Overcoming Obstacles to Women in Ministry - part 3
Today we continue with part three of the Charisma magazine article “Overcoming the Obstacles to Women in Ministry." I will be sharing obstacles # 5 and # 6. If you have not looked at the last two week’s of blog entries, I would encourage you to go back to the January 7 and January 14 entries for background before you move on with today’s offering.
# 5 The challenge of a unique lifestyle. The lifestyle God had specifically called me to was the fifth hurdle I had to conquer. The Lord had called me to full-time ministry, but not my husband. Bill was a businessman who loved his secular job, and I loved the kingdom’s work. The two of us did not struggle with this, but we heard and felt the opinions of others. Some said if God called the wife, He would certainly call the husband alongside. Others warned having different callings would divide our marriage. We were told God’s order was for Bill to be the head of the ministry, and I was out of order in leading. No one questions a male pastor whose wife works in the secular world. But people constantly come against a female pastor whose husband works in the business arena.
I spent the early years in our marriage supporting Bill’s occupational changes and moves. I never complained and always yielded what I was doing to follow and assist him. However, when I turned forty, God clearly spoke to me to start a church – through a vision of handwriting on a wall while I was in a Mexican restaurant. At the same time He spoke to my husband, who was in another state on business, telling him to “help Sharon start a church.” God showed Bill a “movie” of our past with me encouraging him year after year. Now it was his turn to help me.
We were both surprised at God’s command, but who were we to tell Him no? We knew this format was not the norm, but we had God’s grace for our particular lifestyle assignments. At that time I found comfort in the book of Judges, where I read about Deborah, who became a leader with her husband in a supporting role.
# 6 The challenge of my call to be a senior pastor. As we started our church in 1990, we announced I would be the senior pastor and my husband would assist me. Some leaders talked behind my back and said it would never work. Others laughed and thought I was crazy.
Amazingly, I found some of the most vocal objectors to women being pastors came from women. Once a lady approached me at a conference I was attending and asked forgiveness for judging me. Her opinion was that women could not pastor because they were too emotional. While sitting in a workshop taught by J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine and author of the book 10 Lies the Church Tells Women (Charisma House), God told her she was in error and must ask for forgiveness. I was shocked she felt that way, as she had never shown any negative behavior toward me.
Several months after I had I embarked on my senior pastor adventure, a man came into my office to say he loved the church, but he could not sit under a woman pastor. I asked him what he feared, and he became very unsettled. I felt the problem was not me as the female, but rather his acceptance of his being a man. Could I rob his manhood by being a woman in leadership over him? This was my question to him. Ultimately he decided to stay, and that man became one of our main church leaders.
A few church members made comments about the need for a man to fill the pulpit. I heard things such as, “Bill has such a pastor’s heart.” I wondered what kind of heart they thought I had! There was continual pressure to give up my position. Words have power over us, and eventually I began to entertain the suggestions. I just wanted to do God’s best. I had started the church, but I began thinking maybe someone else should continue it. I actually began to believe a man could do this better and quietly implemented a search for a replacement, little by little convincing myself God wanted a man leading our congregation.
During this time of deluded thinking, an evangelist came to our church to minister. At one service the power of God was strong and people began to prostrate themselves on the floor. Feeling the leading of the Holy Spirit, I laid down directly behind our pulpit and immediately God spoke to me. “You have not treasured the pulpit I have given you. Who are you to give it to someone else?” Instantly I realized gender was not an issue with God. Never again would I take lightly the divine purpose He had for my life.
Dr. Sharon Predovich
(Next week's blog entry will contain the final two obstacles I wrote about in the Charisma article. I will also share some of my thoughts about what I think ministry will look like in the years to come for women leaders. Please don't miss the final installment!)
