5 Reasons Female Pastors Are Awesome

"Sometimes the best man for the job is a woman."

Too often, we women sell ourselves short. Whether we're pastors or in other professions, we spend too much time observing what men do that makes them successful and then trying to emulate them. But we women have our ways--and I think our ways can actually work pretty well for us! Thus, this post.

Right up front, I should let you know that I'm not going to make any biblical case for the validity of female pastors. Others have done that more thoroughly than I am able. Ben Witherington wrote a great article here. One of my own professors, Joseph Coleson, wrote a book available in its entirety online here. Nazarene Seminary President Carla Sunberg co-authored an excellent book about the role of women in the church, available for purchase here. There are many more excellent resources exploring biblical and traditional understandings of women in ministry.

Phew. Now I can tell you my five reasons that female pastors are awesome!

1. We can be friends! When I was debating about pursuing a call to ministry, I had a conversation with a friend from my church. I remember it vividly. We were riding a ski lift up to the continental divide, and I was going to snowboard my first black diamond. An odd time to have a conversation about female pastors? Yes. But my friend wanted to share his concerns, and we had some time (it's a long way up to the continental divide). He said, "I've always been friends with my pastor. But if my pastor was a woman, I couldn't be friends with her. I would really miss that!"

A great place for important conversations

I neglected to point out to him that he and I were riding a ski lift together while his wife skied the more tame slopes below. I wasn't sure what about my becoming a pastor would suddenly cast me off that ski lift with him. I think it may be possible for men and women to at least have fairly serious conversations from time to time without becoming best friends and developing an inappropriate relationship.

However.

If men and women cannot be friends, then guess what--statistically, almost every church has more women than men. Now all those women finally get a chance to be friends with their pastor! They can casually call up their pastor to ask about a verse or a question of theology. Or they can call up their pastor to get a cup of coffee or go shopping together. They can talk to their pastor about the things in their lives that have been uniquely important to them as women--wondering if they will ever find a husband, finding their identity as single women, redefining their identity as Mrs. ___, having children, raising children, doing the bulk of the household chores, planning meals, running a household. 

(I don't want to dismiss the role of men in these aspects of life, but this is where a lot of women live. I wrote a blog here about the centrality of the mundane in women's lives around the world.) 

These big and small concerns that consume their thoughts a good amount of the time are shared by their pastor. 

With a female pastor, the other half gets a chance now to be friends with their pastor.

2. Women's work is God's work. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep and the goats are separated by what they did or did not do. Those deeds all fall under the category of what we would probably now call "compassionate ministry"--hospitality, visiting the sick, providing food, drink, and clothing for those in need, and visiting those in prison.

In many churches, women oversee these ministries. If someone is in the hospital, women organize meals for the family. Women prepare their houses for guests who come to visit. Women also work to make the church a hospitable place through decoration and coordinating potluck meals. Women organize clothing drives and other donation-based ministries. Different churches do more or less of these tasks and in different ways, but especially in the days when many women did not work outside the home, women's groups performed this segment of the church's work.

A hospitable table

I don't want to downplay the study of Scripture and the tasks of reading and writing in preparing a weekly sermon or the behind-the-scenes administrative tasks required of many pastors. But I fear that a disconnect has developed between the tasks traditionally done by women and the theology informing the message from the pulpit. 

I see churches today who preach hospitality but cannot coordinate a potluck with enough food for everyone to eat. Churches who advocate caring for those in need but don't have the network of communication to actually know when someone is in need. Churches who want to help those in need in their community but can't gather the manpower (or womanpower) to gather, sort and distribute resources. 

A female pastor who has participated in "woman's work" may have a greater ability to value the compassionate ministries of the church and also to let those works inform the Sunday sermon and the overall life of the church, rather than downplaying that work as "less important" and an appropriate task for "the weaker sex."

3. Women can find their voice. Two quotes:

“Paulo Freire believes that for human beings the essential decision is between speaking or remaining embedded in a culture of silence, between naming ourselves or being named by others, between remaining an object or becoming a subject. The heart of his vision is that every human being has an ontological vocation to be a subject, namely, someone who can separate from the world in his or her own consciousness, be critical of it, act on it, and transform it—in the process making the world a subject too.” – Maria Harris 

"Accustomed to hearing the preacher speak to them and about them, women traditionally have not been encouraged to discover that they have voices of their own and distinctive experiences to contribute to their communities." – Mary Farrell Bednarowski

 When the person at the pulpit is a woman, giving voice to the experience of women, it gives other women an opportunity to find their voice. In a world where domestic violence, human trafficking, and even income inequality disproportionately effect women, the church that gives female victims of these injustices a voice can become a powerful force for justice. A female pastor who speaks can communicate that this is a place where anyone can speak--even if they are saying something difficult or uncomfortable.

A female pastor also communicates to young women that they can expect to have a voice in their chosen profession, that they can speak to a room full of men and women--whether a sanctuary or a corporate board room.

4. The biblical world did not distinguish between working in the home and working outside the home. There is a marked distinction in our culture between those who leave their home and go to their workplace and those who do not leave their home. Working from home is becoming more and more popular, but the distinction is still very present in our cultural framework. 

Gardening can yield some great results!

Such a distinction did not exist in the biblical world. 

Men worked in the fields. They worked at trades and sold their goods or worked for others. Women did all of these things too. They worked in fields or gardens. They worked at trades. Men and women worked together to provide all the necessities of a household and to build wealth. 

The stereotypical "desperate housewife" did not exist--women who spend their days shopping and going to spas, going through her husband's income as fast as he can earn it. (Although the prophet Ezekiel might disagree with that.)

The parables of Jesus are pretty far removed from the cubicle life. 

"A sower went out to sow..."

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed..."

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast..."

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field..."

"The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into a lake..."

I recognize that I'm making sweeping generalizations here. Many women work in cubicles. Many men do not. I'm just going to borrow from the 1950s sitcom stereotypes for the sake of simplicity. When men leave in the morning, go to work, come home, put their feet up, wait for dinner, and then watch tv until bedtime, they will never experience any of these things: sowing seed, mixing yeast into dough, finding treasure in a field, catching fish. 

The tasks now seen as women's work may actually enable women to more easily identify with many of the biblical stories.

And many, many other biblical passages are far outside the realm of experience of either men or women in today's culture, but women's tendency to listen to each other's stories may enable them to more easily listen to the biblical stories. 

I don't want to say that men can't identify with the Bible, that men can't listen to the experiences of others and enter into them emotionally and spiritually, or that most men live lives like the men in a 1950s sitcom. However, as I said at the beginning, we women sell ourselves short when we don't recognize that we bring something important and unique to the table!

5. Women have spaghetti brains. I love this video where Mark Gungor describes men's brains and women's brains. In short, men's brains are like waffles. They have boxes for each category, and the boxes do not touch. Women's brains, on the other hand, are like spaghetti--everything touches. One subject leads to the next in seemingly random ways, we can go from laughing to crying and back in seconds. 

Spaghetti brain in action!

In the days when every good sermon was a three-point expository sermon with a clear, linear structure, waffle brains served all those male pastors well. But have you watched popular tv shows lately? Or music videos? They are all over the place! From one point in time to another, from one scene to another. (Check out this music video by the band Fun. as a great example of the craziness of popular media.) There is a sequence, but it's all over the place. Everything's related and connected.

I struggled at times as a seminary student because I would ask questions that my male professors thought were completely irrelevant, but in my spaghetti brain, they were connected! This kind of brain is great, though, for writing sermons. I can go from scripture text to story to music clip to literature and back to scripture because it's all connected in my head. A lot of men do that very well, too, but I think we women might be ahead, waiting for the men to catch up!

What do you think? Female pastors, have you discovered yourself in possession of traditionally female character traits that serve you well? Members of congregations with a female pastor, have you found new and different ways to interact with your pastor? And the rest of you, do you agree, disagree, want to go out and find a female pastor for yourself?

Keep Your Eyes Open

"I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars." - Og Mandino

As a pastor, I get paid to say things that are both profound and interesting every week. Of course, I have the living, active Word of God to draw from, but there is an expectation that I add some of my own words to that--some of my own interpretation, some of my experience, some of my appreciation for those God-breathed words.

Every week when I think about that expectation, I panic. Every week I think that there is no more to say. Every week I fear that this good news has ceased to be either good or news.

At first that terrified me. I had images of standing at a pulpit in front of a congregation watching them watching me. 

This actually did happen briefly one Sunday. Someone forgot to put the collection plates at the front of the church, and I stood with the microphone in my hand and waited while they were retrieved. There was no music, no one said anything. I just looked at them and they looked at me, and we all waited together. 

But that silence was short-lived.

The silence I fear is bigger than that. 

Every week I read the text for Sunday, and I begin to think about it. I think about the characters in the story. I think about God's actions. And I start to wonder how an ancient God dealing with ancient people could possibly be relevant to my life. To anyone's life.

And then I begin to descend into darkness. I get hopeless and discouraged. Does anything I do matter? Is anything I say heard?

Now, I know this isn't rational. I know that my emotions are driving me downward.

But it's where I live.

Then, a few months ago, I started reading Anne Lamott's journal of her son's first year of life, Operating Instructions.

In Anne Lamott, I found a companion in the darkness. She loved her son, of course, but there were days when she fell apart. There were days when she couldn't bear to hear him cry for one more second. There were days when she felt hopeless. 

As I read her words, I began to realize the power of looking into the darkness. It's tempting to close my eyes. It's tempting to preach joy, peace, and victory from a safe distance. It's tempting to preach words that sound good and nice and make everyone wish they could be that kind of Christian. But we all have places of darkness in our lives, and what good is a pastor whose words only make sense in the light? What good is a church that refuses to acknowledge the presence of the darkness?

I don't fear the darkness anymore because I know it comes and goes, and when it comes it is a gift. Then I can experience it and describe it so that those who hear my voice know they are not alone in their darkness. When it goes, I give thanks for the light. I give thanks for peace and joy. But I know the darkness will come back again, and I will be waiting to meet it.

I believe that one of the most powerful messages Christianity can speak to the world is that there truly is darkness. It is okay to grieve loss and pain. It is okay to ache with loneliness and heartbreak. It is okay to look at this world and feel hopeless, to feel the impossible weight of sin and death. It is okay be crucified by the powers and principalities. It is okay to feel like death buried in a tomb.

Because "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."

We need not fear the darkness because we have seen the light.

Every week, my task is to keep my eyes open, to look straight into the darkness and to discern the light always emanating upward and outward.

That is what I must speak every week. I must give voice to the darkness. I must speak words that let those walking in the valley of the shadow of death know that they do not walk alone.

And then I must allow the light to shine in that darkness. The light of the Gospel, the light of the good news, the best news.

I especially want to share this with anyone growing weary of preaching. Do not be afraid of the darkness. Look into it and share what you see. And then go looking for the light that still shines even on the darkest of nights. As pastors, this is the task before us: to keep our eyes open.

Keep your eyes open!

Needtobreathe - Keep Your Eyes Open