How Complementarian Churches Can Support Female Leadership

Quick to Listen

Christianity Today

Religion, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.3 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2016

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Where can complementarian women go to find female teachers? For many, the answer lies outside of the local church. Because of theological beliefs, most complementarian churches don’t let women preach. Many also struggle to elevate women’s voices within their own congregations, indirectly encouraging women to look outside the church—at times to blogs, social media, and Christian publishing—for leadership. (Read CT’s previous coverage.) Part of the reason for the lack of voices stems from a historic distrust of female leadership, argues Wendy Alsup, who formerly led women’s ministries at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. “I think more and more people who identify as complementarian are putting away suspicions that women want to remove men from their places of leadership but it’s taken work to get to that place where their gifts are welcome,” she said. But women’s ministry can thrive in complementarian settings. A pastor and church elder board which seeks to affirm women’s voices is characterized by a “celebratory attitude” that values “every member of the body of a Christ,” says Elizabeth Inrig, who previously led women’s ministries for the Evangelical Free Church of America Inrig and Alsup joined Morgan and Richard on Quick to Listen to discuss the practical ways that complementarian churches can be intentional about including women’s voices, the roles of pastors wives, and how male participation at church affects female involvement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you in part by The Apologetics Guy Show, the podcast that helps you find clear answers to tough questions about Christianity.
0:11.0	Learn to explain your faith with courage and compassion.
0:14.5	Join Moody Bible Institute professor Dr. Mikhail del Rosario at apologeticsky.com.
0:28.7	Music Michael Del Rosario at Apologeticsguy.com. Hey, this is Morgan Lee. I'm an assistant editor here at Christianity today and a host for Quick
0:35.9	to Listen. I'm joined this week by my boss and obviously favorite colleague, Richard Clark. Thanks. I appreciate the compliment.
0:45.0	Richard, what do you do here at CT? I'm the online managing editor at CT and the producer of this podcast.
0:52.0	And you have your own podcast. And you have your own podcast.
0:55.1	And I have a mom podcast.
0:56.0	It's called The Calling.
0:56.7	Check it out.
0:57.4	It's good.
0:59.5	Wendy Alsup is a guest on today's show.
1:01.7	She was also a guest on The Calling recently.
1:06.4	Did you know that I used to be one of the co-hosts of The Calling and then you kicked me off your intro show?
1:07.1	I remember that.
1:16.6	It's because people kept complaining that we were just talking about nonsense before every... I never talk about nonsense. I don't know who they were referring to. Well, today on the show,
1:21.0	did we talk about what we're talking about? We're talking about women's ministry. We're continuing a conversation that has been started, I would say, probably in the past month. And we're going to
1:26.1	try and give you a new spin on it here on
1:28.7	Click to Listen today. There's a lot of angles to this story. There's a lot to there's a lot of
1:33.6	things to talk about related to women's ministry that's all sort of coming to the surface recently.
1:39.5	It's a pretty fascinating thing to watch, actually, from my perspective, at least, telling a lot of
1:43.3	things I hadn't thought about before. So I'm excited. I'm the token male on this show. And so I'll bring the what sort of
	...

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