There's buzz going around these days about church planting. Al Stewart has been appointed as the Director of Evangelism ministries (in the Anglican church). He's going to focus on church planting.
Here's a quote from Al:
"I am absolutely committed to inspiring, recruiting, equipping and placing young men with a passion for church planting and reaching the lost."
Here's Michael Kellahan's take on Al's message from the recent Moore College Church Planting Conference:
"We have got to revitalise existing churches and plant more. The big middle chunk of our churches are not growing. The biggest factor is leadership. We need to support guys and get the right guys in the right places and the wrong guys out (Al Stewart soon to be ex bishop of Wollongong)"
My question is:
Where are the women in these discussions and conferences? Seems to me that half of our church is women, and that women also have gifts in leadership (even the most conservative amongst us hold that women are at least to lead and train other women.) Even for those who hold that a man should lead a church, couldn't his wife (if gifted and interested) also be actively included in the planning process?
I get a little worried that the inital planning is taking place from a very male perspective - and may lead to unbalanced, and therefore unsustainable churches.
What do you think? Does anyone else get this vibe?
5 comments:
As a male I get a bit nervous too. The type of leadership that they seem to be talking about is more geared toward the shed owning, beer swilling, ultimate-fighter watching, ripped jean wearing, tobacco chewing retrosexual than someone like me who enjoys music, gardening, cups of tea and cake baking.
Maleness will not be enough when the revolution comes. It'll be dudeness!!
OK. So Ive overplayed my hand a fair bit here. But?
I'm looking forward to the day when there are cake baking "men's events"! Or maybe you've already held one?
Seriously though, what concerns me is the unstated assumption that women are not needed in these discussions of how to do church planting. I firmly believe that the best churches are shaped by both male and female opinion. We all reflect different aspects of the image of God, and it seems best to plant new communities with ideas from both men and women.
Unstated assumptions can powerfully influence how people think, because people are less likely to question unstated assumptions. I just wanted to get that out in the open.
Donna. I totally agree with you that thebest churches are shaped by both male and female opinions. And I'm on board with your stuff about unstated opinions.
Gotta go. The Cross-stitch is calling.
Hi Donna,
Happened upon your blog accidentally while trying to go somewhere else, and felt inclined to reply to your thoughts on women and church planting. Of course, I totally agree, and found it a little shocking at first (being from a forward thinking parish in the Canberra Diocese, no such assumptions occur in our church). We are are in the middle of a church plant at the moment, and the team was about half and half I think. It's growing slowly, but growing none the less. It was simply made up of "people" who felt called to this church plant, without any specification of gender
I also like what you say about unstated assumptions and their power to influence. It also happens with things like the word "family" that gets bandied about so much at churches. I dislike this because it just assumes that "family" is a meaningful and happy association for everyone, and its not.
Donna,
Perhaps the problem lies at the very heart of the church experience itself. And the fact that; Denominational Divergence is sin.
Consider this;
Nowhere in the bible does Jesus condone religious denominations. Nor does God the Father.
Also the only authoritative figure of congregations/groups of believers was Jesus and the apostles.
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