Get Ready!

At a multi-generation women’s conference in Alaska where I was about to speak, an older woman leaned over and whispered in the ear of the young girl sitting next to her, “Get ready!”

The young girl’s eyes widened. “Why? Where are we going?”

The reply? “To the edge of your chair!”

No one ever whispered those words in my ear, but several years ago, quite unexpectedly I found myself on the edge of my chair too. I was listening to an academic lecture on the Old Testament Book of Ruth. The need for a warning, in both cases, was warranted—not to brace us for a nail-biting cliffhanger, but to alert us that what we were about to hear would forever change how we view ourselves and our mission in this world. We were about to be called into the big story God is weaving, in a bigger way than we ever imagined.

For generations the church has tended to look at the women in the Bible through the wrong end of the telescope. Guided by the assumption that God does his most important kingdom work through men, we’ve seen women’s lives in a diminished perspective and, as a result, our own lives have appeared smaller too.

I never will forget the day someone turned the telescope around for me. Seeing the lives of women in Scripture in true perspective not only enriched my understanding of God’s purposes for them, it raised the bar for what God calling on my life and heightened my expectations of what he might do through me.

Believe me; I was on the edge of my chair!

Perhaps the shock effect of this on me wouldn’t have been as great, if I’d been hearing about great women leaders like Deborah, Esther, or Priscilla. I was hardly prepared to hear bold leadership attributed to the Ruth the Moabitess! Isn’t Naomi’s devoted daughter-in-law supposed to be the icon of female submissiveness? Yet suddenly, I’m hearing leading Old Testament scholars describe her as a gutsy risk taker, the initiator of the story’s action, the re-interpreter of Mosaic Law, and the clear leader in the story.

Boaz is the responder. He listens to her proposals, is stunned by her sacrificial love for Naomi, and follows her lead by putting his full weight behind her righteous cause.

And here’s the kicker. God works through Ruth not only to rescue Naomi’s family, but also to advance His purposes for the world, for the line Ruth fights valiantly to save ultimately leads to Jesus.

This turned things upside down for me. The implications were earthshaking. In a single hour, both the young girl in Alaska and I saw our lives go from black and white to Technicolor as we were awakened to God’s calling on our lives, our responsibility to live boldly for him, and what is at stake if we don’t. It was just the tip of the iceberg.

Since that jaw-dropping moment, I’ve been immersed in researching the Bible’s message for women and am regularly on the edge of my chair. I’m stunned by the potency of their lives (and by implication also of mine) and dumbfounded that I didn’t see it before.

At Synergy, we are giving women this bigger, truer perspective on their lives—rooted in the ancient teachings of Scripture but carrying a 21st Century relevance that leaves modern feminism in the dust. We’re probing deeper into what it means to be God’s image bearer—how that intensifies our need for a deeper relationship with God and injects all sorts of significance into our lives, no matter how others may view us. We’re exploring what it means to be ezer-warriors for God’s purposes and seeking ways to forge a Blessed Alliance with our brothers.

I want every woman to be on the edge of her chair over her part in God’s story. God has big plans for his daughters, and at Synergy we are no longer thinking small. He created both his son and his daughters to be major participants—kingdom builders together—in the grand story he is weaving. This message is for every woman, no matter where you land on the debate about women’s roles in ministry.

I hope you’ll join us at Synergy2010, and if you do, don’t be surprised if the person next to you leans over and whispers, “Get ready!”

What Not to Wear--Part 2

I closed the book after the fourth chapter. I hugged my knees to my chest, rested my chin on my knees, and let out a long, heavy sigh. I sat, conflicted, on the oversized chair in our living room while my husband was upstairs asleep, my emotions fluctuating, oddly, between compassion and rage. If the battle really was ‘every man’s,’ then my husband was no exception, which, I concluded, left me with only two options. One (compassion): kneel—weeping—next to his bedside and beg God to deliver him from the temptations of a lust-provoking world; or two (rage): pick up the baseball bat (we keep one next to our bed) and start swinging. (Don’t worry. God was genius in his design of the human body to heal).

I’m kidding, of course, but this is the pendulum on which I swing when it comes to men, women, lust, and modesty—compassion for male hard-wiring that requires frustratingly painful diligence, and irritation that the latter is true. I share Tracey Bianchi’s conviction (part 1) that both sides have a part to play in working towards the common good. Men to do, well, whatever it is men do to keep their thought lives pure, and women to not carry ourselves in a way that leads a pastor to confess his roving eyes to an applause-filled congregation. As a leader who strives to build up the body, I take my choices about what to wear seriously.

But I have to tell you, recently I was forced to pick up my modesty box and shake it, flip it, and bang it against the wall a few times. The jolt came in an email from a woman who had seen me speak to a mixed-gender crowd. Here’s what she said:

You need to look uglier when you speak.

I stared—shell shocked—at the words on my screen, reading the phrasing slowly and deliberately, over and over, each time trying on a different lens.

Look uglier. (Maturity Lens) Okay. Truth in love, I can handle this.

Look uglier. (Humility Lens) I’m certainly not exempt from making mistakes.

Look uglier. (Self-Awareness Lens) What did I wear?

I tried, I really did, but ultimately, I landed on the only lens that really felt like it fit. This one:

Look uglier. (Indignant Lens) What in the world is that supposed to mean?

Oh, the tailspin that ensued.

Would anyone tell a man to look less attractive? Would you tell a man to not iron his shirt? Not wear a color that made his eyes look blue? Not wear pants that made his gut look smaller? Not shave or put gel in his hair?

No! Why, then, would someone tell a woman to look uglier? And what does that even mean?

After the initial swell of emotion dissipated, after long discussions with both sides, and after conceding that, like it or not, the double standard is reality (and, actually, for good reason), here are the real questions with which I was left, not as a woman who wants to issue a rally cry for fairness, but as one who desires to pursue righteousness by valuing others more than herself.

Now before you tackle the questions, a couple of caveats. First, don’t answer in the extremes, because with extremes comes obviousness, and we’re too smart for that. Second, I’m talking about real women here—attractive, intelligent, gifted women, both internally and externally—who serve in ministries across the country every day. Okay, consider:

Does modesty mean downplaying the natural beauty with which women are created?

Does modesty mean less fashionable, less trendy, less flair?

Does modesty mean not just covering curves (skin), but showing less of them (form)?

Does modesty mean sacrificing attire that makes women feel confident because they do, in fact, look attractive?

Does modesty mean an attractive woman (see part one) cannot lead, preach or teach in a coed environment without putting men in a less-than-righteous position?

As a woman who is lousy at dying to self and who desperately wants to stop swinging her baseball bat, I’d love to hear what you think.

Control Freaky

Last spring, after I was asked to consider running for the board at my kids’ school, I prayed this: God, you know how much I’d love to do this. But I just don’t have time to be president of a school board…..

Go ahead and roll your eyes. I’m sure God did too. Because, of course, no one was asking me to be president. They were asking me to consider a nomination to be a member. Quite a different thing. And yet, I know myself well: Once I get involved in something, I get involved. I don’t like loose affiliations or peripheries. I don’t like to dip a toe; I like to dive in. I don’t want to stand by; I want to stand out. I don’t want to a part; I want to in charge. Hence, my prayer.

For the longest time I credited this drive to be the one to set agendas and cast visions to my leadership gifts, but this ridiculous prayer opened my eyes to something else that goes on in my “gifted” brain. And it’s nothing short of a control freak tendency.

I never realized that’s what it was because, honestly, I’m not a control freak in most areas of my life. I don’t micro-manage my kids. Or my husband. Or my home. I don’t try to run my friends’ lives. I don’t hassle my neighbors. I don’t butt into everyone else’s business.

The problem is with my own business.

Specifically (and ironically, I guess) I get most control freaky in those circumstances to which God has called me. I sense I’m not alone here. In fact, I know many leaders who are like me. Who believe that because we have in the past been called to lead or to be in charge and because we may hold some gifts to lead well, that being in charge (or in control) is something God will always expect from us. Or, to put more honestly: that we begin to expect that God wants us to be top-banana in everything he asks us to do.

But I’m realizing more and more that God often calls leaders (or specifically, me) to simply be in the show—not run it—and to lend a voice—not be the voice. When I prayed about not having time to be president of the board, I sensed God say through his merciful smirk, You don’t need to be. God was calling me to participate by bringing certain experiences to a certain place at a certain time. And to cool my personal ambition jets. So I did.

As I sat in my first board meeting earlier this summer, I looked across room at where the president of the board sat and then scanned the huge square of tables around which 21 of us sat. I felt peaceful and happy—totally grateful to be able to be a part of an amazing team of fellow leaders and to be able to offer what I could without the need to run anything. I’m hoping it doesn’t end up making me the laziest board member in history.

But it feels great to be free of my control freak—at least in this situation. Assuming, however, that I’m not alone in this, I’d love to hear about your experience with this. How do you balance a God-given desire to lead with our more human desire to control?

Fame's Folly

According to many in the media, last weekend is being dubbed the “weekend of outbursts.” An athlete, a lawmaker, and a musician—three distinct persons in the public eye—lost their cool. Each one of them felt injustice inflicted on themselves or another. And they made their feelings known … to everyone.

Being in the public eye might have some perks, but the heat of scrutiny is not something I desire. When I have a meltdown—as we all do from time to time—it’s in the privacy of my own home. Nobody cares, except maybe my husband. But I do enjoy the freedom to have human moments and not feel the backlash of an entire nation wagging their tongues the next morning.

Why do these outbursts surprise us? When did we start assuming that celebrities are on a higher moral plane than the rest of us and won’t make petty mistakes?

I’m certainly not excusing the actions of any of these three persons; they each—in these moments—acted inappropriately and childishly. However, I believe many in our culture have a distorted view of fame, one that equates celebrity with integrity. We think, Surely if they’re famous, they’ve done something to earn our admiration. But if someone can act or sing or is an incredible athlete, does that really mean they walk with integrity?

In many ways, our society is led by celebrities: they guide our fashion choices, our topics of discussion, and—scarily enough—even our values. They have a dominant voice in the media, in the lives of our children, and in our own decisions.

It is important to remember, however, that celebrities are not leaders. Granted, they have usually done something great in their field, and sometimes they deserve respect by the lives they lead. True leaders, though, should not be marked by fame but by integrity in their lives, faith, families, churches, work, giving, and guidance.

The book of Proverbs is rich with wisdom about integrity, the tongue, and fame:

A worthless person, a wicked man,
goes about with crooked speech.

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,
but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.

Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity
than a rich man who is crooked in his ways
(Proverbs 6:12, 10:9, 28:6, ESV).

Integrity in Christian leadership means walking upright, allowing Christ to straighten those parts of us that are crooked and askew. It involves sacrifice and risk. It involves humility to admit when we make mistakes, which we—like the three people mentioned—will inevitably make.

We admire great leaders like Mother Teresa and Billy Graham because they didn’t start out seeking fame. They started out seeking first the kingdom (Matthew 6:33). Most godly leaders will never—and probably should never—achieve fame, but they will seek and find something far greater: a life rooted in Christ and his church, a life worth following.

So, I’d love to hear from you:

What was your reaction to last weekend’s trio of outbursts? Do these meltdowns say anything about civility in our culture? Why do you think our society is so fixated on celebrities and their mistakes? What does true integrity in leadership mean to you?

Our Own Worst Enemy?

When I think of female rivalry, that is, rivalry between women, I think of Cinderella and her step-sisters. I think of the rivalry between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. I think of the escapades of the women on Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives. What I’ve rarely considered in recent years is how female rivalry impacts my growth and development as a woman leader.

In 1990, Carolyn Heilbrun, a Jewish American, wrote a provocative book entitled Reinventing Womanhood. In this book, she claimed that the number one reason women failed to achieve in leadership positions was not because men kept barring their way to progress in achievement, but rather because of the failure of women to bond. For Heilbrun, a few women inevitably rose to positions of power and leadership, but because of the failure of women to bond, these women became not woman leaders, but rather honorary men.

Susan Shapiro Barash, in her book, Tripping the Prom Queen, takes the issue a little deeper. According to Barash, the world is still a patriarchal culture, and this fact sets the stage for female rivalry—because women feel that they have to constantly compete with one another for limited and scarce resources such as leadership positions.

Competition between females is nothing new, and it is strung throughout the biblical text, from Sarah and Hagar to Rachel and Leah. If Heilbrun and Barash are right, then the question becomes: are we our own worst enemy when it comes to striving to become better leaders? Until now, most of our attention has been focused on how men hold us back from leadership positions because men, in most cases are the gatekeepers. That is, they have the say on whether or not a woman is welcomed into a leadership position in the church. But have we looked long enough at what women do to each other? Have we been honest about how women in our churches and in our workplaces treat one another—either outright or subversively?

While I don’t completely agree with Heilbrun and Barash, and I think that their assessment of female rivalry is a little overblown, their research makes me pause to wonder what we can do to improve the relationships among woman so that women leaders feel more supported and encouraged by her female friends and counterparts.

And so I am curious, lady leaders, to hear your experiences. Have you felt supported and encouraged by other women as you seek leadership positions, or have you felt the sting of female rivalry when you achieved a great accomplishment?

The Motivation Behind Your Ministry

“I don’t want to gain the whole world and lose my soul,” sang Toby Mac, Kirk Franklin and Mandisa from my boom box as I spent a week in the basement de-cluttering. His rap’s lyrics are a call to Christ followers to stay faithfully focused in our culture’s temptation to slowly defect. But goofy me, I had misheard the lyrics as, “I don’t want to change the whole world and lose my soul.” I perked up. My auditory failure turned out to be one more “ah-ha” in my recently awakened desire toward ministry leadership wholeness.

I tend toward being a 24/7 idea machine. I often feel desperate to connect others to church/world injustices. And I sort of half believe the phrase, “I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara I could save the world” (from curlygirldesign.com). But my tendencies were causing dis-ease, boundary-less focus and acid-reflux. And I painfully discovered my successes were feeding the needy areas of my heart.

Paula D’Arcy’s months-long illness led her to ponder her successful speaking and writing ministry in Gift of the Red Bird, “I made a lot of assumptions. All the events, invitations and coincidences catapulted me onto certain roads, and I went along with them. It was Christian ministry, so of course it was good. I never asked the question, but is it right for me? Is it right at this time? Right at this pace? It never occurred to me that simply because a deed or mission was good in nature, and because it was put before me, it didn’t necessarily mean that I was the one to fulfill it, even if I had the talents to do so.”

Consider questioning the motivations behind your ministry work and pace, any neediness that might drive your desire for success and begin to risk asking God “What next?”

'Lord, Save Me From Myself'

As a child I often felt driven not only to succeed, but also to be noticed by my parents and my peers. I wanted others to see me as good enough, worthy and outstanding. As I grew older and became a Christian these drives didn’t disappear. They became christianized. I wanted to show my Heavenly Father that he should be glad he saved me, and that his grace was not poured on me in vain.

Sincerity was not the issue. Rather, self-consciousness and self-focus were. This bothered me because my sin and pride were tightly woven throughout. Once the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to this attitude, I wanted God to control this area of my life. So I prayed and read God’s Word for answers, but was still left with many questions.

Some Scriptures said to focus my ministry and my life on God and God alone. I agreed with those Scriptures. I pursued God and gave him the credit when he used me. Phrases such as, “It wasn’t me; it was Christ working through me,” and “Praise God, praise God” became frequent mantras. Sometimes, however, they sounded pious and insincere. Some people felt awkward when I used those phrases. I began to feel the same.

Over time I focused so much on glorifying Christ that I became irritated with the people I was called to serve. I wanted to flee my earthly responsibilities to be alone with God more and to seek his face. I felt my heart was in agreement with Peter, James and John when they were on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. I wanted to camp out here. I soon realized I was out of balance.

I then decided I’d become passionate for the lost and hurting. I so dramatically changed my focus to help others that over time, I burned out. I became emotionally and physically depleted as I tried to meet the needs of my family and our growing church. At that point I didn’t know that it was okay to have margins, to let some needs go unmet, or to say no very often. I thought if a need arose, I was supposed to meet it.

After some recovery time, reevaluation, prayer and Bible study, I began to get a healthy balance. Although sometimes I felt confused and defeated, I was determined. I wanted the right balance between seeking God’s glory and having a heart to serve others. Since I am easily distracted, I needed something concrete to focus on.

The Lord then gave me an idea that helped me focus and balance my life. Maybe it will help you if you struggle in this area.

Initially it was necessary to focus my mind and heart on loving the Lord and loving others. Then I sensed the Holy Spirit show me that when I met someone I would look them in the eye and think, “Knowing Christ is the most important thing in my life. How can I help you know him better?” This helped me focus on both the Lord and the other person. It got my eyes off myself and prepared me so that God could use me in that person’s life. This was vastly different from how things were before. Formerly I’d be overly concerned with myself during each social encounter. What does this person think about me? That became my focus. I would come away from an encounter with a person and remember little about her other than what she looked like. As a committed Christian this was unacceptable.

This shift takes persistent practice. With time and determination, however, even if I don’t repeat these words internally, my heart and my mind subconsciously respond. This practice has helped free me from habitual self-focus and has given me a healthier balance between loving God and serving others that I desired.

Kyria: Chosen Women, Called to Influence

When a friend asked me recently what I knew about a certain ministry for children (that shall remain nameless), I sent back a scathing email about how much I hated it as a child. How ostracized I’d felt and how un-Jesus-y I found the whole thing to be, in hindsight. About five minutes later, however, I sent her back another email, apologizing. Because I realized after sending it that in my very cynical and strange walk of faith as a child, I never found a ministry that fit me—that ministered to who I was and what I liked to do. So, I told her, she probably she should ask someone else.

Fast forward to my life as a grown up: my view of many church ministries hasn’t changed much, frankly. I still find myself not fitting in to most places, I still feel like the misfit, and I still feel like I’m the only woman in the world who does not like crafts (though I know I’m not, since we’ve talked about this on this blog plenty before!). But it’s not only been in church ministries that I’ve felt this. So often, I’ve looked at the publications for Christian women and wondered who on earth they were for. What kind of woman reads (or watches) this? I’d ask.

Though every so often, something amazing happens: I come a resource that makes me say (to quote my 2-year-old), “Now we’re talkin’!” Which is what I thought when I first heard about GFL’s new sister site, KYRIA.

As Ginger Kolbaba, KYRIA’s founding editor, told me the things the site would include—a monthly digizine centered around topics that required some grappling and were intended to start conversations; a blog that addressed hot topics and reviewed products and did all things a blog should do; and articles throughout the site written by some of the best and brightest minds on topics ranging from practical tips to reflective essays—my heart started beating a bit faster.

Because KYRIA is for women who care about the world around them, for women who feel called by God to change the world they care about, for women like me and you. KYRIA gets its name from a word in the original language of the Bible. In Greek it means “honored woman.” The epistle of 2 John, for instance, is addressed to one such “kyria,” translated there as “chosen lady.” They chose this name because, just like the biblical KYRIA, it conveys something about the place of women in the life and ministry of the body of Christ, his church. We are chosen, called, and gifted for ministry.

So head on over and welcome our new sister site Kyria.com. Let us know what you think!

Following Fearlessly When the Stakes Are Raised

Last month, after my husband declared his candidacy for State Rep, a man from church pulled me aside to ask if I was worried about how this would affect our family. “What with the dirt-digging on you guys and all,” he said.

When I said no and “rested" my case by asking him if he even knew the name of our current rep’s wife or kids (he didn’t even know the name of our current rep!), I meant it. I was not worried. Of all the things that stressed me about an impending campaign, an invasion of family privacy was not on the list.

For one reason: I expose my family for a living, essentially. Whether in my books (the one that’s out there or the one that’s coming), my blogs, magazine articles, or when I’m out speaking to women, I share my messy life (which includes my messy family) as openly and honestly as I can. While this is not to say I share every last juicy detail or share every private moment, I do try to drag as many skeletons out of the closet as possible. It’s the only thing I know to kill off those otherwise powerful skeletons. It’s the way I feel called to live. And it’s the way I feel called to lead as I encourage others to do the same.

And that’s been fine—great actually—for the kind of leadership I’ve experienced thus far. But this man’s question raised a new question for me: Would this type of “tell all” leadership always be appropriate? How would I know when to stop or pull back?

Because of this, that man’s question has stayed with me. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more worried I’ve become. One night as I reread a blog post I had written a while ago that was particularly rant-y and in which I seem particularly angry, I thought, Oh, this won’t be good….

And I started wondering what else I’ve written or said that might be taken out of context (or even within context) that could make me a “political liability.” I realized that if the campaign did get to that dirty awful place where opponents wanted to go digging for dirt, in my “ministry” I’ve essentially passed around our dirt for all the world to see. Pretty scary.

But before these worries got to full-blown fear, I stopped, took deep breaths, and prayed my go to prayer: “Help!” Almost immediately, I sensed a familiar Breeze waft through my panicky brain: Don’t be afraid.

The thing I love about that Breeze blowing around is that it also clears the cobwebs muck everything up. Because after that, I saw clearer. My husband and I—in our wildly different endeavors—commit ourselves as best we can to follow God’s call for our lives. I believe God’s called me to write and speak—often really raw honest and potentially embarrassing stuff. And my husband believes God’s called him to run this race—and to be as honest and honorable as he can. Thankfully, we also believe this about this other. And we seek to support and encourage each other where we can.

But still, questions remain. We may know where we’re called and what we’re to do, but at times it becomes increasingly difficult. Like the stakes have been raised. Maybe the plot has thickened.

So I feel like I need help: How do you follow God fearlessly during these “raised” and “thickened” seasons when it seems there is so much to fear?