God Will Make a Way

What are we waiting for?

There’s an idea floating around Christian women’s circles. I’m hearing it more frequently. I’ve heard it from missionary colleagues and women at church. I’ve read it in books and seen it posted in comments on blogs. It goes something like this: If God has gifted and called a woman to lead, teach, pastor, or preach then he will make a way for her to fulfill that calling.

We talk about God making a way in terms of “open doors,” as in, “God will open a door for you to preach,” and in terms of time, as in, “At the right time, God will give you the place to use your gifts.” While these sentiments are true on one level—God is absolutely powerful and capable of opening doors and placing his daughters where he wants them—on another level, they trouble me deeply. I believe they represent two faulty ways of thinking that affect many Christians—men and women—today.

The first problem with this kind of thinking: it makes what is really an issue with the system into an issue related to the individual. A woman who is called and gifted to preach or lead ,but who finds herself unable to put these gifts to use, is very likely in a situation that prevents women from preaching or leading based on principle. It could be the tradition or theology of the denomination, local church, seminary, or organization that tells her women can’t do that.

The obstacle arises because of a structure that opposes women using certain gifts in certain ways, not because of the woman herself. Yet when we repeat the “God will make a way” response, we’re reinforcing the notion that the issue is about the individual woman. The unspoken second half of the statement is this: “If God hasn’t opened that door yet, it’s because you aren’t ready or perhaps are mistaken in what you think is your call.” So she waits, and years may go by without her ever using her gifts. Meanwhile, the system that prevents women from using all their God-given gifts to build up of the Kingdom of Christ goes unquestioned.

The second troubling aspect with this line of thought: it leads to a type of Christian fatalism and takes away our responsibility to act. If God will open a door at the right time, then all we have to do, indeed all we can do, is pray and wait. Those are certainly valuable acts for believers, but are they all God expects of us? When I read the Bible and Christian history, I see a long line of believers wrestling and struggling to right injustice. I see beautiful examples of women throwing themselves into the spiritual battle for Christ’s kingdom on earth. When systemic issues regarding women changed in the past, it was usually because women and men decided to act.

For example, in the late 18th century, as the modern missionary movement got underway, sending boards refused to send single women to the mission field. Married women on the field were begging for single women to help in the work, and single women in North America were begging to go, yet the boards refused to send them. So, women from many different denominations banded together to create their own sending agencies. By 1900, more than 40 women’s sending agencies were established and the missionary work force had risen to 60 percent women, according to Dana Robert in American Women in Mission (Mercer University Press, 1997). During the first half of the 20th century all those women’s groups were gradually merged back into the main groups, and now none of those groups exists. Yet the missionary force continues to be composed of about two-thirds women, and hardly anyone today would refuse to send a single woman to serve God overseas. The change happened because the women worked together to fix a faulty system.

So what happens when we continue to tell ourselves and each other that it’s up to God to open a door for us? Can that become an excuse for passivity and disobedience to God’s call on our lives? While God absolutely can and sometimes does miraculously change things for us, can we also consider that perhaps we need to work together to change the system? Or do we need to seek a different ministry setting where women are not prevented from using their gifts?

Leanne Dzubinski has served as an evangelist and church planter in Europe, training missionaries in Bible, leadership, and ministry skills. In 2007, she received her DMin from Gordon-Conwell. As the mother of two teenage daughters, she is passionately interested in how the church and Christian organizations treat women in general and particularly women in ministry.

Hitting the Wall

What to do when you see it closing in

Every once in a while...especially in busy seasons of life or ministry, I hit the wall.

I know I’ve hit the wall when:

• I’ve reached my compliant quota. When one more complaint, question, or criticism will put me over the edge.

• Questions become personal attacks. A simple question for clarity feels like a personal attack on my judgment or character.

• The idea of being with people stresses me out.

I don’t think it’s unusual for leaders to hit the wall. Leadership is relational. Leaders are faced with many decisions, problems, and concerns. In fact, leaders typically deal with the toughest, most emotionally challenging issues within the organization. But as leaders we have to be aware when we’re about to hit this wall, and we have to take steps to put on the brakes before we crash into it.

When I see the wall closing in on me, I need to:

- Evaluate my emotional and spiritual health. Great leaders are healthy leaders. Don’t convince yourself you’re superwoman. Take time for rest and rejuvenation. And most importantly, take time with God.

- Rework my schedule. Where have I over-committed? What can I change, move, or cancel? What can I delegate to someone else? Everything on my schedule becomes open for discussion.

- Stop. When the wall is closing in on me and I’m running at a break-neck speed, I can’t think clearly enough to make good decisions. This is when I literally stop for time enough to think. Make a pit stop and regroup your thoughts. Fresh perspective often comes from a strategic pause.

- Seek counsel. Who knows you well enough to speak truthfully about your strengths and weaknesses, priorities, and dysfunctions as a leader? You need to invite their voices into your life. They just might be the emergency brake that saves you from a crash.

How do you keep yourself from hitting the wall?

Jenni Catron serves as the executive director of Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN. Her passion is to lead well and to inspire, equip, and encourage other women to do the same. That passion drove Jenni to start the women's leadership community, Cultivate Her. Jenni blogs there and at www.jennicatron.tv.

Amped Up from the Blackout

The hurricane may have knocked us off the grid, but we were far from powerless.

Hurricane Irene blustered her way up the East Coast, downing trees, toppling cars, and leaving seven million people (including our family) in the dark. We were without power for four days. I missed it desperately—my laptop, smartphone, televisions, refrigerator, hair straightener, and garbage disposal. (Yes, I missed my garbage disposal.) But now that I’m back on the grid, I also miss our blackout. Because what I saw happen without power that first post-storm Sunday morning was powerful without one amp of electricity.

Despite the blackout across our community, we decided to move forward with an “informal” worship service. With no lights, soundboards, microphones, or PowerPoint, we moved outside, dragging chairs and an upright piano onto the patio. The worship team scrambled to rearrange a simple set of songs for unplugged music—just guitars, piano, bongos, and voices. Lyrics were printed in black, block letters on a flipchart.

People came, eager to escape their darkened homes. We gathered under the morning sun, welcomed by twittering songbirds (instead of cell phones). The sky was deep blue, the air scrubbed clean from the powerful winds of the hurricane. We sang the songs we knew without a big screen feeding us every word. When a lay leader in the church stood up and said, “I’m going to do this the old fashioned way; I’m going to read from an actual Bible,” people cheered.

And when my pastors shared simple words, verses they had memorized, and words of truth about God’s love, his creation, and his ways of meeting our every need, people listened. There was no children’s program, no drama, no audio support, or announcement slides. But when my typically restrained community sang the final song, they stood together and raised their hands to the blue sky, praising God in a simple expression of worship and gratitude.

Perhaps it was the novelty of the setting, or our brush with God’s power through the wind and the rain, but I couldn’t help noticing the sacredness of the service. Stripped of the normal amenities, we were left with only the Word—and it was more than enough.

Since then we’ve returned to our large auditorium, to the directed lighting on the stage, the neat rows of chairs, the large slides. Information is easy to see and songs are easy to sing. Seats are easy to find, and the air temperature is easy to manage. Words are easy to hear.

But is this “ease” what we need in church? In our rush to stay current and speak to this culture, are we as the church experiencing too much of a good thing?

True to my generation (and those younger than me), I love technology. I tweet like it’s my job. My social media connections have led to meaningful relationships with women all over the country who lead and love ministry. Creating testimonial videos, compelling graphics, and making information exchange easy are all great things technology does for church.

But perhaps technology has limits when it comes to experiencing God through corporate worship. I believe that we should strive for excellence and relevance in the way we bring the message of God’s love to our audience. But we should not forget that the very thing God offers—the mystery of his presence, the power of the Holy Spirit, the expression of his grace—just might not need any extra help.

What is your church’s relationship with technology? Have you experienced too much of a good thing?

Nicole Unice has decided to accept her status as a wrestler with God. Between raising her kids and working in Family and Student Ministry at Hope Church in Richmond, VA, Nicole likes to write and teach on the intersection of God's word and modern life. Her first book, The Divine Pursuit, A Study of Jonah released in Fall 2010. You can find her blogging at The Stubborn Servant.

Do You See What I See?

What to do when people don’t share your vision

My favorite Christmas song growing up was “Do You Hear What I Hear?” With each verse, the anticipation grows: Do you hear what I hear? Do you see what I see? Do you know what I know? Listen to what I say! The person singing longs for someone with whom to share the joy of Christ’s birth.

As leaders, we find tremendous joy in sharing ministry with others. Ministry around a common vision or goal not only unites teams but also brings energy and enthusiasm. When we suggest a new Bible study and everyone on our team agrees to try it, we feel excited and successful. When we create a piece of art that someone decides to use as a part of their ministry program, we feel affirmed and useful.

But what happens when we’re the odd one out? What happens if, as leaders, no one catches our vision? What if we share our ideas and our team responds with apathy or silence? Inside we’re asking, do you see what I see?

I often become so passionate about my ideas that, when no one agrees with them, I feel frustrated and sometimes angry. I leave meetings grumbling to myself, why don’t the members of my team see things the way I see them? Why can’t they understand my perspective?

At several consecutive team meetings at church, some of the ideas I presented fell flat. I felt so alone. I felt as if no one on my team cared about my insights on ministry. And even if they did care, their silence registered disagreement with them.

Leadership can be isolating at times, but those times of isolation can lead to fruitful introspection. Instead of wallowing in loneliness, bitterness, and misery, why not assess the possible reasons for the loneliness and gain a fresh perspective?

I’ll admit that I like to be right; I like to have my way. The question, do you see what I see, is sometimes not so much about sharing the joy as about persuading agreement. If I think that I’m right, naturally I want others to share my point of view.

Occasionally I forget that I’m always not right. Perhaps my vision is out of line and out of sync with God’s vision. In that case, a time of isolation can provide some necessary solitude for prayer and realignment though God’s Word.

Other times, I may be right, but it takes time for other people to catch the vision. I forget to have patience with them and sometimes drive my ideas harder than I should. In those times, I should resort to asking God to bring change in the hearts and minds of team members as he sees fit instead of when and how I see fit.

What about you? How do you respond when leadership feels lonely? Do you enter into a time of self-assessment and prayer, or do you continue to press your agenda, trying to force others to align with your vision?

Meryl Herr is a graduate student and author living in Illinois.

In Search of a Safe Harbor

After September 11, would we ever be free from terror?

Ten years ago my husband and I embarked on a year-long adventure at sea with our four sons. One leg of our journey took us to Albany, New York, where we docked our boat at a marina on the Hudson River. We’d planned to be in New York City by then, but we’d made a spontaneous decision to take a road trip to Boston for the weekend instead.

The morning after we returned to our boat, a jumbo jet flew directly overhead, unbeknownst to us, and minutes later crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Had we made it to the marina we’d planned to dock at in New York City, we would surely have had a front row seat to the entire catastrophe. The marina itself became a morgue for the bodies they extricated from the rubble.

I’ve always viewed our decision to go to Boston as one of God’s tender mercies toward our family. When we finally pulled into the New York harbor three weeks later, Ground Zero was still smoldering, and the trauma of 9-11 was as pungent and breathtaking as the ash and odor that lingered in the air.

On our first trek into the city, we stood on a corner within full view of the twisted steel. Handmade posters pleading for any information about people still missing remained plastered on every surface. An inch of debris covered stacks of jeans that lay neatly folded in a Gap whose storefront windows had been blown out in the blast. The air smelled like an incinerator.

Time stood still. People moved slower. There was an odd hush in a place and at a time when the street would have been a cacophony of humanity on any other normal day. As we stood there, not tourists but living historians, I realized I was shoulder to shoulder with a woman who was crying.

“This must be very hard for you,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” She stared at the wreckage and said, “This is my first time back since I left work on 9-11.”

She likely had friends whose bodies had been scattered to the wind in the aftermath of those terrible plane crashes. The shards that clung to every surface weren’t just dust and broken glass, they were bone fragments too. We were standing in a graveyard, not a street corner.
To make matters worse, one day after arriving in New York City, we visited NBC Studios. The next day they announced that they had received a letter laced with anthrax. A new terror seemed to lurk at every turn.

We struggled to know how to help our kids process the events that were unfolding before us. Every fiber of our beings wanted to sail far, far away from America as fast as our boat could carry us. And yet there was no safe harbor that could shield us from the reality that the world as we knew it had changed. Ten years later, there’s still no safe harbor in this world.

I didn’t experience the horror of 9-11 like so many thousands of victims and people on that actual day, nor did I lose a loved one as a direct result of that tragedy. Still, like most Americans I know, my heart and mind were forever changed by that event. I no longer blithely enter crowded places without considering how big of a target we may be for a terrorist. I no longer feel dispassionate when I hear about suicide bombs exploding and killing innocent bystanders in other places around the globe. I know now what such a tragedy looks and feels like.

I also no longer recklessly stake my trust in God. We had a choice whether to leave this country for good at a time when all hell seemed to have broken loose. After spending a year experiencing the sanctuary of off-shore islands, away from the worst calamity our country has faced, we came back. The only safe harbor we would ever find would be in God. And he was—and is—with us all the time.

God Will Make a Way

Hitting the Wall

Amped Up from the Blackout

Do You See What I See?