My husband received a brochure for the Together for the Gospel conference in the mail last week. I was immediately struck by the irony of the title, “Together for the Under-estimated Gospel” juxtapositioned against the photo.
Do you see what I see? Or maybe I should ask, “Do you see who is missing?” I see men. I do not see women.
It is important to note that this conference grew out of a group of four pastors and originally was designed for pastors (which in this circle of evangelicalism means men only). Its purpose was to promote unity around the central truths of the Bible, as a counterbalance to all the division over things like baptism, the action of the Holy Spirit today, and the second coming of Jesus. They wanted this gathering to provide a shot in the arm of these hard-working servants of God and rally preachers to return to a certain kind of preaching (what they call “expository” preaching of the Bible itself). It has done exactly that for all of the men I know who’ve attended. They can’t say enough about the joy of singing to God with thousands of other men, and about the inspiration to dig into study and serving their churches with renewed vigor. But the conference has expanded greatly since 2006.
I would love to attend a conference striving to build unity and grappling with the deep things of God. I would especially love to do so with my husband – we enjoy discussing these things together and pushing each other to think hard and root out inconsistency and hypocrisy.
But I don’t see women in the materials here. Men fill the images used. Men fill the words used, e.g. “We are brothers.” Women are mentioned only in the affirmations and denials section – “We further affirm that the teaching office of the Church is assigned only to those men who are called of God in fulfillment of the biblical teachings,” but “We also deny that this biblical distinction of roles excludes women from meaningful ministry in Christ’s kingdom.”
It makes me wonder whether they think about women when they think about their respective churches and what they need in the way of teaching and preaching. Do they ever ask the women in their churches what challenges they are facing and what questions of faith they are grappling with? Do they take those challenges into account when choosing what to teach and preach? Shouldn’t this be part of their ministry – to make sure their women are being equipped and trained for “meaningful ministry in Christ’s kingdom”? If so, why don’t they talk about it at conferences like this? Why do I never see panels of women speaking about the questions and dilemmas they face in their day-to-day ministries? If conferences like this are designed to equip pastors to better serve their churches, shouldn’t they talk to and about women, and perhaps hear from a few?
As Sarah wrote so powerfully here, women don’t only want to talk about cooking and children and home organization. We aren’t playing at church. We don’t always want to be segregated, separated from the men with whom we’ve been commissioned to serve God and served froo-froo fare while the men dine on steak. We share the mission God gave us in Genesis and in Matthew – to govern this earth and to share God’s love and truth with others.
Women dive deep and think hard. Women grapple with how to understand the doctrines and traditions of the church, with how to allow Jesus to permeate every part of us, with how to live like Jesus where we are each day. We find ourselves under-trained, under-equipped, and under-estimated every day. Many of us have also learned a thing or two that might be helpful to others, both men and women, who are wrestling with the same challenges.
You would think that with a name like “Together for the Gospel” and a subtitle like “Under-Estimated,” I would feel welcome and hopeful that if I attended I would be built up, encouraged and inspired dig into study and serve my churches with renewed vigor. Last time they held this conference, they welcomed women. Because of that, I suppose that women are welcome again this year, but I can’t tell from this brochure. With no women featured or mentioned, I just don’t know.
What do you see? If you’re a man, would you welcome women at this conference? Would you want to hear what women are wrestling with in their faith? If you’re a woman, do you think you’d be welcome?
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No, I wouldn’t feel welcomed – instead, I feel intimidated!
I’m sharing a long screed tomorrow about structural racism in the church, and used (often unintentional) men-only networking as an example that translates well to the race context. So, I’ll definitely be linking to you as an example of this. Excellent critiques like this are often met with protests that these organizers, leaders, and promoters don’t intentionally mean to marginalize women, but the harmful effect is still there…
I’ve heard that exact protest — it isn’t intentional. But the fact remains that it does marginalize women and that is hurtful and damaging to our growth in faith. I hope that if they can finally wake up to what they are doing and how it comes across, that will prompt them to make some changes.
If their brochure states that women are “excluded from meaningful ministry in Christ’s kingdom” then why would they spend time at their conference equipping women for such roles? I mean, it seems like they have stated outright that they don’t believe that women have any part in ministry.
I made a mistake copying from their site. They said women are NOT excluded from meaningful ministry. I corrected the post.
AH! Ok, now this makes more sense. I was thinking at first “these people are hopeless, why even engage”.
Sorry about that! Yeah, if they flat-out said women couldn’t be a part of ministry, you’d be right. It would be like spitting into a hurricane. But the thing is that they do claim to believe women have roles to fill. I think they’re so buried in their men-only world they don’t know what they don’t know.
The church I grew up in is hosting a conference this week, even, called “Both”. The premise is that by excluding women, the (big-C) Church is missing on on half the gifts that God gave us. It’s a conference for men AND women about women in ministry.
I should have been sharing it sooner, I feel silly for keeping it to myself. http://www.nsnchurch.com/
Bekka recently posted..Vanity, redux
I love the title of that conference!!!
I’m so sick of sermons about “the church has lost its fire, passion” when it serves but half of its people. If the purpose of the church is to train for ministry, how are we fulfilling that calling if we only train half the church?
Sarah@From Tolstoy to Tinkerbell recently posted..The Art of Rest
Send T4G your post. It’s well written. You make a compelling case. they should hear it.
Joy, I wholeheartedly agree with you on “Women dive deep and think hard” and the following paragraph. I read Sarah’s post, and I agree with it as well. We as women must step out and into our God-given roles and gifts and serve in our churches and communities, and not be satisfied with the “froo-froo” roles.
I do feel, however that you are (unintentionally) painting these men as the bad guys, as ones who have a small view of women, and their value in the church.
Of the men in this picture I regularly listen to 3 of them (Piper, Platt, and Chandler), and occasionally I listen to or read 3 others. They do teach of complementary roles, which I think that is an important piece of the puzzle, for this post to be fair to them, or for any of us to make a judgment about this conference.
If these men come from that stance, that the pastoral/elder role is a God-ordained ministry for men, then their “sales pitch” for the conference makes perfect sense. It is a conference, geared towards pastors, of whom they are in agreement is a role reserved for men. It would be a contradiction of their own beliefs to put a woman in the lineup.
I do not think that any of them would say that women have no role in the church. They would say that we play a vital role in the church, and that it can even be in teaching positions. Just not as the Pastor/Elder/Shepherd role, and that women are not to be in teaching positions over any elder. From my own study of scripture, I agree.
But, regardless of what you and I believe, I think it is important for the readers of this post to understand the context of this conference and these men. (And, because I hold them in high regard, it is hard for me to not feel slighted on their behalf.)
“It makes me wonder whether they think about women when they think about their respective churches and what they need in the way of teaching and preaching. Do they ever ask the women in their churches what challenges they are facing and what questions of faith they are grappling with? Do they take those challenges into account when choosing what to teach and preach? Shouldn’t this be part of their ministry – to make sure their women are being equipped and trained for “meaningful ministry in Christ’s kingdom”?”
To help you answer these questions, I invite you to listen to Platt’s teaching on 1 Timothy 2 http://www.brookhills.org/media/series/first-timothy-the-household-of-god/
I have not been in their congregations, but I have listened to hours and hours of their teachings and I have not once, as a women, felt undermined, or anything less than valued by what I hear from them. And, to answer your question, as a woman, I would be thrilled to be able to go to this conference.
I love your blog, and I wholeheartedly agree with your heart for bringing the gospel to the nations. I appreciate your out-of-the box thinking of how we “do” Christianity, and I resonate with many of your critiques of the American church. (Loved your husbands post on Halloween, and agree with every word.)
I pray this comment is received well; not as an attack, but as a clarification.
Thank you for your comment, Katie. I am glad to hear that you would have no hesitation about attending this conference.
My husband has attended all three of the T4G conferences held to date, and plans to attend 2012. He and I have read and listened to the teaching of several of the speakers for years, too. It is because I respect them and would love to dig in deep the way they do at this conference that I am concerned about a potential blind spot.
I believe they think they are caring for all of their people well. I believe that they honestly desire to care for all their people well, both men and women.
But I don’t see how they can succeed at that without deliberately seeking to understand the women in their churches. They cannot teach, counsel, and lead women without talking with, listening to, and considering the specific needs and struggles and gifts of women.
It is a mistake to assume that men and women are the same in matters of faith, especially if you believe they must serve in very different roles from one another. We operate in very different spheres, working at different tasks, rubbing shoulders with different people in different contexts. Men do not instinctively know how it is to be a woman and what the challenges are to practically living our faith. But I have never once heard a man describe how he learns how the women in his church are doing or recommend that other men do the same. I don’t think it’s even on their radar. And that’s what I’m trying to do with this post — get the concept on their radar and call on them to talk about this and encourage one another to do it.
Does that make any sense?
I does make sense, and I am happy to hear your heart behind this.
Bottom line, your “call to action” is for these men—through this conference (and others to come)—to include ways to help the pastors attending the conference to minister better to the women in their own churches. Am I correct?
I have no problem with that.
I think a point I wanted to make, but didn’t do it very well in my earlier comment, is that the tone of your post seemed as if you are upset about certain aspects of their personal, local ministry—aspects which are hard for any of us who are not part of their congregation to gauge.
So. I wasn’t hearing from you “Why aren’t there more things at these conferences to help equip pastors to minister to the women in their church?”, instead I was hearing “Why are these pastors ignoring the training and equipping of women in their churches? Why are they underestimating the women in their churches?” I felt as if it painted these men in a negative light—as chauvinists who don’t care about women—thus the feeling I had of “being slighted on their behalf.” I hear now that this is not your heart behind it.
Thanks for this discussion.
Katie Orr recently posted..Miscellany Monday
I don’t think I can even put into words how very sad it is to read this whole discussion. Just the fact that it is STILL A DISCUSSION is just plain painful.
Golly…women can ‘even teach?’ EVEN – as if many of the finest teachers of anything in this world, including biblical studies, are not women?
I wonder what it must feel like to be a passionate Jesus-following young female student at some of our most prominent Christian institutions of higher learning and hear the leadership of those schools repeatedly preach/teach that women are blocked — by scripture which is open to multiple levels of interpretation and are truly very limited in terms of both quantity and scope — from sharing, truly sharing, in the leadership of the Kingdom of God.
Oh my, I just want to weep.
Where in this way of thinking if there room at all for the call of God on a woman’s life to preach and teach and lead? Nowhere.
So, in this first full year of my retirement from pastoral ministry after 17 years of living this reality, I look at blogs day in and day out and I see much to celebrate.
But women as talented, insightful, articulate, blessed by pain and by joy as the author of this blog are still having to claw their way to a place of being heard? And powerful, but very narrowly focused male pastors are lionized and ‘protected’ when questions are asked? Lord, have mercy on your church.
Keep asking the questions, Joy. Keep prayerfully searching for answers. And listen to the whispers of the Holy Spirit in your heart of hearts. Yes, women have a voice and a place – given to them by the Creator, redeemed for them by the Savior, enlivened and activated in them by the Spirit. And that place is beside men, not beneath nor above them. Not to usurp, but to partner. Not to belittle but to encourage.
Sigh.
Diana Trautwein recently posted..When God Asks the Questions: do you see this woman?
Diana, thank you so much for your encouragement. It means so much.
Joy recently posted..Together for the Gospel…. or not
Great insights, Joy. I’ve spent several terms on the Elder Board (including serving as chair) and would have loved to have women on tehere with me. Sadly, our church does not have women elders, and I doubt that I will return to the board. A bunch of men trying to figure out how to equip and edify women is too hard, and unnecessarily so. If women and men served together, all aspects of the church’s ministry would not only be open for discusison, but that discussion would actually be fruitful.
Believe me, I am not coming from some liberal theological background. I used to be a complementarian. Then as I spent more time studying the Bible and considering it as a whole, it was like the scales fell from my eyes and I realized the Bible teaches egalitarianism for God’s people. And I am still firmly grounded in hisotric Christian orthodoxy.
Bottom line: going to men’s only events just doesn’t appeal to me any longer. Going to male dominated events makes me uneasy also, though I might give it a shot.
Tim
Tim, thank you for sharing that. My husband said almost the same thing last night as we were talking about this. He was an elder for several years and he said that he and the other three guy felt this massive weight of responsibility for so much that really should have been shouldered by more. It would have been much better to have more minds and hearts working together, both men and women.
Joy recently posted..Together for the Gospel…. or not
Wow! At first I was like, o, cool pics. Then I read your post.
Ahhh. Tough questions!
Thanks for sharing!
rene diebenkorn recently posted..Yet not I
Dude. I can’t even say what I am thinking. Because #HeadDesk.
Sarah@EmergingMummy recently posted..In which his love never quits