interesting discussions

I had a few interesting discussions with new people today and last weekend. A few things surprised me:

1. More than half of them came directly from another church. That strikes me as very unusual. Most of these meetings historically seemed to be full of people who never knew Christ or have not been connected to a church in many years. So this seemed very different.

Importantly, they said that they felt called to Freedom Valley, which matters a whole lot to me. Of course there were also a few who said that "so far" I have not disappointed them with my preaching. (Warning: there is always next week!)

2. Several people brought up "women in ministry" as something they wanted to know more about. They were fascinated by Pastor Linda, and Pastor Jenn, as well as other leaders. Several said they have been heavily taught about how wrong it is to have women in Pastoral Ministry, and that they were willing to explore it, but had not been exposed to it before.

Several others were refreshed to see women in ministry, and had a totally opposite view.

I have not thought about this stuff in awhile. Of course I was raised in a church where it was taught that women should never lead, never Pastor, and all that. But it has been many years since I seriously re-thought this thing. I must say that I am far more content with the hermeneutics of our current stance "in Christ there is neither male nor female", than in the fancy foot work it took to make submission and orderliness in worship mean that women cannot hold certain offices in church leadership. I think our stance is far more consistent with all of scripture, and consistent with the nature and character of God as revealed throughout every context of the word.

The "women must be held to the traditional version of submission" group seems to be more reactive to the current societal problems of divorce, thinking that we can return to a lower divorce rate by enforcing an older version of the role of women. But I cannot see their logic, nor can we know that they are right about how they view history (was marriage better then?), nor can it be demonstrated that there is less divorce in those church cultures!

Nevertheless, it is interesting that at the core of their arguments seems to be a cultural thing, rather than an attempt to accurately reflect the Word of God. And it is just simply difficult to press their view into scripture, it seems to me.