Women's Christian Worldview Conference

The Center for Women of Faith in Culture is hosting the first annual God, Faith & Culture Evangelical Women’s Conference on April 30th, 2011 in Arlington Heights, Illinois. But this is not just another women’s conference where women come together to base new and developing friendships on shared emotional experiences. In fact, we expect that the intellectual rigor of this event will prepare you to need a nice quiet evening to process the content presented by all the speakers. Our focus is a deliberate emphasis on the life of the mind in your relationship with God–but of course, we expect you will fully enjoy your time as you hear Christian women leaders speak on different aspects of the Christian worldview.

Speakers for this conference include Dr. Halee Gray Scott, PhD, Azusa Pacific University, Jennifer Lahl, The Center for Bioethics & Culture, Pam Gillaspie, Deep & Wide, Kathy Barnette, Judson University, Caryn Rivadeneira, Christianity Today, and many others. Be sure to register online at www.godfaithculture.com and find us on Facebook.

Leadership Tip: Truth and Love

As a kid, I experienced "Christianity" in various settings including fundamentalism, mainline denominations, cults, and fringe charismatic churches. God used these experiences to give me a passion for theology, a desire to know him with certainty and precision.

As an ever-maturing believer, I continue to learn and experience God's truth and God's grace each day. Through this grace, I was able to escape the influence of the bad theology of my childhood, but what God used was not only a new set of beliefs, but people and friends and teachers and other students who lovingly and very pastorally communicated these truths, showing me why they ultimately mattered.

Defending the faith and promoting solid theology ought to be in a spirit of love and truth. The motivation should not be rightness for its own sake, but for the cause of Christ--a genuine love for people. God's love and God's truth go hand in hand and should never be divorced from each other.

Does 'Complementarian' Equal Anemic Women's Ministry?

In 2007, Amy Simpson wrote “Why I Don’t Do Women’s Ministry,” citing the reasons for her struggle to fit in an essentially shallow church culture. She may have surprised a few readers, but clearly she spoke the heart of a silent, yet critical mass of women in the church.

These are women who want to fulfill the Titus 2 mandate, to mentor and minister to other women, who want to play a significant role in Christian education, but also want to escape the culture of women’s ministry that they inherited from their grandmothers. They want a more substantive interaction with the women they lead, because they know that time is a priceless commodity and they want to make the most out of every opportunity.

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Women's Leadership Conference

If you're in the Chicago area, you don't want to miss this event. The MidAmerica Baptist Conference is hosting a conference for Christian women who are leaders in church and in culture. I'll be speaking briefly at this event, but I don't want you to come hear me. It's the awesome line-up of speakers that we have that you just can't miss!

Created in Him for Good Works will direct our attention to the work of ministry and how it is conducted. Ephesians is especially important to the lives of every Christian, as the letter from Paul begins with the doctrines of the gospel and concludes with the Christian life, living a life worthy of the calling.

If you're in the area, check out the link for the conference and contact me about attending. Here are the details!

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Session 1
The 3^rd Voice: Creating a Transformational Culture
Angie Weszley, Caris Pregnancy Clinics

Session 2
From Dial Ups to Smart Phones: Women's Ministry Then & Now
Felecia Thompson, Trinity Christian College

Session 3
Kingdom Writing: How Your Words Serve Heavenly Purposes
Caryn Rivadeneira, Christianity Today: Gifted for Leadership

Saturday, October 18th, 10:00am - 3:30pm
Bethany Baptist Church
6700 W Gunnison, Harwood Heights, IL 60656
Registration fee: $40 (includes lunch)
To register: sarah@convergemidamerica.org

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Women's Ministry Leadership: Teaching Scripture, Avoiding Fads

I'm always looking for the latest book or study for womens ministry study groups. My expectations are usually low because there is so much fluff or theologically weak materials available. Pondering this problem caused me to reflect on the market altogether and why it even exists. While there are many bible studies that exist for men and for mixed groups, I question why there are so many more available to women...and I think its because there are so few womens ministry leaders with the capacity to teach without a study or curriculum. I'd love to be wrong. If there are more women who are capable of expounding on God's Word without the aid of a Beth Moore video or Cynthia Heald study, I'd love to know. I'm not saying those materials shouldn't be available, but it probably speaks to the composition of womens leadership in evangelical circles. What women in the local church are available and equipped to regularly teach directly from Scripture? Because, as it seems to me, that there are few women who can fulfill this role, we need to rethink some things about womens ministry.

1. If there are women gifted to teach in your church, what is preventing them from exercising that gift?

2. Encourage young women to pursue seminary education to serve women in the local church. While I think young women are interested in this, I think there are few more mature women who know to encourage them this direction.

3. Churches: encourage women's ministry leaders to pastoral ministry, not simply event planning. Women can be called "Pastor of Womens Ministry" without compromising any views of roles in the church. Promote the value of women pursuing advanced education to serve the local church.

4. The "rock star" perception of womens conference speakers has got to end. This way of viewing the more famous leaders has a way of making church womens leaders feel very small and irrelevant.

5. Few pastors are raised up out of the ranks of the pews without them pursuing at least a college degree, but usually seminary. Yet this expectation doesn't exist for women's ministry leaders. Why? It's not necessary that she have a seminary degree, but I fear we do more to discourage it than encourage it.

I probably have many points I'm trying to make with this post, but mostly I want to encourage those who are gifted teachers in womens ministry to function according to those gifts and not be dependent on the next cool fad to hit the bookstore.

A Personal Relationship with Jesus: Goals for Women's Ministry Leaders

Has the call to have "a personal relationship with Jesus" become more of a cliche that feeds into our individualistic ideals, or does is point clearly to the need to know Jesus as both human and divine and his redemptive work on the cross? Does "a personal relationship with Jesus" bring to mind the core doctrines of the Christian faith, or does it propose a feminized Christianity that appeals to our therapeutic needs as something separate from our intellectual life.

As I have been thinking about the work of women's ministries in the local church in the upcoming year, I hope that this is the year that our womens ministry leaders will not only move away from the cliches and stereotypes, but actually refute them. And so I challenge each of you to consider this, "a personal relationship with God," and be prepared to talk to the women in your ministries about what this really means.

My friend, Keith Plummer, addressed this issue in a blogpost in 2005. I'm thankful for the archiving of blogs as this is one you should take a look at. In it, Keith reflects:

Talk of having a personal relationship with Jesus is so deeply entrenched in evangelical discourse that calling it into question may strike us as sacrosanct. But hopefully we're willing to ask, along with Noll, whether this emphasis is due more to an attempt to be biblically faithful or to the imbibing of American cultural values (e.g., individualism).

In one sense, the idea of needing to come to Christ in order to have a personal relationship with God is misleading. Every person stands in a relationship with God. Coming to Christ changes the nature of that relationship from one of condemned criminals before a just judge to that of pardoned and accepted sinners graciously adopted into a nurturing family. So, the critical question as far as the gospel is concerned, is not so much whether one has a personal relationship with God but rather what kind of relationship one has.

What is the nature of your relationship with Jesus? Is it grounded in an understanding of the Scriptures? Is it purely existential in that it that the relationship is reduced to merely the individual experience? Is the relationship measured qualitatively according to how you feel on a given day? Does your understand ing of who God is include a biblical anthropology?

It's not about whether or not you have a relationship with Jesus, it's about what that relationship looks like. We have the Scriptures to teach us about who God is and how he has acted in history. Because the testimony of Scripture points to a sovereign Lord who cares about even the smallest details of our lives, we can call him our personal savior. He works within human history, having his hand on the course of events without limitation. This is the God who can be trusted and depended upon. Does your relationship with Jesus acknowledge this truth?

Women's ministry leaders: make 2008 the year for reflecting on the sovereignty of God.

My Plans for Preparing Women for the Future

In my work as a women's ministry leader, I find that the contact I want to have with younger women is limited because the typical women's leader isn't in her twenties. I usually find these twenty-something young achievers in the academic realm. Anyway, I've been developing seminars that will encourage and equip young women toward excellence and godliness in whatever they do, especially in their chosen vocation. But where I really want to continue making an impact is in the area of bioethics because this is where women will find, in hindsight, that this is where they were most vulnerable. Young women today are tempted by money to subject their body to the harms of scientific research, and for those women who want it all, reproductive technologies turn out to be the way for women to wait til later in life to have children. Nothing necessarily wrong with that except for the risks placed on the mother and her unborn child, and the ethical implications of outsourcing pregnancy. Where the future is going in medical ethics has a profound impact on the real lives of young women. Feminism will continue to develop leaders among young women who preach choice as the highest value, but evangelical bioethics can develop young women as leaders for human dignity by valuing every life.

Preparing Women for the Future: What's the Plan?

Every day it seems that conservative Christians are taking a hit from the liberal left who argue that because Scripture doesn't speak specifically about topics like abortion or embryonic stem cell research, then it doesn't have anything to say about those topics at all. It's true that Scripture doesn't address every possible subject under the sun, but it does provide the framework through which we can process our day to day living. Consequently, in humility and love, we can address even the most complex areas of our lives without compromising the authority or integrity of Scripture. What does that have anything to do with preparing women for the future?

Today women of all ages are faced with a plethora of choices and confront difficult decisions, most of which Scripture has little or nothing say. Bible studies and small groups do their best to promote the character and virtues necessary to live in today's world and succeed in promoting a biblical life ethic. This works well for the women who are involved in these groups. But the challenge of living in today's world - and in the near future - is understanding what we confront. It's not enough anymore to know "right from wrong" for at least 2 reasons: 1. our world has declared that there is no right or wrong because truth is determined by the individual, and 2. It's not always clear that an action or decision is wrong or lacks virtue because it might covered in a blanket of warm words or arguments: therapeutic, self-esteem, merciful, reasonable, etc.

Preparing women to live in this world in the future - and even the near future - necessitates that we address actual issues women face, it's not enough to teach about what makes a woman virtuous or excellent....that needs to be there, but there needs to be more. Wherever and whenever possible, reach out to experts or find resources to address specific areas of a woman's life. How is technology making her life easier and more complex at the very same time? What is the affect of assisted reproductive technologies on a young woman and her [future] husband and [future] family? Why does it matter that she understand that she understand the influence of pornography on the family? How can we be responsible citizens that care about the environment and also be respectors of the image of God in all persons? How do people think and does it actually affect their day to day living? Can an evangelical Christian woman have a career? How does the Christian worldview shape our work, worship and womanhood? These are just a few of the topics that all women need to talk about today. Think about how to prepare women for the future and work this into your ministries as much as you can.

Synergy: Leadership Summit for Women

Coming up next week, October 4 and 5, is the Leadership Summit for Women taking place at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Among the speakers is one of my favorite thinkers, Carolyn Custis James, author of When Life and Beliefs Collide and president of the Whitby Forum. This is definitely an event for women in leadership within the Christian community. I plan to be at this event, so if you haven't registered yet, plan to do so as the deadline is quickly approaching. Be sure to say hi if you see me!

Out of the Box: My Vision for Women's Ministry

When I began to blog at Intellectuelle a while back, I introduced myself by way of sharing my vision, what's been driving my passion for women. I'm glad to look at it again as nothing has changed, it's just good to go back and remember some of the details as a way of avoiding some of the distrations. So I share this with you so you know that I'm on a mission from God and what it looks like.

I just don't fit in the box...and I never really have. I've always cringed at the activities of the typical church women's ministry because what I saw seemed either to focus on a single group of women or lacked the quality and depth of books and studies not intended specifically for women. If you say I'm making broad sweeping comments about women's ministry, you might be right. But the fact is, in many churches, women with more intellectual tendencies are looked upon to nurture others - as they should - but usually are expected to keep their intellectualism to themselves. Women's bible studies are often very poorly written...with the exception of some great materials by Elizabeth George, Elyse Fitzpatrick, Kay Arthur, Jill Briscoe, and a few others.

When I entered into seminary studies in 2002, I promised myself that women's ministry was the LAST thing I would ever participate in. That promise was reminiscent of the one I made when I was 18 - that I would never work in the fast food industry. So far, I haven't flipped a burger, but God seemed to have other plans for me with regards to women's ministry.

I came to the conclusion during one of my graduate courses in bioethics that women's ministry is, indeed, in need of a face lift (but please do not confuse that for some unnecessary nontherapeutic physical enhancement) and that I am called to this work. Born from this was The Foundation for Women of Faith in Culture, its primary mission being to support the spiritual maturation of women through biblical, theological, and worldview education. I'm excited to say that people are finding this ministry on the internet and are responding.

My hope for Intellectuelle is that it is a place for men and women to reflect on faith and living, but I hope especially that it brings together a community of women who will continue the discussion of what it means to be a thinking Christian woman - and that the Church will take notice of our discussion and our existence.