It’s October. It’s 11.30am on a Sunday morning, straight after our service, and I’m about to stand up in our congregational meeting and recommend that we employ a Women’s Minister next year. People are shuffling in and looking at the papers. I have a last-minute look myself. I look at our financials for this year: tight. I have a look at our budget for next year: bigger and even tighter than this year’s, largely because of what I’m about to suggest. I think about our church’s past, which is 60 years long and rich, but which has never included a paid staff member dedicated just to ministry to the women of our church. And I think about the question we’re all here to answer—‘Why employ a women’s ministry worker?’—and I remind myself of what I’ve become convinced of in the last 18 months. What do I wobble up to my feet and say? Take a seat at the back and I’ll tell you.
So Why A Women’s Worker?
Because Loads of Lay Women Who Need Training and Encouragement …
Basically, it comes down to this: we have loads of lay women involved in ministry at church, who need all the training and encouragement they can get, and our current leadership team can’t give it to them. We all know that ministry happens best when leaders are freed up to equip the rest of God’s people to do the works of service God has gifted them to do (Eph 4:11-13). The way we currently train and equip people at our church is through small groups, one to one discipleship, and dedicated training courses (as well as the general training we all get when we sit under God’s word and serve among his people on Sunday morning). All of these are good things. But we find the most effective way of equipping people at CRCK is one to one discipleship. There is something about getting two people together, opening a Bible, talking and praying through it and seeing how the gospel shapes each other’s life that brings people on in leaps and bounds in their Christian life. This is doubly so when helping leaders: they spend so much time in ‘outputting’ in their life that the intensive ‘input’ of a one to one relationship is priceless.
Although men can train and equip the women in our church, they can’t do it one-to-one … they need trained, godly women to help them.
… By Women
But here’s the thing: although men can train and equip the women in our church from up the front on a Sunday, in a small group and in a training course, they can’t do it one-to-one. It’s just not proper. And as a result, our women—many of whom are our key ministry leaders, particularly in the area of evangelism —aren’t being given the same training and support as the men are. So, they need trained, godly women to help them in this area. That is, they need the kind of female-to-female mentoring Paul urges the church in Crete to invest in in Titus 2:3-5 ‘Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.’ Leave aside for one moment all the stuff about being busy at home and submissive, etc. The main point is that women are to mentor each other and that Titus, the church’s pastor, is to encourage this sort of female leadership. In our context, one of the best ways to do that is to invest in a Women’s Minister.
Questions and Answers
- ‘Why do we need to pay someone to do this? Why can’t lay women just teach other lay women?’
Of course, this can and does happen at our church, and we’re grateful for the efforts of laywomen in this area. It’s just that, in Australia in 2015 (at least in our corner of it), almost no combination of lay-women have the time needed to equip and train all our female leaders. Many of them now work outside the home as well as help raise kids, run a household, etc., and so as a result don’t have the kind of disposable time women had even twenty years ago. As a result, ministry training-wise, demand has simply outstripped supply. Moreover, we think it sends a great message to hire a dedicated woman for this area: we don’t blink an eyelid when hiring and paying men to disciple and train us, so why should we do so with women?
- ‘Doesn’t employing a Women’s Minister undermine the good work already being done by our female volunteers? Isn’t this telling them their work isn’t good enough?’
It certainly does and certainly is if the main aim of the Women’s Minister is to do all the ministry our female volunteers currently do. But that’s not why we’re hiring her. Rather, we’re hiring a Women’s Minister to train all the laywomen who are currently already working so hard and so well, but many of whom are also beginning to run dry for lack of formal support. In that sense, far from undermining the value of female lay ministry, hiring a Women’s Minister celebrates it: we so value the ministry of our laywomen that we want to give them all the training and support we can—just as we do for our lay men. No football team ever gets accused of not caring for its players because they’re bringing on another coach. Quite the contrary: it’s a sign it cares for its players deeply, particularly if the coach is also pulling on the boots each week and running out onto the ground with the rest of the team. So, too, with a Women’s Minister.
- ‘If we’re going to hire a Women’s Minister, isn’t it more important that she be skilled at pastoral care and counselling, rather than training? Women at church have so many needs, that would seem a better use of our resources.’
Of course, it’s important that all ministry staff—male and female—be good at pastoral care and counselling to some extent. Ministry staff are not just coaches but also players, and sometimes that means being able to bend down and help another player up when they’ve fallen. But it is crucial that all ministers—men and women—not make ‘problem solving’ their focus. It will make people happy, but not necessarily mature. Rather, they need to focus on equipping people in the gospel, and trusting that this will be the best thing in the long run for helping them with their issues. That is, we still pastor them, but on the front foot, not the back. To do otherwise is to do people a disservice, to treat them as a bundle of ‘problems’ which need ‘fixing’ rather than as capable servants with gifts to share and work to do. For that reason, our Women’s Minister will do some counselling, but only as a small part of her job. At least, that’s the plan.
- There are some other questions from the floor, but they are more or less all other variations on these themes. The time comes for the vote. How does it go?
The good news for CRCK is: in favour, by a firm majority! People see the need for the position and are excited about the prospect of bringing a woman on paid staff, and I advertise the job the next day. For the canny among you, you may have detected something of a ‘pitch’ for the job in this article itself. But the reason is just this: as a whole church, we came to see the value a Women’s Minister could bring to our church and to the gospel in our part of the world.
Could they do the same for you?
