Alright, well, it's good to see you this afternoon. I try to
shed some light on this denominational perspective.
Church of the Nazarene, how many of you have heard of it? Know of
it? OK.
You know, we are a denomination made-up of about 5000
congregations in this Region, USA, Canada region.
Probably 100 and 6000 and 70 of those congregations right here
in Canada. So that gives you some little idea of who we are.
I just got some statistics sent to me this morning.
On the number of women.
Clergy on the district on the region.
And so I thought it was better than this.
But here we are, so on the region made-up of those 5002
congregations.
There are of 11,600 ordained elders, ordained ministers.
There are 2082 women.
18%.
District licensed personnel. That is the step prior to
ordination on the region. There are 2281 and 887 women, 39% for
a combined total of 21%.
Women in ministry. Now that's from a denomination that really
does celebrate action of a General Assembly a few years
ago.
To ordain women. And it's not that it it took that long. Well,
I suppose it did take that long to formalize it. I think what I
want to say at the outset is that even though this is a
denominational leaders perspective.
It does come at a price and the price is fought not on the
General Assembly floor where legislation is passed.
But it's fought in the local church.
Congregation by congregation, that if they're given their
choice as to who.
They would want to invite to be their their pastor will probably
still default to a male.
So that's what we need to address today now.
I was district Superintendent for 13 years on this district,
and the guy who's sorting out all the mess that I made is over
here, Pastor Steve and I. If I run into trouble with this this
here state, you're going to have to help me, OK? And then you see
it's already happened. How do I move this forward?
Back up, forward working. Hang on, now it's not working.
Change. Sorry. At least I can't get it to work.
If you would, that would be terrific. That's fine. Let's say
let's have a prayer before we start.
Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for what we've already
heard. Thank you, Lord, for the conversation that has stimulated
thought that perhaps provoked some things within us. And I
pray that long after the event is over that your spirit would
continue to speak to us and that you would continue to talk to us
so that we can be part of a combined effort to bring people
who you've already called into the mainstream.
Of ministry. And we ask that you would guide our thoughts today
and give you glory and praise for all things. Amen.
It's not an easy topic, even even though, even though we
might think in some areas it is.
November 2014 BBC article written by name by Trevor
Timpson.
He asked a question, what did Saint Paul say about women? And
one of his opening lines in that commentary was this can two
sides in a debate, both composed of sincere and intelligent
people, look at precisely the same set of evidence and reach
precisely opposite verdicts? The answer to that is yes, of
course.
Because that not only, not, not only happens in the area that
we're dealing with today, that is the role of women in ministry
and and how we can make it actually happen. And we as a
collective, we, it's not the males who need to make it
happen, it's all of us who need to make it happen.
The presentation hopefully will examine the apparent disconnect
between what we say we believe regarding women in ministry and
the actual desire of a congregation to call. I would
rather use the word invite. It's God who calls, it's
congregations who invite. And that is not always a distinction
that is clearly made in fact.
I didn't always make that distinction. But in preparing
for this event today, I I I was confronted by the need to make
that distinction. Because there are a number of women who have
been called by God and they are still sitting on the sidelines
because they haven't been invited into the work of the one
who called them. And surely that's got to be a conundrum.
Surely that's got to be something that.
We need to at least tackle.
And so there are maybe three ways to approach this, at least
from my perspective. And that is looking at Scripture, which
Trump's everything in it is what guides our thinking, looking at
the Church of the Nazarene, because that's the group that I
represent, and then the broader Wesleyan perspective and there
are probably others more efficiently equipped to deal
with the broader.
Lastly in perspective than I am, but I'll, I'll take a, I'll take
a stab at it. I grew up as a Methodist before becoming a
Nazareth back in Northern Ireland. I grew up at High
Street Methodist Church in Lurgan. So I've got a little bit
of broader history, some searching questions then for
today.
Why do we have confidence in placing children into the care
of women Sunday school teachers and have little or no confidence
calling women to pulpit?
Better.
Why do we have confidence in placing seminary students?
Into the care of wonderful women professors and little confidence
calling women diploma and Pastoral ministry.
Why do we have confidence in sending women missionaries to
all parts of the earth and little or no confidence in
inviting them into Pulpit Ministry?
What do we have to do to align our?
Holiness ethos.
With.
The almost unstable condition of pastoral ministry today. And
what? When I say unstable, I I mean within the Church of the
Nazarene. Pastor Steve could attest to this. There there is a
horizon that is rapidly moving towards us and it's called
retirement.
And with that, it has a certain reality, whatever percentage you
want to put on it in your denomination, but 50 to 60%,
perhaps 70% turnover because of that line in the sand that we
reach, it's either called retirement or death, I'm not
sure which or attrition.
And God has already raised up a people who are ready to step
into those roles. And so I I think we need to address that. I
think it's important for us not to, perhaps not even to identify
or certainly not vilify those who interpret Scripture
differently. It's not an attempt this afternoon to point the
finger at those who.
Have strongly held convictions. That would be the perhaps exact
opposite of ours. It is an attempt, though, to get
Scripture right.
And then to live with it.
And the bar interpretation of what we live with is wrong.
We'll plead forgiveness at the mercy seat. And if we're right,
we will not celebrate that over those who've got it wrong. So
let me just let me just use that as our MO for this afternoon.
Let's look at Scripture.
Also, Paul is a confusing figure to me. I I I'm not sure if he's
the first one I want to talk to when I get to heaven.
Trusting I will and trusting he's there.
I don't. I don't think he's the first one. I want to talk to you
because he just confuses me to know that, you know, you can
look at all of the Pauline expressions about what happens
and what he feels should be the order of the day for the church.
You can look at First Corinthians, you know, where he
reminds us in Chapter 11, verse three. And I certainly don't
want to go through all of these. I would invite you to read them
for yourself. I want you to realize that.
The head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is
mine, and the head of Christ is God. So we'll just let that
settle for a moment. But then go to chapter 14 in first
Corinthians 33 to 35 and here these words, and you know them,
and you probably read them before you came to this this
event.
For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace. As in
all the congregations of the Saints, women should remain
silent in the churches. They're not allowed to speak, but they
have to be in submission. As the law says, if they want to
inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at
home. For it's downright disgraceful that he didn't say
downright I just put that in there is it's disgraceful for a
woman to speak in the church.
That the word of God originate with you, or are you the only
people it has reached? If anybody thinks he is a prophet
or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am
writing to you is the Lord's command. If he ignores this, he
himself will be ignored.
And then on over in his letter to Timothy. There's a sort of an
underscoring of that sentiment. First Timothy Chapter 2,
beginning at verse 9.
I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer without
anger and disputing. I also want women to dress modestly with
decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls
or expensive clothes, but with good deeds appropriate for women
who profess to worship God.
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I
do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man.
She just must be silent. For Adam was formed first that Eve.
And Adam was not the one deceived, it was the woman who
was deceived and became a Sinner. But women will be saved
through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and
holiness with propriety.
Now I'd like to think that anybody reading Scripture.
Should start with a problem with it.
But it's not enough to just jump in and embrace it and say that's
all there is there. There needs to be some inquiry.
There needs to be the opportunity to look at it and
say, well, OK, women will be saved through childbearing, but
does that mean if a woman can't bear a child, she's not safe?
So you don't want to take a line of a scripture out of context,
nor do you want to take a scripture out of context,
because that is not the Wesleyan way to simply look at one
scripture and then build a theology on it. That's not what
we do.
We build our theology on the collection of scriptures, which
doesn't make this any easier because Paul's letter to the
Corinthians, the one I cited, and his words to Timothy, the
one I just read.
Are a devolution of thought if you look at the chronological
order of the letters of Paul.
Because when he wrote his letter to the Galatians, that was
either the second or in some camps. The third piece of
writing attributed to Paul, what I just read to you came after
that. And what did he say to the Galatians? Wouldn't it be great
if we were able to say, would it be great if we're able to say
that this was an evolution of his thoughts?
Excuse me? No, it's not Galatians 328. Here's what he
said at the beginning.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor
free, male or female, where you were all one in Christ Jesus. If
you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham, seed and heirs
according to the promise.
Now with the chronological order, I wish this would have
come at the very end because then it would have been easier
for us to say, well, that was Paul in the early days of his
ministry, not unlike all of us when we've preached sermons that
we wish we had. And you look at them 20 years later and you say,
I need to do that one over again.
But no. He had presented a banner statement about equality
with God at the very beginning of his writing.
Namely, to the Galatians.
So I wish I could stand here and give you a definitive answer
with regard to his fairly judgmental comments.
In Corinthians and Timothy, I could tell you what you already
know, that it was probably a specific case that there was
probably problems with women at the Corinthian Church and
therefore he was just narrowing down on this one area. You
already know that you already done your research on that,
otherwise you wouldn't be attending the symposium.
So the bad news, slash maybe even good news is I've known you
like to share on this for you. Except one big massive?
But the light that I would check on, it is not a light that comes
from Paul. Now don't put me into the Paul or Jesus cap because
I'll always come out with Jesus.
But I think you know what I mean.
We look at the collective words of scripture, we look at what
Paul said at times, and then the general. This is my
understanding going into these specific cases.
And then we read what happened to the apostle Paul when he set
out on his journeys.
And he began to meet all of the people that we are debating
today in Romans 16. One I commend to you our sister
Phoebe, a servant, interpreted Deacon of the church in Cancun
area.
I ask you to receive her in the Lord. Listen in a way that's
worthy of the Saints.
Receive her and the Lord in a way that's worthy of the Saints
and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been
a great help to me.
And the ministry.
Well.
Now, a lot of what, in fact, nearly all of what I'm sharing
today is from somebody else. This is just a compilation of
thoughts from people who have researched this. And in his book
Slavery, Sabbath, War, and women, Willard Swartley cites
Don Williams, who had written a book entitled The Apostle Paul
and Women in the church as follows verbatim.
Paul here in his Galatians address.
It's now declaring that the barriers due to race, social
status and sex have been broken down.
Paul takes a radical step beyond the old order. Redemption does
not merely restore God's intention and creation.
Redemption brings into being a whole new world, a whole new
order. Male dominance, egotism, patriarchal power, and
preferential priority is at an end. No longer can Genesis 2 and
three.
Be employed to reduce women to an inferior position or state if
redemption is real.
If redemption is real, the warfare between the sexes is
over. At the same time, female seduction, manipulation, and
domineering is also over, for you are all one in Christ Jesus
now.
Well, I read the words of the apostle Paul to the Galatians
it, and the commentary on that from Swartley who cites
Williams. It makes perfect sense to me how the apostle Paul could
then involved in his understanding and his treatment
of those great women of the church, or let's just say great
people of the church who are women.
Because we don't want to create, while we're on the defence for
women, the great people of great leaders of the church who are
women cited over and over and over again trying to move as
quickly through this as I I can. So scripture, Paul. Scripture.
Jesus.
John 427 the disciples returned and were surprised to see him
talking with a woman. You you know that story. Leaving the
water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the
people, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could
this be the Christ? They came out of the time and made their
way toward him. The woman of Samaria.
One of the early missionaries of the church dispatched by the
Lord of the church.
Hard to argue with that use.
Of a story in our gospels. Look Chapter 8, verses one to three.
After this Jesus traveled about from 1 town and village to
another proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. The
12 were with him and also.
Some women who have been cured of evil spirits and diseases,
and then he goes on to actually name those women. Then you have
the Easter story. You have the week prior to the crucifixion
and then the resurrection. It's interesting preaching on Easter
Sunday. You know, you, you know the stories and you know the
story of of Mary discovering that the stone is rolled away
and you have Peter.
And John running to the tub and and and one stops at the door or
the other one goes right in. There's there's nothing to see
here. It's an empty tube. And then the narrative says those
two, Peter and John went home.
They went all but the woman. She went back and told the rest of
the disciples everything that she had seen. Well, their
scripture, now Church of the Nazarene, our own people, we
have a very, very strong statement on what we believe
about the theology of ministry, but also the theology of women
in ministry. The Church of the Nazarene supports the right of
women.
To use their God-given spiritual gifts within the church and
affirms the historic right of women to be elected and
appointed to places of leadership within the Church of
the Nazarene, including the offices of Elder and Deacon.
There are a number of scriptural references in that manual
statement.
One of them being this from the Old Testament in the last days
God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons
and daughters will prophecy, your sons and daughters will
prophecy. Your young men will see visions and your old men
will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women. I
will pour out my spirit in those days and they.
Will prophecy.
You know, there's, there's there's little argument against
our position, the denominational leaders perspective on what we
believe about women in ministry and women in ordained ministry
and licensed ministry.
It hasn't always been that way. We have a category of ministry
called Deaconess.
In fact, it might even still be individual. I'm not sure, but
Deacon has seemed to refer always to the female of the
species, that that's where you should go and served, and LED
enough boards of ministry to be able to just slot people who
didn't quite fit the Deacon role. And they were usually
female into the deaconess role, because at least we had that
provision.
That's gone, or at least it's not used in the same way that it
was used before, because now Open Access to ordination for
women in the church. Even though I gave you those statistics at
the beginning of the session, I wish those numbers were a lot
higher, but I can't say that on the district that the province
of Ontario, Canada, Central District.
A high proportion of our churches are either LED or
staffed.
By women lead pastors and I I just, I just think that is
tremendous. I I wish I didn't even have to say that. I wish I
didn't have to say that, but for the purposes of being here.
We do have to say now there's a lot of things that that are
here, but I really like to get into some of back and forth and
I'll go back to to some of these. So we've got Scripture,
we've got the Nazarene position, which is clear. I will say this
that at that General Assembly where implementing legislation
was passed, there's a big difference between what 1500
delegates do at a General Assembly and the grassroots.
Movement, the grassroots of the church, when you do have female
candidates with all, all of the qualities of the male candidate
and, you know, by and large there's still a lot of lay
people, still a lot of people in the local church who could care
less about the implementing legislation of a General
Assembly would never come out. Say it, but they will say it by
their actions and therefore our task.
Is to be the foot soldiers, if you like, to to educate our
local contexts of ministry as as to what we really know or what
the scripture says and about what our denomination says. So
this is not, well, Scripture says this, but our church says
this. No, they're not happy with either. Some people they're not
happy with either. And that's, you know, part of what we do. So
Methodist history, if you like, or the broader.
Spectrum. And there's a lot more than just Nazarene and
Methodist. I get it. I understand that. But it is
interesting to me that John Wesley himself struggled for a
long time with women ministers. In fact, in that struggle, he he
dared to not dare he, he walked a fine line.
He would never say that he changed his mind with regard to
women preachers and and and that but he would prefer to call them
women speakers. There was it was funny and the research that that
that I did. And again I lean heavily on this John C English
and a paper called Dear Sister John Wesley and the women of
Early Methodism. He used the term sister again and again.
He really did want to emphasize that women had as much a role in
the church as men. They could teach classes. It would be
better if the classes were primarily made-up of women. We
could then just pop the woman, teach that. But there were
occasions whenever he got surprised, as we heard about
that, I think in a session this morning where large numbers of
people showed up to hear the woman leader, but in 18th
century England.
Siblings were not equals.
And that's the context of the Ministry of Wesley, that not
all. Like the Middle Eastern context, siblings were not
equals. Males always had the role ranked above the females.
The brothers were better than the sisters as far as the line
of authority in in in the household.
So what's the who's dealing with this? Because in ministry you
deal with households. In ministry you deal with people
where they are. And so he had to deal with it. And as I read
through some of the research, it was interesting that in a step
with Sarah Crosby, we heard about her. I'm not sure what
session it was this morning, but we heard.
She said to be the first woman preacher in Methodism, but
Wesley didn't describe her that way for for a long time and
maybe if ever I I'd have to research that more.
In 1761, Mrs. Crosby was inspired to address a crowd of
200 persons in Derbyshire. I'm reading verbatim.
Then she thought herself to secure Wesley's authorization
for this irregular step, and Wesley allowed Sarah to testify
concerning her religious experience and to read to the
congregation and to comment on a sermon or a passage from his own
notes.
That was as far as he was prepared to let it go. Then in
1769, he went a little further. He permitted same Sarah to
exhort the congregation, but he warned her to keep as far away
from preaching as you can by not taking a text, by not speaking
in a just a continuing discourse, but to have a break
every now and again, so so that it couldn't be seen as a
servant. He went further.
Still in 1771.
He allowed her to use a scripture passage on the basis
of her address, but he still wouldn't want to call it
preaching.
He called it speaking.
Now, I'm not here to blame Paul.
Certainly not here to blame Jesus. I'm not here to blame
Wesley. I'm not here to blame those churches or anybody. I'm
here to be enlightened myself.
And to wonder what is going on in our world because.
As we move into the future that's coming at us, we'll not
only be dealing with the male female divide.
We're going to be dealing with more complex issues, and that's
for another symposium. Perhaps there's a couple of realities or
four of them concluding thoughts.
The realities are acknowledge that there will always be
opposing positions on this issue. Just acknowledge it #2
don't expect implemented legislation to be actually
implemented #3. The trench work is always dangerous. Always.
It's lonely, it's contentious. And #4 everybody has an opinion,
whether you want to hear it or not, whether we want it or not.
Everybody has an opinion. Those are the realities. What are the
responsibilities 1?
Live out your belief or your conviction on this issue or on
any issue with grace and mercy.
#2 don't become an agenda driven campaigner.
The woman's side.
That will isolate your cause quicker than anything else.
Will. Don't become a campaigner, placard carrier.
But speak the truth and love.
#3 allow God, the one who has called you, to make a way where
there seems to be no way.
And #4 be patient.
Allow room for people to evolve.
A lot of room for people to come to the party with an
understanding and an open mind to the possibility that oht why,
yes, a woman could actually be my shepherd.
True.
My prayer.
What is your prayer?
At the conclusion of all of this, and you may not be ready
to write it out now.
But based on what you can actually do to change the
climate?
To turn the direction of where we're going, which could
actually be nowhere if we don't get this right.
What would your prayer be before God? What would you present to
him every day as you desire to see people come to understand
what I think we have already embraced? And if you're here
today and you haven't embraced it, well, then you will deal
with that reality too.
I I need to acknowledge the sources because this material,
like in many cases, there's not belong to us. Dear sister by
John English.
John Wesley and women, the Christian History Institute, the
ordination of women to ministry in the Church of the Nazarene,
Paul Bassett, the role of women within Methodism, the John
Rylands Research Institute at the University of Manchester.
Slavery, Sabbath, Warren women, William Swartley and women in
Ministry of Biblical and pastoral position. Paper adopted
by the International Pentecostal Holiness Church Council.
Bishops.