A couple of weeks ago, I critiqued the Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference leaders for underestimating the spiritual gifts and needs of women. Some readers have asked why go there – why did I pick on T4G and their take on Christianity? Why don’t I just go to a conference that invites women to speak and teach and leave T4G alone?

Here’s why. I’m an insider. For better or for worse, my church home is in the T4G sphere of Christianity. We attend a Southern Baptist church, and our pastor is completing his master of divinity degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (their president, Al Mohler, is one of the T4G leaders). We read books by several T4G speakers in our small groups and Sunday School classes. This means that I have a vested interested in what happens in conferences like T4G and in the churches who send people there. This is my church family, and these are my friends. I see what happens and what doesn’t, and all the ripple effects in church and individual lives.

What I see really concerns me. I see a failure to value the unique perspective of women. It is a significant blind spot that if unaddressed could have devastating results. Failing to seek women’s input erodes the overall health of the church and its ability to fulfill its God-given mission.

What’s surprising is that these churches teach a theology of men and women that should lead them to prize women and their perspective, to be proactive in seeking them out. These Christians teach that men and women have different strengths and weaknesses. They believe (and I agree) that God puts us together in such a way that my strengths complement your weaknesses (hence the term “complementarian”) and vice versa. They acknowledge that we all have blind spots and that part of living together as the body of Christ made up of many parts is that each part is necessary for the health of the whole.

But this belief hasn’t permeated their concept of church leadership. It appears that because they believe God forbids women to preach or exercise authority over men, they think that means they don’t need the wisdom and input of women in their preaching and leading.

I could be wrong. I want to believe the best — that they do value and seek the perspective of women. But it isn’t visible. It isn’t something they talk about. So as far as I can tell, they don’t.

I believe these guys desire to care for both men and women, and that they try their best. Most (all?) of them encourage women to study and engage one another. But sincerity doesn’t equal success, and encouraging women’s ministries isn’t the same as seeking female counsel. Our church leaders have taken on the massive responsibility of teaching, counseling, and leading men and women in church without seeking out, talking with, listening to, and addressing the specific needs and struggles and gifts of half of them – the women.

It is a mistake to assume that men and women are the same in matters of faith. This is especially true if you believe men and women must take on separate roles. A man’s view of faith and life isn’t the only valid one. Men and women think and process life differently. They take their faith into different spheres, they work at different tasks, and they rub shoulders with different people in different contexts. Men do not instinctively know how it is to be a woman, and thus they cannot know the specific challenges and needs women have as we try to live our faith. (And the same goes for women — we do not know how it to be a man.) We need each other to fill in the gaps and complete the picture.

Where men are solely responsible for leading and teaching, they must find other ways to incorporate the counsel and input of women into their decisions. Search the Scriptures – you will find countless examples of men (Paul is a great example) doing exactly this.

We should hear church leaders referring to how they integrated the input and counsel of women into their decision-making and teaching.

We should see sessions at conferences on how to do this.

We should hear keynote speakers and national leaders challenging pastors, church leaders, and husbands to proactively seek female input into the challenges they face and the direction they go.

Why don’t we?

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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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