ex good christian women
well-behaved women won’t change the church
* most all of you have already read this post. it was part of ed cyzewski’s women in ministry series and got a lot of love. there are some really great comments over there. i had so much fun writing it and had no idea it would strike such a chord. it’s so encouraging! i am just posting it here now for my blog archives. here’s to all kinds of mis-behaving…
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Years ago, if you looked up the definition of “Christian Good Girl”, I swear my picture would be right next to it. I was so good at being good! I knew how to keep the peace. I knew how to give people what they want. I know how to put my needs last. I knew how to say all the right things at the right time to sound really spiritual. I knew how to be nice.
Although I was not raised in a Christian home, when I turned my life over to Christ and joined his team, I found that all of the people-pleasing, peace-making, good-girl skills I had learned as a child of an alcoholic raised in chaos worked perfectly in the spiritual realm as well.
I earned all kinds of praise in the churches I was in for my good-girl-ness. Kathy’s so nice. Kathy’s such a team player. Kathy’s so easy to get along with.
None of these things were hard for me to do. They were like reflexes, a natural and immediate instinct to assess the situation, and then adjust to keep the peace and maintain whatever status quo needed to be maintained.
Over the years, though, as I started to do some personal healing work and begin to look at the unhealthy patterns in my life, something profound began to shift. I started to tell the truth about my own story. I started to not worry so much about what people thought. I started to advocate for others who couldn’t use their voices yet. I started to disagree. I started to use my voice and stir the pot about change in the church.
I started to worry more about pleasing God than pleasing man.
And guess what happened? Leaders didn’t like it. They liked me a lot better when I was following the rules, playing the good-girl game. A weird and subversive shift occurred when I started showing up more honestly, more passionately as a leader. The best words I can use to describe it are: “painful silence.”
In my situation, the painful silence lead to me losing a pastoral ministry job that I loved. The reality was that I was just not “good” enough, submissive enough, to be part of that system anymore. Honestly, if I could have switched back to the Good-Girl fast enough, I might have been able to save my job. Temporarily.
But I was too far gone. My soul and passion had started to come alive and I couldn’t turn back.
As difficult as that season was for me personally, professionally, and spiritually, I am so grateful for it because I learned the most important lesson of my life as a leader:
Well-behaved women won’t change the church.
We just won’t.
Well-behaved women will keep the wheels spinning on systems that keep working, keep growing, keep moving. We will do good and honorable work that matters and helps people and makes a difference in their communities.
But we won’t change the church.
Some people think the church doesn’t need changing; they’re fine with the way things are because it works for them. But I think there a lot more of us out here than even we ourselves know–passionate women who believe the body of Christ needs much more than a face-lift to become all it’s meant to be.
Yeah, well-behaved women will not change the church.
Instead, change in the church will come from not-so-well-behaved women who are willing to risk their pride, reputations, and “being liked” to stand for what God is stirring up in their hearts.
Change in the church will come when women who are called to lead, lead, even when others don’t think they can or should.
Change in the church will come when women refuse to squelch their gifts and begin to unleash them without asking for permission first.
Change in the church will come when women passionately follow Jesus, not systems-made-in-his-name-that-do-not-reflect-his-image.
Change in the church will come when women bravely use their voices, power, and any influence they have to inspire others to be brave, too.
I admit, it’s still sometimes hard for me to not be the good-girl. I miss the safety. I miss the praise. I miss the security, even if it was false. Some days I wish I could make nice like I used to because it was so much easier then.
But the Kingdom of God was never about easy. It was never about comfort. It was never about maintaining the status-quo. It was never about playing nice.
The Kingdom of God Jesus called us to participate in creating–here, now–isn’t well-behaved.
That’s reason enough for us not to be, either.
Read Morewell-behaved women won’t change the church
today i have a post up at ed cyzewski’s blog as part of his women in ministry series. it’s called well-behaved women won’t change the church. it was so fun to write this one!
here’s a little excerpt:
Well-behaved women won’t change the church.
We just won’t.
Well-behaved women will keep the wheels spinning on systems that keep working, keep growing, keep moving. We will do good and honorable work that matters and helps people and makes a difference in our communities.
But we won’t change the church.
Some people think the church doesn’t need changing; they’re fine with the way things are because it works for them. But I think there a lot more of us out here than even we ourselves know–passionate women who believe the body of Christ needs much more than a face-lift to become all it’s meant to be.
i hope you’ll go over there to read the entire post & you can share any thoughts there or here.
you can read the other posts in the series here:
also, thank you, everyone, for all of the honesty & hope & stories from this past week through comments & emails & conversations. i look forward to next week, too. if you’re new here or just catching up, the four posts this week centered on rebuilding after deconstructing faith are:
- intro – rebuilding after deconstruction
- 1. honoring the process
- 2. acknowledging losses
- 3. discovering what remains
have a great weekend. much peace & hope, kathy
Read Morereplacing the “f” word with the “d” word (no, not those ones!)
* this post is part of the monthly synchroblog, different bloggers writing on the same topic. this month’s topic is around gender equality, an issue near and dear to my heart. check out the link list at the bottom of this post to read the other posts (i’ll add more as they come in).
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“i have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” – martin luther king, jr.
feminist is a dirty word in a lot of Christian circles. it has come to be associated with anger and reverse sexism and all kinds of other things that were never the idea. i personally don’t mind being called a Christian feminist because it goes with the territory; i am a passionate advocate for the liberation of women and am grateful for those who have gone before us and will go after us to pave the way for greater equality. at the same time, i’m not crazy about the word.
like the word “church” and “pastor” and a lot of other loaded words, i think we need to try to reclaim them or at least come up with some better ones that describe what we mean without such negative connotations. for me, i am not a feminist for the sake of women’s power.
rather, i am for dignity-restoring-in-all-the-places-where-it-has-been-lost.
when people are thought of as less-than, no matter what shape, size, color, gender, or experience, their dignity is stripped. period.
when 1/2 the population of the world is generally thought as less-than and inferior somehow, we’re in some pretty big trouble.
i don’t feel a strong call to promote the “f” word of “feminism”.
but i do feel a deep & burning passion to promote the “d” word–”dignity”- for all people.
we are all made in the image of God and have inherent worth because of it. many complementarians will agree, saying that men & women are “equal in value but different in role” but i believe they miss the point and underestimate how powerful the “under another” theology creates a propensity to oppress, silence, limit, and reduce.
it strips us of our dignity.
women are seen as less-than in most cultures. they were in Jesus’ time, too.
but he, God in the flesh, embodied something radically important–restoration of the dignity of not only women but anyone who was thought of as less-than.
still, the church of Jesus Christ, which should be the free-est, most radically inclusive, least-oppressive, safest space in town has tossed out a lot of what he modeled and went on to perpetuate inequality toward women in the same old ways. we’ve used a few scripture verses and an already-deeply-grooved-against-women-cultural-system to perpetuate oppression instead of follow Jesus’ example of restoring dignity & setting people free–like really free.
i do not want to see women empowered so that they can then power up on others & create the same kinds of inequality we already have, only in reverse. that would not be reflective of the kingdom of God, which is what God has called us to participate in creating.
rather, i want to see women set free to step into who they were created to be without man-made limitations that strip their dignity so that the reality of God can be reflected in all God’s children, here & now. when that original image of God is uncovered, unburied, fanned into flame, all kinds of beautiful things emerge.
men’s dignity will be restored, too.
the systems we have perpetuated haven’t only robbed women of their worth. they’ve robbed men of theirs, too. they’ve reduced them to stereotypical roles that they can’t live up to. they’ve put men in a place of wielding power that they didn’t even necessarily want. the systems have limited the possibilities of finding equal, strong partners.
dignity restoration is contagious.
over time, the divides that usually separate us can be crossed.
over time, families, neighborhoods, cities, organizations, nations will be changed.
over time, beside each other together as equals, we can more freely reflect the image of God in every relationship and system we are in.
to me, there’s nothing more beautiful than dignity-restored.
yeah, i don’t think we need more Feminists.
i think we need more Dignity-restorers.
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other bloggers writing on this topic:
- Marta Layton – The War on Terror and the War on Women
- Ellen Haroutunian – All About Eve
- Jeremy Myers – Women Must Lead the Church
- Words Half Heard – Rethinking Hupotasso
- Wendy McCaig – Letting Junia Fly: Releasing the Called
- Jeanette Altes – On Being Female
- Melody Hanson – Call Me Crazy, But I Talk To Jesus Too
- Glenn Hager – Walked Into A Bar
- Steve Hayes – St. Christina of Persi
- Leah Sophia – March Syncroblog-All About Eve
- Michelle Morr Krabill – Why I Love Being a Woman
- Liz Dyer – The Problem Is Not That I See Sexism Everywhere…
- Sonja Andrews – International Women’s Day
- Sonnie Swenston-Forbes – The Women
10 reasons why i’m an advocate for women’s liberation
yesterday was international women’s day. and like usual, i’m always a little late to the party. some people think i’m a broken record when it comes to women’s equality. i’m glad. i want to use my voice & hands & feet in any small ways i can to shift the tides of inequality & injustice that strip the dignity of women.
here’s why i’m pro-woman, pro-equality, pro-liberation-of-half-the-population:
1. i think Jesus was. every interaction Jesus had with women was to set them free and lift their burdens of bondage. and he said we were supposed to be like him. i don’t know why the church built on his name has done the exact opposite; it still baffles me.
2. women’s wisdom will make the world better. it’s said that the same way of thinking that got us into our problems can’t get us out. it’s time for some new minds & hearts to get in the mix so that more creative, peaceful, collaborative solutions can be considered in our families, cities, churches, ministries, and organizations.
3. it’s good for men, too. i don’t want things to shift to women on top & men beneath them, either. i’m pro-equality. our freedom is tied up together. when we learn how to be equals, alongside one another as partners, brothers & sisters, teammates, and friends, it reflects God’s image in all kinds of beautiful ways.
4. the church should be the leader of restoring dignity and equality, instead of dragging along behind. so i may not be able to change the whole big church but i can play my part in cultivating equality & freedom in our little one.
5. others need us to fight for their freedom. many can’t fight. we have liberties others don’t. our freedom is all tangled up together. if we stay stuck, others stay stuck. if we get free, we can participate in setting others free, too.
6. i have to look in my daughter’s eyes. i have a responsibility to do whatever i can to make sure she has every opportunity she deserves inside & outside of the church. i can’t tolerate someone telling her she is less because of her gender.
7. i have to look in my 4 son’s eyes. they deserve equal partners who will show up, and participate in relationship instead of remain silenced and diminished. they also deserve to be set free of the bondage of male stereotypes that limit and damage.
7. yeah, the next generation needs us. we can’t leave them hanging. we have to keep paving the way, like the brave men & women before us, to make their path less & less bumpy.
8. when we are silent, we stand on the side of the oppressor. it’s easier to play nice. it’s easier to follow the status quo. it’s easier to stick with the crowd and keep supporting churches & the media & systems that strip dignity and freedom. but when we do, we condone inequality and align with oppression.
9. we must be the change we want to see. i can’t sit around waiting for the church to change. the kingdom isn’t going to drop out of the sky. God uses people to change the world.
10. freedom isn’t just a bigger cage. liberation means full freedom in Christ, not just lesser-oppression.
happy international women’s day, one day late.
may we keep playing our part in liberation.
what about you? what motivates you to keep advocating for freedom?
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i’ve got a couple of posts up this week at other sites that are more of this same song:
- down we go: practicing equality at sheloves magazine
- justice: what love looks like in public, part of christine sine’s 2012 lent series.
you is smart. you is kind. you is important.
yesterday was oscar night; i was traveling so didn’t get to enjoy the party but always play my part in seeing as many of the movies as i can. so many of you have probably read the help or at least seen the movie. a friend reminded me of one of my favorite lines from it this week, the words of the black nanny telling the little girl she cared for: “you is smart. you is kind. you is important.”
sadly, this little girl also received a powerful message from others in the her life that she wasn’t any of those three things. her mother was caught up in christian activities, putting on a good face, and keeping up with the jones’. passing on love & encouragement & acceptance weren’t her mother’s strong suits, and the nanny did whatever she could to make up for this lack.
when we’re honest, many people don’t feel smart, kind, or important.
many people don’t feel really secure.
many people don’t feel really loved.
sure, most can articulate “yeah, yeah, i know God loves me” but feeling and experiencing God’s love remains elusive.
we’re afraid to believe in ourselves. we’re afraid of our passion. we’re afraid of our gifts. we’re afraid of goodness.
we are much more comfortable and familiar with our badness. our lack. our always-falling-short-ness. our so-not-okay-with-who-we-are-ness.
my theory is that a lot of our faith experiences haven’t helped us with security; rather, they have sometimes increased our insecurity. the messages passed on to many of us through our families, relationships, and some of our church experiences are more like:
“you’re somehow not enough.”
“you’re a wretch.”
“you are missing the mark.”
“if only you were more like or had faith like ____ or ______.”
“if you could just do A and B and C, then X, Y, or Z will magically be yours”
“you’re not supposed to want anything good for yourself, because that’s selfish”
in these moments, there are some that would say i am soft on sin and dismiss our depravity. they don’t know me very well. i am well aware of our human tendencies toward doing-all-kinds-of-stupid-things-that-mess-with-our-freedom. i am well aware how much i need God, even though i don’t really want to. i am well aware that i am a flawed human being in desperate need of Grace.
but i am not only a broken, jacked-up sinner. i am also a whole, fully-loved-just-as-i-am saint. God’s beloved child.
and i think God’s children are supposed to feel smart, kind, and important. not so that we can be haughty or prideful, but so that we can be free and secure, holy and dearly loved, shining Christ’s light instead of letting it remained buried & hidden.
if we are reflections of God, what are we reflecting?
it’s said that the world will know us by our love. is that what the world sees when they intersect with us? do they see freedom? do they see hope? do they see security? do they see belovedness? do they see gentleness? do they see kindness? do they see passion? do they see something that they are drawn to?
i often don’t think so. in so many ways, i think what the world sees is angry, mean, insecure, and harsh. because that’s how many of us feel toward ourselves.
Jesus calls us to love others as we love ourselves. that’s probably a big piece of the current-state-of-the-church’s problem. how can we love others when we hate ourselves?
this is one of my deepest passions when it comes to cultivating a redemptive dignity-restoring faith community–that we could participate in helping each other shift from feeling insecure to feeling secure. from feeling imprisoned to feeling free. from feeling unloved & unworthy to feeling loved & valued. from feeling stuck to feeling empowered. from feeling dumb to feeling smart. from feeling useless to feeling important.
the other day i was with a friend who shared, “i’m starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, i really am loved….i’m liking myself for the first time in my life.” for me, one story like that will sustain me all year!
only God can do this work. it is a wild & beautiful movement of the Holy Spirit. but i also believe it flows most directly through people. God’s love will remain elusive unless we have tangible examples of it here. now. on earth. in our real lives. in our real experiences.
we need to not just tell each other the truth (that’s easy and a lot of churches are good at that).
we need to start showing each other the truth.
that we are loved. important. valuable. worthy.
that we have stories to live and songs to sing.
to get there, we must ask God to break through all of those crazy messages life & the church has passed on to us, to help us see more clearly our worth, our value, the possibilities that exist before us despite the obstacles. this lent, that’s what i hope we could know more deeply:
you is smart. you is kind. you is important.
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plant new trees.
“then God said, “let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.” – genesis 1:26, NLT
this past week i saw a flurry of facebook posts about john piper’s latest words about masculine christianity. i am pretty out of the blog-reading circuit because there are only so many hours in the day and mine are jam packed with people & kids & more kids & more people. at the same time, i love that challenging conversations are happening and social media is a powerful tool to raise awareness.
i did not listen to john piper’s presentation or link to the blog post. i don’t have the stomach or time for it, but i got the cliff notes version from rachel’s blog. i like her idea of helping people consider other views of God that aren’t specifically masculine. i have no trouble with God being masculine. the trouble i have is assuming God is primarily masculine because Jesus was a guy and chose 12 male disciples and then building entire systems upon that thought, utterly dismissing a whole other half of God’s image and essence. along with that half, i am certain we’re missing a whole lot of other things about God that we have been afraid to explore because the systems & churches we have been part of have kept God so contained.
john piper makes caricatured roles for men and women, over-simplifying the image of God placed in each of us. this denies not only women of their fullness, but men as well.
whether we want to admit it or not, piper’s theology is deeply embedded into most of standard evangelical christianity. it just is. men do certain things and women do other certain things. if each sex would just step into “God’s intention for them” (“appropriate” social roles), everything will work just fine and everyone will be “free.”
when God created humans, God made us in in the fullness of God’s image. not half, not part. yes, we are unique and different, and that’s why we need each other to more accurately reflect the fullness of God’s image. the body of Christ is a reflection of God. if that’s the case, then why is half missing, devalued, and thought of as less somehow?
change in “the church” is coming. a holy stirring is happening and many people are starting to call it for what it is–oppression, sexism, and a fear-based theology that perpetuates injustice. however, it has become so innate that merely trying to shake it out of our system isn’t going to cut it. we’re not a few awesome blog posts away from changing these deeply grooved systems of injustice.
when considering change, there are two natural reactions to it that we think of first:
1. prune off what’s not working. if we can prune some of these injustices out of “the church”, we’ll be okay. this is the idea of changing systems by making some adjustments here and there that will shift things. raise awareness, start to think differently about it, help leaders become more sensitive to issues of equality, influence change from within.
2. raze the ground completely. knock it all down. it’s flawed, it doesn’t work, it harms people. the whole thing is so jacked up that we just need to walk away from it entirely.
i feel strongly that alone, #1 just won’t work. i’m not saying that some systems can’t be changed from within but i think it’s a pretty brutal road and will require leaders who are willing to shrink their churches & ministries, pay some serious emotional, spiritual, and financial costs, and lose all kinds of things they are used to gaining. honestly, that’s not super likely on a wide scale. human nature & self protection will strongly work against such courage. pruning also dismisses the magnitude of the problem. we’re talking about deeply grooved systems of injustice that go back to the beginning. the root system is strong; a little tweaking isn’t going to bring full equality for anyone.
i also believe that blowing the whole thing up isn’t really an option. it works for some people. they believe in certain scriptural interpretations & hold dearly to their tenets. i may disagree, but i don’t think that means there aren’t valuable things that happen for people through their churches and so scrapping the whole thing isn’t really fair or respectful.
i think there’s a much better option:
plant new trees.
trees that have the roots of equality from the very beginning.
trees that gain nourishment from a free-er gospel and soil that is enriched with freedom and hope instead of fear and absolute certainty.
trees that have men and women and rich and poor and educated and uneducated and black and white and gay and straight all tangled up together from the beginning.
trees that are tended to gently and naturally instead of pumped with unnatural growth agents & pesticides that try to advance the progression of development to “catch up faster” to other churches that will always have the advantage of time and power on their side.
trees that get their strength from the beatitudes not the latest and greatest how-to-grow books and conferences.
trees that are well-watered by people who are tired of talk and are ready for action.
trees that over time will flourish and bring shade and fruit and all kinds of other goodness for generations to come in the communities & cultures where they are planted.
a diverse ecosystem of trees that more accurately reflect the fullness of God’s image.
these trees can be all kinds of shapes and sizes–individual relationships, groups, churches, ministries, organizations–little pockets of love & freedom cropping up all over that influence people and model a better way, a free-er way, an equal way, a more “oh, that’s what Jesus looks like” way.
yeah, pruning won’t cut it. razing isn’t an option. let’s get planting. i have a feeling some of you are really good gardeners.
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here are a few other links i wanted to highlight:
many of you have probably read it, but if you haven’t check out rachel held evans’ post this week: they were right (and wrong) about the slippery slope. i slipped off the slope a long time ago and sometimes tell those that wonder, “yeah, i completely slipped off the slope and somehow found the most solid ground i’ve ever stood on.”
our walking wounded online class starts monday february 6th. registrations are possible until then, so if you or someone you know want to be part, you can sign up at that link. it’s going to be good! i also am not sure when we’re planning on running it again so now’s the right time if you’re on the fence.
i wrote a little post for provoketive magazine last month that i forgot to share called stories that matter.
lastly, i posted this on facebook & it made some pretty good rounds, but if you missed it, here’s the trailer from my awesome friend pam hogeweide’s new book, just released at the end of january–unladylike: resisting the injustice of inequality in the church:
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