Boys to Men

It seems that the question of women in leadership roles in the church has died down. Individual denominations and/or churches have figured out where they stand on the issue and it’s rarely brought up. For example, in my church a woman can certainly be a deacon, but not an elder. This isn’t the actual rule, it’s just what the church is comfortable with. Last night I was reminded how far we are from being on the same page on this issue.

We are trying to start a small group for unmarried young adults. A couple with kids in that age range is heading it up. They were discussing who would “lead” the group, and the woman deferred to her husband saying she didn’t feel women should lead men. I respect that, you know what you are comfortable with, you know what you believe, and you act accordingly. But what got me and what continues to confuse me is this notion that women can lead boys/teenagers but not young adult men, or old adult men.  I firmly disagree with this idea the church has adapted.

First, other than referencing parents teaching children I find no support for the idea that a woman is allowed to teach children and not adults. Second, it just doesn’t make sense. What’s the magic number when a male is no longer considered a “boy” and is considered a “man”. Why does it make a difference if a woman is teaching other women but not men?

1 Corinthians 14:34 is often used as an example of Paul writing about women not teaching. It states women are to be silent in church. Not that women are to be silent when men are present but not when it’s only women. Not that women are allowed to be heard when it is only other women and boys present. It states women are to be silent in church. Period. 1 Timothy 2 is also commonly used and states that women are to learn in silence and to not have authority over a man. It doesn’t say that a woman is allowed to teach children, nor do I find it to be implied as children have nothing to do with this passage. Ephesians 5 is popularly cited as why a woman is to submit to her husband in all things. Good, great. That doesn’t really have anything to do with women teaching in the church, and even if we say that it is more evidence why women should not teach men it also does not in anyway seem to suggest that women can’t teach men but can teach children.

Now, I am firmly in the camp that says women can be leaders in the church. I believe it is biblical for a woman to be a senior pastor, a youth director, a sunday School teacher, a small group leader, an elder, a deacon, whatever. This may color my ability to truly understand this child/adult split. But what is your biblical basis? Do you think women can teach boys because this is not expressly forbidden? Do you think women can teach boys because they give birth to them? Do you think women can teach boys because it doesn’t really matter because when they grow up the men will correct all the wrong teachings? WHAT is the biblical basis for this view?

Before I became a youth director I decided I needed to know exactly what I believe about women in the church. One of the things I realized right away is that it is impossible for me to reconcile this idea that a woman can teach a teenage boy but not a 30 year old man (or 60 year old man). Indeed, if women are such faulty, untrustworthy teachers, I certainly don’t think we should be allowed to teach the impressionable young boys in the church.

I’m no expert. I know what I believe, I know why I believe it, I feel I have pretty solid biblical and theological support for my position, and I have strong theological support from people much, much smarter than myself. Of course, this is true of people who don’t believe as I do. What I want to know is where did this idea that women can teach boys but not men come from? What is the biblical basis for it? Because nothing irritates me more than when I hear someone say that a woman can teach boys but not men. Not because I think I am infailably right in my position, but because from everything I have studied I don’t see where the idea that there are certain people women can teach and certain people we cannot. Either we can teach, or we can’t. But please, tell me where the biblical support is for your position. I’m tired of not understanding this position.

And if you read all that, sorry for my rantings. I’m just venting, but I really would like to know.

Forsaken

I have heard many heart breaking stories recently but two struck particularly close to home and have me asking “What can we do better?”

The cook at my dad’s work had a serious liver disease, I don’t really know what was wrong, it wasn’t from alcohol but other than that all I know is that he needed a liver transplant but for a long time he wasn’t “sick” enough to get on the list. Finally he got sick enough and a shortly after that he got a liver. The transplant went perfect- the doctors said he was the poster boy for transplants it went so well. He was home 6 days later. Less than 24 hours after that he died. He had a blood clot. The doctors said it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been in the hospital still either way they wouldn’t have been able to save him. He and his family hadn’t been to church in years and his wife made a comment like “I don’t think I want anything to do with a God that lets this happen”.

My church growing up didn’t have very “youth”. But for the first two years of high school we had a lot of kids in youth group- they were mostly kids who spent all their free time at the skating rink. They were disruptive and said things that made the few of us who had grown up in church a bit uncomfortable. But there were some who were truly seeking a relationship with God. Katie was one of them. She was a senior when I was a freshmen so the only time we talked to each other was at youth group. When she graduated she slowly fell away from the church, but not so much from God- at least not from the few times I talked to her. Amy had a baby boy about a year ago. He was born really sick and spent the first 6 months of his life in the hospital. Even when they finally got to take him home he was often in and out of the hospital and needed a lot of special care. About 2 months ago, 3 months before his first birthday he died. I heard from a mutual friend that Amy basically has turned her back on God.

Neither of these people was connected with a church community when they dealt with these things, and I doubt that a connection to a church community would change their feelings about God right now. But I want to know what we as the church can do to connect with these people before it gets to the extreme.

I wonder if we reached out to them instead of waiting for them to reach out to us if we could be a support network as they struggle with this cruel loss.

I wonder if we would be supportive as they turned away from God for a time.

I wonder if we could be a lifeline that could keep them in some way connected to God even as they struggle with these feelings of hurt and anger.

I wonder if it’s too late for the church to reach these people.

I wonder what Jesus would do.

A Bit of Crazy

He was with us for several months. The first time I saw him I freaked out. There was some old guy who looked dead sitting in a running car in the parking lot at 10:30 P.M. It was just me and another girl and we weren’t sure what to do. Neither one of us wanted to tap on the window to make sure he was okay so we just kinda ignored it. Then found a guy who was willing to go check on him. He was okay, he was just sleeping. I was still pretty creepd out by him and whenever I was at church at night, especially alone, I avoided going anywhere near his parked truck.

For a couple months- May until almost August I avoided this scary guy. And then something changed. He wasn’t allowed to drive anymore so he was stuck in our parking lot with his truck and no keys to go anywhere. A couple times a day he came in for water or the bathroom. Most of the time I would just let him in and smile and say “hi”. A few times we talked a bit more than that. He smelled awful. He was somewhat hard to understand because he was missing pretty much all of his teeth. He brought be a flower. I kill flowers. Ask anyone who knows me. So My goal was to make sure I didn’t hurt his feelings by killing this one. (It’s still alive).

After a week of casual conversation he stopped by my office and started talking about all sorts of things- ranting about the corruption in Pads, talking about his mission to start a therapy ranch, telling stories about the wonderful church experiences he’s had and the horrible ones. I wasn’t sure what to say.

Later that day he came in and was talking about his past life and angels and demons and how he can see them when they are present. I totally disregarded him at this point- not because of the angels and demons but because of his reference to his past life and why he had been brought back to earth.

The next day he was gone. He hotwired his truck and took off because he said there were too many evil spirits at our church (he called and left a voicemail).

I never told him I didn’t believe what he was saying, but I certainly doubted it. Did he sense that? Is it my fault he left? What would have happened if he had stuck around the church for a few more weeks? Would God have used our church to bring this man back to him? At the time I decided there wasn’t really anything I could do for him except give him water, listen to his ramblings, and be nice because I believed he was truly a paranoid schizophrenic. I still do. But I also realized something else.

Every prophet in the Bible would have appeared to those people as truly insane, at least some of the time. The people who were being preached to by the prophets probably weren’t always intentionally ignoring God’s word but were unable to see past the crazy person appearance of God’s messengers. How easily do we dismiss people who strike us as insane who might have a prophetic word to preach to us, even if they are truly insane? God uses anyone and I don’t doubt that he would happily use a mentally unstable person to preach to me, a person who considers my mental stability to be of great value. What other “prophets” has God sent my way only to have me shut them out for one reason or another? Do you think we are too quick to dismiss mentally ill people?

I Hate Peanuts

I’m not sure if it’s real. I don’t know that it really matters. A friend posted the link to a youtube video that shows the secrets teens posted annonymously on MySpace. It’s 8 minutes of people’s secrets. One of the secrets was “I hate peanuts”, another one was “I want to commit suicide, but don’t because of one person”, many of them were something along the lines of  “I love him, but he doesn’t know it”.  One was “I don’t believe in god anymore “.  There were far too many about cutters, suicide, and depression. A couple of them were about drinking too much. Several were about no self esteem. What I found most discouraging, and I don’t know if this is edited to only include the depressing ones or not, but out of 8 minutes of secrets maybe 1 minute were neutral to positive secrets (things like “I like him but he doesn’t know” or “I hate peanuts”). I know teenagers today are hurting. I know that if you work with or spend time around teenagers you also know this. But how do we get these “secrets” out there so they can be addressed? How can we help a teenager struggling with an eating disorder realize they don’t have to keep it a secret? How do we show the secretly gay kid that he can be honest about his sexuality? How do we reach the kid who is so hurt she doesn’t care if she lives or dies that she is loved?

As I read the secrets I couldn’t help but think about the teenagers I see every day. I wondered if any of them had shared a secret. I wondered what secrets they were keeping hidden from the world. And I realized that we need to do better. We need to be better. The world requires you to keep your secrets to yourself. When you are depressed you should hide it, if you have an eating disorder don’t let anyone know, if you had sex younger than you would have liked don’t admit it. But the church needs to be the opposite. We need to be a safe place. We have to find a way to be the place where teenagers (and adults) don’t need to wear their mask. It seems like today you walk into church and there is a mask on, everyone wants to appear spiritual and godly. I think we have embraced imperfection (at least to some extent) but in our embrace we have somehow made things worse, not better. It’s okay to mess up, admit you do, but only admit to certain things. Like not reading your Bible enough or swearing. In our acceptance of imperfection we have actually made it harder for people to be honest about their struggles. If you think the biggest struggle the guy down the row from you faces is weather or not he prays enough, you’re certainly not going to be willing to admit that you have trouble with pornography (which, while we’re at it, is probably one of those that it’s okay to have struggles with if you’re a guy and are fighting it). If you think the hardest thing for the pastor’s wife is not gossipping you are probably not going to admit that you struggle with an eating disorder.

Okay, this is getting long. But I want to know, how can I make church a safe place for youth to come and be themselves. Not the public version of themselves and definitely not the “Christianized” version of themselves. I know we can never create a perfect place where there will be no hiding of things, but how can we, how can I, create a space that let’s teenagers admit their secrets and struggles. How do we make church the place kids come for help when they have no where else to turn? Because we have the answer. We just have to know how to get it to them.

Silently Right

Would you rather argue when you know you’re wrong, or keep silent when you know you’re right?

My brother likes to argue. He will pick the tiniest most unimportant thing and start arguing about it. One time we got in an argument about the inside color of a mango. Often he will disagree with me about whatever he can find to disagree on. When I was younger this was a serious problem, because I always took the bait and it rarely ended nicely.

I think it’s pretty easy to get in an argument with someone. I doubt many people would choose to argue knowing they are wrong in their opinion, but I am sure there are people out there who would. On the other hand, it’s incredibly rare to find someone who will keep quiet when they know they are right. Most people want the correct idea or belief or whatever to be out there. Most people won’t sit idly by while the wrong conclusion wins.

But which would be easier? I think it would be much easier to argue wrongly than to be quietly right. It’s no fun being right if no one else knows you are. It’s incredibly irritating to hear people arriving at the wrong conclusion when you know they are wrong. It’s much easier to jump in. Much more satisfying as well.

Except when it comes to issues of justice. It’s so much easier to remain silently right. I’m not saying I want to argue wrongly, but I don’t like to speak up either. It’s hard to speak for others when the majority disagrees. It’s hard to want to put yourself on the line for people who don’t have a voice. But we should. I should.

Would you rather remain silent when you know you’re right or argue when you know you’ll lose?

Natural Revelation

I cannot fathom how people can not believe in some sort of higher power. Especially scientists. It seems like the overwhelming majority of scientists are, or at least pretend to be, atheist. I don’t get it. I’m no scientist, but the more I learn about the complexity of life the more convinced I am that this world we live in could not have been an accident or lucky circumstance. Sunday morning it snowed. It was gorgeous- the snow was thick and heavy and coated every single tree branch with a layer of untarnished white. The world outside my window looked like a winter wonderland. I sat staring at the limited amount of nature outside my window mesmerized by the beauty. Then, I had to go outside, and slosh through this cold, wet matter on the ground, and I got to thinking why on earth would something so cold and irritating be so beautiful?

The snow melted that afternoon as the sun came out. Monday morning with the sun shining bright I was amazed at the greenness of everything. If I had just been covered with icky cold stuff I would certainly not be bright green, I would stay ugly brown out of spite.

I’m not a nature lover, I do enjoy nature, but I’m not too likely to get out of my comfortable apartment to go strolling through unblemished nature carrying a 50 pound bag of everything I need to survive and nothing more. That said, nature convinces me there has to be a God. The complexity and beauty is beyond human ability to comprehend. The fact that necessary functions for survival can be beautiful is even more amazing to me. When I hear about the compexity of a single cell, or read about how this organism survives because of what that organism does because of what that other thing needs I am in awe. There is no way this just happened to become how things work. There is no way that the world can possibly be a lucky occurrence. Something had to have made a grand scheme, a plan to create this amazingly complex system.

I think of Pharoh when Moses was pleading for the deliverance of the Isralites from Egypt. God blinded Pharoh making it so he did not see what was so obvious- that God’s hand was at work in it all. I think this must be the case for all these people who can look at nature, be so knowledgeable when it comes to science, and yet not believe in some sort of deity creating it all. I don’t know how to get them to see what they already see so much and yet are completely blinded to.

33 Years

Francesca Batistelli has a song called “The Time Inbetween” that mentions the time Jesus spent on earth as a man. As I listened to the song I was struck by something that occassionally gets me wondering. “Why did Jesus spend so much time here?” I mean, it seems like he could just as easily have come for 15 years and done the same things- he could still have been born a baby, he would still have grown up in that home, he would still have learned the trade, and he could still have spent time ministering while here. Why 33 years? And was it really necessary that he spend all those years growing up? I mean, for 33 years he had to work at having a relationship with his Father, for 33 years he gave up perfection for something far from it. For 33 years he lived in poverty (or near to it), for 33 years he had to deal with siblings and parents who didn’t “get him”. For God the Father it would be a blink of time, but for Jesus it had to have felt like the full 33 years it was.

Why did Jesus spend so much time here? What is the significance of such a lengthy time? What does it mean for us today?

Right Worship

There is a story in Leviticus about Aaron’s sons- priests who lit the wrong kind of incense in the temple and contradicted the command God gave to the Israelites about how to worship in the Tabernacle. I think we tend to ignore this short tale because we think it only applies to the specific laws governing worship in the Tabernacle.

In her book “Stone Crossings”, L.L. Barkat explains her view on why God didn’t allow Moses to enter the promised land after he struck the rock to get water for the Israelites.  She says it is an act of grace, not punishment. That by not allowing Moses to enter the promised land, God is reminding him of who he is- a simple man, not God himself. Through this reminder Moses is able to continue to commune face to face, unveiled with God.

As I read this interpretation, the idea of worship came to mind. “Worship” as seen in church services is very much a personal, individual preference thing now. You can go to “worship” services that are contemporary worship, traditional worship, highly liturgical, or very little liturgy. You can go at 6 P.M. Saturday night, or 8 A.M. Sunday morning, or 11:30 A.M. Sunday morning. Some churches offer dance, theatre, a lot of technology, even very modern buildings. We have taken this thing that is supposed to be all about adoring and praising and loving God and made it about what WE want, what WE like, what WE feel connects with us.

I wonder what God is saying about all this. Does he look down in sadness at our pathetic “worship”? I don’t know how much God cares about HOW we worship. I doubt it’s that big of a deal to him, but I could be wrong. I think the issue for the sons of Aaron is the same issue that Moses himself faced later- they acted out of self-interest. Instead of thinking only about God as they acted, they thought, “Hey, I like the smell of this incense, let’s use this instead”, or, “the people need a hero, I can be their hero, I’ll get them water”. Today we do the same thing, “I like the more modern worship songs with drum and guitar better. God doesn’t care how I worship, so I’m going to do what I like best” or “I really feel connected when reading a call and response, so I’m going to worship in a church with a lot of that”.

Don’t misunderstand, I am not saying that one type of worship is better than another. I am simply questioning the reason behind it. We need to forget about ourselves, we need to forget about what I like, and instead ask God what he wants. I should be able to truly worship in either the most traditional high church or the most modern low church. And my personal likes and dislikes should not matter.

I wonder what we would do if God showed up and gave us a specific list of how to worship today. Would we follow it or would we end up following Nadab and Abihu seeking our own pleasure in worship?

ARGH

Q: “The Bible says that God is male. What about feminist theology, which says that God is at least partly female?”

A: “Feminist theology claims God is either both male and female or even strictly female. However, without bogging down on this point, feminist theologians also practice the following principles for building their beliefs:

-There is no such thing as special revelation. In other words, the Bible isn’t the Word of God.

-Therefore, religion is built out of the experience of men and women, not God’s Word.

- Since God doesn’t speak in His Word, people have the freedom to define reality, self and God. People get to decide who  God is.    Behind all the fancy arguments, feminists declare God is female only because they want to believe it, not because it’s true.

-According to feminism, the goal of Christianity is not to give out the forgiveness of sins, but to free women from oppression.”

(From You Ask About…Life by Tim Pauls)

I was really excited about this book because it had a lot of great questions and then I started actually reading the answers and this one totally ticked me off. In fact, I might get rid of the book now, we’ll have to see what other answers they give. It’s not that what they are saying about feminists is wrong, it’s that they are answering a question about a Christian issue with a non-Christian feminist perspective. What about all the Christian feminists who do believe in special revelation and do believe that Christianity is based on God’s word, and do believe it’s all about forgiveness of sins? I hate people who avoid answering a difficult question by skirting the issue, which is exactly what this author does. God is neither male nor female. God is God- we cannot give God any sexual identity. Both man and woman are made in God’s image. God often is described in the Bible using both masculine and feminine metaphors. So much is lost in translation, but many of the images used to describe God in Hebrew are feminine words- English doesn’t have this same differentiation that Hebrew and other languages use. When we look at the creation story in Hebrew the words used clearly show a God that is both male and female- and that the splitting of this unity in mankind came from God’s wholeness as both. Now, I wouldn’t like whatever the answer this guy gives to the question in his book, I’m sure of that. But I would accept it if he had actually offered an answer to the question instead of an ignorant response that misrepresents Christian feminists. Then again, maybe he doesn’t actually have a response since the question is in itself flawed- where does the Bible tell us God is male and only male?

A Troubling Reality

Christianity has become a way of thought not a way of life. Is this true for you? How can we shift back to Christianity being about a way of life? What damage is being done in the mean time to the “outside” world? Is it already too late?