
This is where you find healing. This is where you find wholeness. This is where you learn to love again. You find it in the tears that flood your pillow as you cry out to Him. You find it in the questions that you bring to Him. You find it in His love and you find it in His justice--in arms ready to hold you at the same time that they are ready to fight to protect you. You find it in Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
And when you do, when you find His healing, you may also discover that you can return to His broken, messy flock. Because in returning to His Church, you’re not so much expressing confidence in His people as you are expressing confidence in Him. And in returning to His Church, you may also find that you can point the way for other hurting, broken, dirty sheep as well.
You can point the way to the true Shepherd of their souls.
This is what has happened for my husband and me. By committing ourselves to Jesus, we’re learning to open ourselves again to the love and beauty of His people. We’re learning to trust Him enough to walk into the arms of a congregation who loves well. We’re learning to trust Him enough to receive the healing and restoration that only His body can offer. And we’re learning that even though we may walk through dark valleys, He will always come find us, and He will always lead us home.
On Bridging the Generation Gap: Listen More, Talk Less
The years were slipping by too quickly and I wanted them to stop.
But, with the wisdom that only an eight (and-a-half) year old can offer, she replied, “You shouldn’t be sad about turning 34; you should be sad that you’re not 35 yet. 35 is a good age. You can be President when you’re 35.” Our society has a complicated relationship with the years between 18 and 35. At 18, you become an adult. Sort of. You can enter the military, go to war, and die, but you can’t drink. So maybe you become an adult when you turn 21… unless you live with your parents and want to stay on their health insurance which considers you a dependent until you are 26. Then again, if you are trying to immigrate to the United States with your parents, you have to navigate the process separately if you are over 18.
Perhaps the only thing that is clear is that we consider the ages between 18-35 to be a time of continued development and maturation. Because despite the fact that you can vote at 18, even my daughter knows that you can’t be President until you turn 35. There’s a significant truth here. One that those of us in the church need to recognize. The years of our twenties and thirties should be years of development and growth, not necessarily leadership.
In this post at Her.meneutics, Pam Lau issues a call for older women to be more active in discipling younger women, to be transparent and open toward them, to find a way to meet them where they are. Part of her concern is rooted in the fact that Millennials are leaving the church at an alarming rate. She alludes to a 2011 Barna survey that reveals lower percentages of self-identified spirituality among Millennials and a growing gap between younger and older generations. But there’s a wrench in the data. According to Lau, “although 47 percent of young women do not see themselves as deeply spiritual, they still consider themselves leaders.”
Apparently a lot of us have not realized that we’re not old enough to be President yet.
So following Lau’s lead, I’d like to offer my own call. A call to my generation to recognize that even if we have reached an age where we can contribute to the conversation, we have not reached an age where we can dominate it. A call to recognize that true spirituality means listening to our elders and learning from them—not expecting them to hear us first.
Instead of waiting for older women to meet us where we are, we must be willing to go to the tea parties; we must be willing to go to the Bible studies—not because of the events themselves but because of the people we will meet there. We must extend grace and patience and love to cover the quirks of a subculture that may not entirely represent us; because if we do, we might just discover that under all the trappings and traditionalism, our parents and grandparents are people too. We’ll discover that they have loved and hurt deeply over the course of their lives, and because of it, they have something to offer us as we love and hurt over the course of ours--they have something to offer even if it comes wrapped in pink tissue paper and is accompanied by a card featuring kittens and a verse from the King James Version of the Bible.
So sit with them. Hear their stories. Listen. And listen well. In other words, honor your parents.
Usually when we think of dishonoring our parents, it immediately conjures up images of spoiled children throwing temper tantrums or--on the other end of the spectrum--detached middle-aged adults placing their aging parents in sub par nursing homes. But in the current cult of youth, in a generation defined by our narcissism, dishonoring our parents happens a lot more subtly. It happens when we presume that we understand why they made the choices they did. It happens when we abandon the Church that they have spent their lives building. It happens when we expect them to listen to us more than we listen to them.
And this is precisely what many of us are doing. We are quite literally holding the older generations hostage by insisting that if they don’t hear us—if they don’t do church our way--we will leave. I suppose I’ve been thinking about this lately because I’ve been wondering how my own children will relate to me twenty years from now.
Will they find me hopelessly old-fashioned? Will they be angry with how I raised them? Will they judge me?
Or
Will they love me? Will they respect me enough to listen to my advice? Will they honor what I have spent my life trying to accomplish?
I hope it’s the latter and I’ve decided that the best way to ensure that it is, the best way to ensure that they respect me when they’re 34 is by making sure I respect my elders when I’m 34. But this is not a patronizing, superficial respect that pats older folks on their heads and quietly winks behind their backs. It is a deep reverence and honor for the lives that they have lived. It is a deep reverence and honor for what Christ has done for them. It is a deep reverence and honor that believes that the One who exists outside of time can most certainly bridge something as artificial as a generation gap.
This does not mean that everything our parents have done is without fault or critique. Each new generation must make faith their own; each new generation must find their own way of embodying Christ’s call to be the Church. But as we navigate that process, we must remember that as shameful as it is for an older person to act foolishly, it is equally shameful for young people to foolishly ignore the wisdom that older Christians have gained over the course of a lifetime.
Friends and Neighbors
Our culture has a funny perspective on relationships, and often we don’t realize how much it shapes our own until we find ourselves struggling through real-life ones. Romantic comedies have taught us that we need some kind of mystical Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks connection or our marriages are doomed, and for the last two decades, shows like Friends have taught us that the only valid friendships are those that are close, intimate, and never ending. You know the type—a group of five to six friends who live in a common location and get into all kinds of exploits as they navigate the ups and downs of relationships, careers, and life. The appeal of these shows isn’t simply the quirky characters and inside jokes—it’s the community, the sense of belonging, of having friends that “get” you and accept you regardless of how often you mess up or how silly you act. And slowly, this is what we’ve come to expect from our friendships too. We begin to think that the only legitimate ones are those that play out over long conversations in coffee houses and involve perfect chemistry.
As Christians, we generally spot the false expectations of romcoms--we know that they set us up to be dissatisfied with normal relationships--but I’m not certain that we’ve been as successful in recognizing our unrealistic expectations about friendship. In fact, sometimes I wonder if we’ve tried to be a “Friends Lite” (minus the whole sexual promiscuity thing) and in doing so, have set ourselves up to be very disappointed when friends move on, to feel guilty when every relationship isn’t deep and meaningful, or to be disenchanted when no one in our church seems to “get” us. We have become so captured with some idealized notion of friendship that small, normal, warm relationships are no longer enough.
Trust me, I’m know the benefit of community, of small group settings that foster deep, spiritual bonds. But I’ve also been in situations where the bonds didn’t happen easily, where it took a long time to begin to be true friends, where we felt obligated to force a sense of intimacy because of our shared expectations about friendship. But in doing so, we actually became less authentic and essentially guaranteed that we wouldn’t achieve the very relationships we longed for.
Instead, I think we need to remember that one of the greatest benefits of community is the opportunity to live with people who wouldn’t naturally be our friends, to live in close proximity with people who don’t always “get” us. (This is also one of the benefits of spending time with extended family.) And while words like transparency, accountability, deep, meaningful, and connectedness may be the watchwords of our generation, we must recognize that these things are the by-products of commitment--they come after choosing to live life together, not before. We must also accept that they are not necessarily the measure of whether or not a relationship is worth having. Sure, it’d be lovely if we all had relationships like those on Friends—where every friendship is deep and meaningful and close and never ends--but those relationships are scripted by Hollywood screenwriters, and the ones scripted by the Divine Screenwriter are usually messier, more chaotic, less consistent, and don’t play out as we expect.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t pursue deep friendships when they come (we all want the kind that C. S. Lewis describes here); I’m simply suggesting that when our other relationships aren’t as fulfilling as these or when old friends become “Christmas card” friends, we shouldn’t see them as failures. These relationships are not inferior; they are simply what they are—opportunities we once had to walk with a fellow pilgrim along a portion of this life’s journey.
So now, whenever I’m sorting through my Christmas card list, instead of feeling guilty, I’m going to take the opportunity to revel in the Providence that allowed each one of these people to be part of my life for a given moment; I’m going to marvel at the Wisdom that made our lives intersect in order to sanctify us both; and I’m going to rejoice in the knowledge that one day, through His Grace, we’ll have the chance to live in true friendship for the rest of eternity.