Thursday, 11 June 2009
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Is Women's Ministry Becoming Irrelevant?
by Sharon Hodde of SheWorships
As I mentioned in my last post, I spent this past weekend at the Advance Conference learning from pastors who are older and wiser about how to breathe new life into the Church. What was ironic about the timing of this conference was that it came on the heels of a related conversation I had with Sherry Surratt, wife of Seacoast Pastor Greg Surratt (Seacoast is a church based in Charleston, SC with almost a dozen satellite campuses in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia).Sherry not only serves on staff at Seacoast, but she is the Director of Women’s Initiatives in Leadership for Leadership Network, and she spends a lot of her time networking with women all over the country who serve in women’s ministry.
What was interesting about our conversation was Sherry’s findings from her work with Leadership Network. The Advance Conference was held in response to the decline of the Church in America, and it would appear that women’s ministry is suffering the same fate. After researching and interviewing hundreds of women who serve in women’s ministry, Sherry found that a large percentage of churches, particularly mega-churches, are moving away from women’s ministry. What was once considered a crucial ministry in its own right is now being absorbed into the larger arena of “church life.”
Sherry’s findings about the lack of church emphasis on women’s ministry were further validated by a survey taken by Revive Our Hearts. The survey polled nearly 1,000 Women’s Ministry Directors and women serving in women’s ministry. Of the women polled, only a third of them possessed the official title of “Women’s Ministry Director,” and of those women only 15% were actually paid by a church. 84% of the actual Women’s Ministry Directors served in a volunteer capacity and were not on church payroll. Given that budgets reflect priorities, this statistic is telling.
As a woman in ministry, these findings are not surprising. Women graduating from seminary who are seeking to serve at evangelical churches will be hard pressed to find jobs outside the realm of counseling and children’s ministry. Most churches aren’t paying women to lead women.
So these findings beg the question: Given that women constitute one half of the Church, why is women’s ministry so low on the totem pole?
Although there are many reasons for this, I am going to highlight two in particular. The first reflects a concern that is frequently voiced by women. The second reflects a perspective that I have mostly heard from men. Both perspectives are actually quite legitimate.
1. Women’s Ministry is Becoming Irrelevant–In the Revive Our Hearts survey, the results found that only 41% of Women’s Ministry Directors had completed a college degree, and only 1% had attained a seminary degree. While Jesus’ disciples remind us that God doesn’t always call or need those with the highest education to lead His people, these statistics do have important implications for cultural relevancy. In a country where more and more women are seeking advanced degrees beyond their undergraduate education, and desire to dig into the meat of theology, women’s ministers have not always been fully equipped to reach them.
This generational and educational divergence is also apparent when you stroll into a Christian bookstore. In the past, books for women have largely fallen into the categories of lifestyle and self-help, but more and more women today are looking to balance emotion with intellect. So while those genres will always have an audience somewhere and have indeed been a blessing to countless women around the world, young women are more likely to pick up a book by John Piper or Tim Keller than some of the well-known named female authors.
As young ladies find women’s ministry resources lacking and instead turn to more general Christian authors for theological reflection, churches are following in kind. If women are no longer interested in women-specific resources, then why bother providing a women-specific ministry?
2. Women are Already Thriving On Their Own–At the Advance Conference Dr. Daniel Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, informed us that of all the single people on the mission field right now, 3/4 of them are women. This gender imbalance has been an on-going problem within the Church over the last decade. As the number of women going to seminary and serving on the mission field has increased, the number of men has seemed to simultaneously decrease.
In response to this shift, evangelicals sounded the warning bell and have launched multiple efforts to reclaim manhood in the Church. We have seen a rise in “Wild at Heart” type books, and pastors like Mark Driscoll have spoken out against the feminization of the Church. And in order to drive the urgency home, the importance of male leadership has been elevated to a status of nearly dogmatic proportions. Male leadership has been touted as one of THE most crucial components of the Church.
In light of these events, it would seem that women’s ministry is the LAST thing we need to work on. Given the increase of women attending seminary and going overseas, women seem to be doing just fine. If anything, it is the men who need the help. We need to push men harder and pour into them more intentionally so that they will step up and lead. Women are doing a great job on their own.
These are just two of the main factors that have led to a noticeable shift away from women’s ministry within our churches. If you have been involved in women’s ministry, or if you’re just a woman in the church, I’m sure you can think of more. Feel free to offer your own thoughts!
In my next post I am going to examine the potential blind spots in the above reasoning, and examine why the movement away from women’s ministry may be dangerously short-sighted. If you are one of my male readers, I encourage you to stick with me–while this may not seem immediately relevant to you, it impacts one half of the Body of which you are a part. If we are to fight this spiritual battle, then we better make sure half the army is ready for combat.
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Comments (15)
this is interesting... because while I get the notion that it is important to allow for a women's ministry because yea, the ladies need to get together...
I think part of the reason why it's gotten to be such a huge emphasis to the point of dogmatic proportions is because our culture first off has birthed just really lazy guys who are passive, irresponsible, and/or abusive... Mark Driscoll has seen this and turned into a dogmatic idea because from what he has gathered, get the dudes into church and passionate about Jesus, they'll be the ones to bring the leadership, the women, the money, the ideals to carry on the cause of Christ till He comes back. That's not to say that women can't... it's to say men should lead the charge... because when you strip everything down... God holds the men responsible... there is no egality at all...
God held Adam responsible as He created Him, brought woman to him, and then held Adam completely responsible for the fall... the woman got her share of the deal but God went to Adam first, not Eve thus the idea of headship...
most men in our culture today follow in that same footstep with Adam... and Mark Driscoll and others like him are doing what they can to revive what true Biblical Masculinity is all about at the bare bones basic foundational essence of it all... John Piper and Wayne Grudem also wrote a book about this as did Voddie Baucham...
i'm not a fan of Wild at heart because the premise isn't Scriptural... but I can understand some of the author's point concerning it...
for me... i have to agree w/ Pastor mark and such because I've seen it in my own life and therefore take ownership of my sinful tendency to have the proclivity of Adam and thus hate it and want to change...
i don't think it's becoming irrelevant more or less... i think it's more becoming less prioritized which I think is a mistake to do in LIGHT of what you have said... but therein I think the stress to make men MEN rather than boys who can shave needs to happen... i feel like I'm rambling... sorry...
Women's ministry... like... nuns?
/confused
Men should always be the spiritual head of the household. If you have women ministers, doesn't that contradict this viewpoint?
@leadworshipper82 - Sorry I wrote my comment before I read yours, beautiful take on the subject on hand, and very well written, thank you.
In our churches? Personally, in those I attend, I do not see any decrease. Perhaps we view 'womens ministry' differently though.
Ministry isn't so much a gender issue as it is an issue of finding out what you're good at or want to do and then doing it in service.
One of the things I do for our parish I just made up myself. I got it approved by the pastor and then when to town on it. There is a home for enterprenuership in the Church and sexual rolls don't seem to be much of an issue.
As a Catholic I accept the leadership roll of the male clergy. The male clergy lead, govern and teach the church. There is security in living according to a tradition that goes back to the time when Jesus was still alive.
Well, I'm not a woman, but I have heard my mother, and other women in the congregation here and there say that the main reason they don't attend any womens ministries is because it just turns into a gossip-fest or "bash your husband/kids" time-- but rather lacking in spiritual development.
I don't know if that helps answer the question any. Hope so.
We have a woman's group at my church, but I do not attend. As I have discovered since becoming an adult, women's ministry seems to be directly geared towards middle aged married women. I am neither middle-aged nor married. You are right about the intellect part. I am currently working towards my PhD. I don't want to attend a Bible Study where we discuss the Proverbs 31 wife or read books like 'Captivating'. I want to be challenged intellectually and I want to challenge others. I find I have more in common with younger college students and this demographic seems to be more inclined to really seek things out in the Bible and their faith. (on an intellectual level) Not that some women's ministries may not do this, but the one at my church does not.
A few thoughts.
1. You don't have to have any degree to be equipped by the Holy Spirit to lead. You need a hunger for God and a desire to spend time w/ Him in His Word. A degree does not necessarily correlate w/ God's anointing and in fact may hinder it. If you look at the people God used in the Bible, it's often (usually) the unlearned or overlooked ones. Consider I Cor. 1: God chooses the foolish, weak and base things...
2. You can serve God in ministry regardless of whether you are paid or not. We're all part of the priesthood of believers.
3. As a woman I'm not interested in women's ministry if it's not meaty. I cringe when I see events promoted as women's ministry and it's all fluff. I can get fluff anywhere. The church is entrusted with the Word of God. Are we teaching it to our women? Are we teaching it at all? The church continues to be busy, busy, busy with all sorts of things and as a result, we're not being rooted rightly.
4. I am a woman but not only a woman, I am a person and I am a child of God, and similar to what @SWAurora@xanga said, I honestly don't want to study things only for women. I want to grow as a child of God first and foremost, and children of God grow the same way, regardless of whether we are men or women. Yes, there are times for us to meet in single-sex groups but I also really, really appreciate times of meeting in mixed groups w/ men and discussing the Christian life with men.
5. Re: the bookstore. I'll restrain myself on that, but I pretty much read books written by men. Yes, there are a lot of men who write junk books, but there are some men who write meaty books, while there are relatively fewer women (though there are some) who write books of any substance. So yes, I go to Piper, Willard, Stott and then go back in time to Lloyd-Jones, then to Andrew Murray & David Livingstone and then back further to Brainerd, Whitefield, Owen, etc.. (Those are some of the men who have had an influence on me and there are countless more out there.) There's no fluff with these men. None. We don't need white bread we need whole-grain, whole Gospel bread!
6. I think men in church leadership need to appreciate and welcome the input women can have in leading in the church. In many churches women can teach women or teach children but that's it. And yes, I do love teaching and leading women but I think we have to remember that God created woman to be the helpmeet for man, and I would say that applies not only in the home but in the church...The church misses out and is weakened by not welcoming in to more active ministry women to come alongside men to aid them in equipping their congregations.
@deepestrecesses - I agree. Why would the church be engaged in things that are lacking in "spiritual development"? What are we supposed to be all about, after all?
@BelisaAmbrose@xanga - contrary to how people of the culture believe me to word this... this is more of what many would call The Complimentarian mode of though... i'm not an egalitarian by ANY means... which you know states that men and women are THE SAME... in VALUE they are, but not in roles or even in how they are wired... still... if God calls men to TAKE initiative and LEAD... and men don't... it's not wonder why masculinity is being prioritized by church leaders like John Piper or Mark Driscoll because it's been lost... BECAUSE
It's not that Church is being feminized... it's that men are being emasulated by feminazis... which hurts women anyways...
the sad thing is that feminism is having a ball making men afraid to be men... and i think when men rise up and BE men, women get scared because they think of chauvanism and abuse... and this is sadly echoed in the church in some way
I think there has been a move away from this type of thing for a couple of reasons... these are my own observations;
a. Women tend to meet together socially- or at least this is what men perceive they do, so churches are assuming this is happening. This may have been the case years ago when more women were home, but these days a lot of women work and don't necessarily have the time to 'fellowship' due to the pull/commitments to family life.
b. Because there are often more women in churches than men, I think there has been a season of balance correction. And instead of trying to maintain balance on both fronts, often one group suffers attention at the sake of the other.
c. People are so busy that community has fallen by the way side. Couples would prefer to do things together due to time restrains rather than having a him/her thing that would keep them out two nights a week as opposed to one.
d. Looking at c. I think homegroups/lifegroups have perhaps taken the place of traditional women's ministry.
Yes one of the main problems with maintaining a vibrant women's ministry is that so many women work outside the home that they are stretched too thin to attend one more thing especially once their children get old enough to be enrolled in the multitude of things parents feel they must enroll their kids in and then their is the issue of trying to carve out time to take care of aging parents too!
There are things that women are interested in and would make time to get involved in. I have been to two Habitat for humanity wonen's siding nights and both times they had more women show up than they expected to have and got much more done than they expected to at a faster clip than they expected too and the women who where there when I was there seemed to really thoroughly enjoy themselves as they learned how to put the siding on the house and met the famiy who would be in it soon.
This kind of event combines the practical with the social. This is something congregations seem to have a tough time doing with their women's groups.
i don't think ministries specifically targeted at women can become irrelevant until women are truly seen as equals in every area; much like women's studies classes. they're not yet irrelevant because we as a culture haven't progressed to that point yet.
Hey, no thoughts to add but I just want to say thanks for such a well-written post.