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Advocating for Women's Equality in the Church and Home

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Those Who Protect a Woman’s Call

May 8, 2019 by Sarah Sparks-Franklin

Thank God for those who protect a woman’s call! “I’m not sure I can continue as a leader in this church.” So exhausted from lack of sleep, and reeling from the many personal life changes swirling around me, I could not believe those words had escaped from my mouth. Seated directly across from my former […]

Filed Under: Personal Stories, Women and the Church Tagged With: leadership in the church, Sarah Sparks Franklin, women pastors

Awaiting the Refugee King: A Christmas Reflection

December 25, 2018 by Christiana Rice

This Christmas, I’m pondering the grittier, truer side of the nativity narrative through the lens of a refugee mother who waits with her children for their dream of liberation. I’m also contemplating the character of a God who rescues even the most marginalized among us.

Filed Under: Christmas Tagged With: Advent, Christiana Rice

12 Ways to Advocate for Women in Ministry

December 3, 2018 by Elizabeth Graham

I am a part of a Christian tradition that has ordained women as elders since its inception during the American Holiness movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The first church in which I ever served as a pastor was founded by a female circuit rider who planted churches across west Texas and southeastern […]

Filed Under: Women and the Church Tagged With: Elizabeth Graham, leadership in the church, male privilege, women pastors

3 New Testament Female Leaders: Phoebe, Junia, Prisca

November 19, 2018 by Ian Hyde

I’ve had many great conversations with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, many of whom disagree with my belief that in Rom. 16:1-7, Paul commends Phoebe as an ordained deacon, Junia as an Apostle, and Prisca as the pastor of a local church (along with her husband). They contend that these women were NOT […]

Filed Under: Women and the Bible Tagged With: Ian Hyde

Seeing Myself in the Texts of Terror

November 12, 2018 by Hannah Gaddini

The other day I happened to go through some old writings from college and I stumbled upon something. It was a reflection I wrote in a Theology class where we had discussed the “texts of terror.” “Texts of Terror” is a term created by Phyllis Trible to refer to four narratives of disturbing violence against women that are depicted in the Old Testament. The class was, understandably, triggering for me. I had never heard these stories before. After the class I wrote a reflection to process.

Filed Under: Personal Stories, women in the old testament Tagged With: Hannah Gaddini, texts of terror in the bible

Can Men Be Pastors?

September 21, 2018 by Tim Ritter

Can men be pastors? Can Christian men be teachers, preachers, elders, seminary professors, Sunday school teachers, worship leaders, small group leaders, police officers, elected officials, church treasurers, and so on and so forth? How does that line of questioning make you feel? Why does it sound so off, even offensive?

Filed Under: sexism and gender equality in the church, Women and the Church Tagged With: male privilege, Tim Ritter

The New Testament Case for Women Pastors

June 15, 2018 by Kelly Ladd Bishop

“There were zero women pastors in the Bible and no women apostles. There were no women pastors in nearly 2000 years of church history. Therefore, women cannot be pastors.”

This argument has been thrown at me on a number of occasions. There are a few things to unpack here. What does the New Testament say about pastors? Were there women pastors in the Bible? Were there women apostles in the Bible? Can we determine whether or not the early church had women leaders?

Filed Under: church leadership, Women and the Church Tagged With: Chloe in the Bible, female elders, female pastors, Kelly Ladd Bishop, Lydia in the Bible, Nympha in the bible, Phoebe in the Bible, women elders, women pastors

A Mother’s Day Liturgy

May 9, 2018 by Kate Wallace Nunneley

In recent years I have been struck by how feminine communion is At the Last Supper Jesus says, “This is my body broken for you” & “This is my blood shed for you” and all of it is to bring about new life. How similar to what a mother can say to the baby she just […]

Filed Under: General Tagged With: feminine side of God, Kate Wallace Nunneley, Mary in the bible, Mother's Day liturgy

Keeping Mary Company: A Good Friday Reflection

March 30, 2018 by Dan Hix

What was she doing there?
There, of all places
Why don’t you run, Mary, just run?
Join disciples’ mad dash to self-protection
Bolt…far as you can possibly go
No shame
Any reasonable soul
Anyone would understand
Run Mary, leave this harrowing place
No spot, no place in all creation
From which makes more sense to be gone.

Filed Under: Easter, General Tagged With: Dan Hix, Easter, Good Friday, Holy Week, Mary in the bible

Did Jesus Spend Most of His Time with Just 12 Men?

March 28, 2018 by Gail Wallace

An argument often used to restrict women from church leadership is that Jesus spent most of his time on earth investing in a group of 12 men. [1] But a close reading of the gospels shows that his band of followers also included women disciples. I’ll leave the reader to their own survey of the […]

Filed Under: Jesus and women, Women and the Bible Tagged With: Gail Wallace, Joanna in the Bible, Mary and Martha in the bible, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Clopas in the bible, Mary of Nazareth, Mary the mother of James, sexism in the church, Susanna in the bible

When Words Aren’t Enough: A Pastor’s Thoughts on Gender Equality

February 15, 2018 by Matt VanGent

“Girls can’t be drummers.”  My 3-year-old daughter.

“I had no idea I could be a youth pastor.”  A female high school student.

These two statements have had a profound impact on my pursuit of gender equality.  Let me start with my daughter.

She and I love to watch music videos together and one morning, we were watching a band with a girl drummer.  With the certainty of a toddler, she uttered the statement above that broke my heart a little bit.

She wasn’t sad; she wasn’t feeling excluded.  This was just the simple reality for her because she had never seen a woman drummer before.  Of course, girls can’t be drummers!

The situation was remarkably similar for that female high school student.   Every winter, we hosted a winter retreat for middle school and high school students.  Every year, we invited a local pastor or youth pastor to be our speaker for the weekend.  And every year, that pastor was a man.

I realized what we had been unintentionally communicating to our students by this choice: girls can’t be pastors.  So I decided it was time to invite a female pastor to be our speaker.

Filed Under: Personal Stories, Women and the Church Tagged With: Matt VanGent

Happy EGALentines Day! (Free Printables)

February 6, 2018 by Kate Wallace Nunneley

We love the Egalitarian blogging community and to show our love this Valentines Day, we want to offer you all FREE PRINTABLE valentines! But we know that you, our Junia Project readers, don’t want just any ordinary valentines. So we collaborated with the incredibly talented Honey, I love You Print Shop to bring you something really […]

Filed Under: Valentines Day Tagged With: free printable, gender equality, Kate Wallace Nunneley, Valentine's card

The Birth of a Pastor

January 30, 2018 by Kate Wallace Nunneley

  My call to pastoral ministry began during my first semester of seminary. I was taking 3 required courses – Greek Exegesis, Mentored Ministry, and Exegesis of Genesis. God used Greek class to show me I was really good at this stuff and ministry class to show me that I had a lot to learn […]

Filed Under: Personal Stories Tagged With: Kate Wallace Nunneley, women pastors

A Church You Would Want to Avoid

January 18, 2018 by Rob Dixon

Reflecting on his contemporary Paul’s theological writings, the apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:15-16:

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

There it is: “[Paul’s} letters contain some things that are hard to understand.” And God’s people said, AMEN.

Of course, we’re not certain which Pauline teachings Peter had in mind, but it seems like there’s a good chance he was talking about passages like 1 Timothy 2:8-15.

Filed Under: Difficult Passages, Women and the Church Tagged With: 1 Timothy 2, 2 Peter 3, Rob Dixon

Sex, Supper, Submission

January 11, 2018 by Zach Lambert

woman making dinner

A few months after we said “I do,” my wife, Amy, and I attended a class for newly married couples at our local church. Each week, we were taught a different topic by a different teacher intended to help us grow in our marriage. That week’s topic was “Women’s Roles.” I remember sitting in that room like it was yesterday. The teacher walked into the room, strode up to the whiteboard, and wrote the following list:

SEX
SUPPER
SUBMISSION

She then said, “Ladies, these three S’s are the best way to remember your role in marriage.”

I could feel Amy stiffen in anger next to me. I began laughing involuntarily. I assumed the statement was a misguided joke meant to alleviate the tension in the room. But after I got a “stop laughing, moron” look from the teacher, I realized something horribly tragic: this wasn’t a joke at all. I was stunned.

Filed Under: Difficult Passages, marriage and family Tagged With: Colossians 3, marriage, submission in the bible, Zach Lambert

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