Women in Church Leadership...continued

We would like to take credit for the beautiful garden in this photo, but this charming view is from a public garden very close (about 50 minutes) from our home. For the next few blog entries we will prepare you for spring with more garden eye candy from this lovely place.


Sunday evening our TT meeting began with looking at the ordination of one of our own. He is currently head of our secondary church school in this area. We are being asked to support his ordination for this work. We were encouraged to give our input, both positive and negative, to this calling of ordination.

Just a week ago our transitional pastor gave us what he called his "one man show" about looking at what the scriptures say about women in church leadership. So now he thought it was time to try to come to a consensus on this issue. How far on the continuum of positions of leadership within our church body are we willing to have women be involved?

He noted his observation that since we have had a women in the associate pastorate our congregation has been at odds. After some comments from others he asked for direction to reach a consensus.

Three different positions on the continuum were suggested by various members. After more discussion, our transitional pastor announced that he was of the opinion that a consensus could not be reached at this time. No one refuted his conclusion.

We have more work to do at arriving at what our congregation would like and can accept as far as women in leadership. All of the spoken opinions thus far appear to be in support of women in one of the top three leadership positions...however, written opinions show that at least 20% of those responding reject women being used in the top three leadership positions: lead pastor, associate pastor, or congregation team leadership. The written reaction factor in this silent minority group limiting women in leadership includes the consideration for unity in our church. That means that they have responded using the desire for unity in their deliberation also.

On the other hand, at least 13% of those responding felt that they can only support the position of a women as lead pastor. And this again was factored with unity in mind. During our discussion it was obvious that this group was not shy in sharing their views. We were uncomfortable with some of the intimidating, forceful and intolerant language that was being used. Comments such as "beyond ignorant" in describing an opposing view are not helpful. It is also not good to question another's faithfulness or willingness to follow the Holy Spirit. This behavior appears to be effectively shutting down any real communication. Perhaps political correctness is effecting our deliberations. This thought was actually voiced in the meeting.

With at least 33% of those responding at these two extremes on the continuum our transitional pastor has his work cut out for him in trying to bring consensus to this issue.

The last thing we addressed in our meeting was to identify a name for our congregational personage. We also discussed other attributes of our congregation using descriptions as if we were a person. Our transitional pastor assured us that this exercise in describing our congregation is essential to our future work. Some of us don't see the value, but we are trusting that he must know what he is doing.

We have been very fortunate to have a great preacher in our transitional pastor. He speaks very clearly and when you are through listening you have no doubt as to what he has said. And we feel that what he has said is what we as a congregation often need to here. Some of his sermons are supportive of what we are going through in our transitional transparency meetings. He is preparing us for a new pastor very well.