Overcoming Obstacles to Women in Ministry - part 4

Today I conclude the four weeks of blog entries from the Charisma magazine article “Overcoming the Obstacles to Women in Ministry.” If you have not read the previous three entries, I hope you will go back and do that before you read these concluding thoughts.  My prayer is that as I transparently share my own experiences, I can be an encouragement to you to continue to press on in your own God-given assignments, despite the obstacles you have faced.   Mothers of Nations, I send many blessings to each of you!

# 7 The big accusation word: control. None of us wants to be labeled as controlling or as a Jezebel. In the secular world, control is simply the leadership required to run a company, mange a household or keep things in order. But when applied to the work of God’s kingdom, the devil makes accusations of control. He tempts people to distrust leaders, especially when that leader is female. This hinders the development of God’s work.

How did I overcome this accusation? I evaluated my actions, studied scriptural truth, sought godly input and settled in my heart that I was not controlling. As long as we follow the Lord diligently, stay teachable, repent of ungodly ways and listen to His voice, we will remain pure in our motives. Revelation of who we are in Him conquers every intimidating force. 

# 8 The fear of rejection. Often I have been passed by at a fellowship table and have not been recognized as a minister. I have attended pastors’ meetings with my women associates, and no one would talk to us or even recognize our presence. If I took my husband or a male associate, then other male pastors might engage in conversation with me since I was with a man.

I have found the secular world does a much better job relating and communicating between the sexes than the church world does. We talk love, but we just do not know how to exercise it well with co-laborers of the other sex in God’s kingdom.

As I look back over my years of ministry, many things have happened to challenge my character, calling and heart before God. Each obstacle has helped me mature as a woman minister. In the process God has taken my basic feminine lamb-like nature and equipped me to also be a lion. I have discovered that operating in both mercy and might requires the furnace of affliction, His power to overcome, His Word to reveal truth and His love to forgive.

God’s will fulfilled in my life is more important to me than being ignored, ridiculed or used as a token. I have found peace with my Lord and Maker and do not need to defend myself, prove myself or do anything other than obey my Father’s will. God fights for me. I believe there is greater merit in forgetting those things which are behind and pressing forward toward the mark of a higher calling, rising above all obstacles to accomplish the full purpose of God in my life. 

So what does the future hold for women in ministry? Here’s what I see:

• A great army of women arising on the scene
• More women discovering their God-given potentials and receiving divine calls
• Men awakening to the gifts of women and encouraging their development to advance the Lord’s work
• A new vocabulary emerging in the church to incorporate women into ministry with a shunning of old terminology that identifies women as harlots, deceptive and lesser
• Many female-led ministries developing in foreign countries and operating with tremendous favor, authority and power
• More female pastors successfully leading churches and being welcomed into both their communities and denominations
• Women apostles developing networks of female ministers
• Male pastors encouraging their spouses alongside them in team ministry

Remember when God called Abraham in Genesis 17 to father the nations? In that very same chapter He also called Sarah to mother the nations. God said that out of them the leaders would come – out of the cooperation of the two.

I also see a strong evil force coming against all of these advancements. But even though the enemy will try to prevent the further release of women for the Lord’s work, the plan of God will not be stopped. God is in the business of setting captives free.

For the female, her set time has come. This is a new day and a time of new beginnings for women in ministry.  Mothers of Nations, go forth!

Dr. Sharon Predovich