In My Fair Lady, Henry Higgins muses, “Why can’t a woman be like a man?” and, as he continues to confound her, Eliza Doolittle fumes back, “Just you wait, ‘enry ‘iggins. … You’ll be sorry, but your tears will be too late!”
Men. Women. How do they ever communicate?
And how does a church communicate to both genders? And touch both men and women with the gospel? And meet their separate needs? And joint needs? And conflicting needs?
Whew! That’s what took LEADERSHIP editors Marshall Shelley and Jim Berkley to Dallas, where they gathered and talked with three parish pastors well acquainted with the issues:
-Mary C. Miller, associate pastor of First Wayne Street United Methodist Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
-Alice Petersen, who is associate pastor of College Hill Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati.
-Jim Smith, who serves Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas as a pastoral counselor.
We intended to meet on an even field, with two men and two women. But when one of the male participants couldn’t attend, Jim Smith had to hold his own with only a shade of masculine help from the LEADERSHIP editors.
Leadership: According to a recent LEADERSHIP survey, the female-male ratio for Sunday worship attendance is about 60:40. Our survey also shows that married women attend church without their husbands at a rate four times greater than married men attending without their wives. Why the disparity between the religious practices of men and women?
Alice Petersen: One possibility has to do with the three fundamental human motivations writer David McClelland cites: the need for power, the need to achieve, and the need to affiliate with others. Church appeals to the need to belong. And women, in general, seek out affiliation, whereas men seem more interested in power or achievement.
Jim Smith: Also, women tend to support family activities more than men. If the woman wants to go to church and the husband doesn’t, he’s more likely to give himself permission not to go than would a woman in the reverse situation.
Mary Miller: Whatever the reason, I’ve found that I mustn’t discriminate against solo attenders. It’s easy to write them off, thinking, Something must be wrong in their home. The marriage isn’t necessarily in trouble, even if the husband and wife don’t share the same fervor for church attendance.
Petersen: I have a friend whose husband doesn’t come to church regularly, but I’m encouraged when he does come to a social activity and our church is able to welcome him at that point-while also accepting his wife without tacking on any judgment.
Leadership: Our survey also indicates that pastoral counseling by appointment is made up of about 59 percent women, 34 percent men, and 7 percent children. What’s behind this pattern?
Smith: Women seek help more quickly than men. It has to do with the male ego. We men will hardly stop for instructions when we’re lost! (Laughter) Women will. Plus, in terms of couples, women have more psychological eggs in the marriage basket. Men, typically, are more heavily invested emotionally in career.
Leadership: What kinds of church activities do men and women each prefer?
Petersen: Men tend to be socialized to be task oriented, and if they talk openly with one another, they are more likely to do so as part of another activity, such as cooking a church breakfast. The task gives them a focus other than themselves. Women, however, don’t usually need a task to share; they’re socialized to focus more on communication.
Smith: Women will gather for the explicit purpose of sharing. Men’s friendships are generally built around activities.
Leadership: You see that in family gatherings, too. On Thanksgiving, women enjoy just talking. But the men watch a football game or go outside and shoot baskets. They compete.
Miller: Women also compete but in different ways-about how to dry the dishes or who has the best stuffing recipe. Men compete up front; women do it a little more subtly.
Smith: Men and women also appear to make decisions differently. Men are socialized to be decisive. They’ll make decisions at home, for instance, without even thinking of involving their wives. They don’t mean to be insensitive; it simply doesn’t occur to them that anyone else needs to be consulted. Women rarely make decisions about the family without bringing the husband into the process.
Men tend to talk about an issue itself, while women talk about the relationships connected with the issue. Both of these qualities are needed. Women may be in touch with what’s going on relationally in a meeting, but men may have the advantage in making the unpopular decision.
Petersen: I’d hate to think decision making was a male prerogative, or that sensitivity and nurturing were strictly for females.
Smith: I agree. It’s just that we make decisions differently.
A study at Harvard looked at the games children play. The study showed that boys’ games were longer and have more rules. The boys enjoyed fighting over the rules as much as they enjoyed the game. But for the girls, if the rules got in the way, they’d suspend the game. To them, relationships were more important than rules.
Leadership: So how does the church begin to minister to these differences?
Petersen: To begin with, we can remind ourselves and our people that men and women need one another. Many men need to learn how to be in touch with feelings, and many women need to learn how to be more decisive.
For instance, when discussion heats up, men dive in and rigorously debate. A woman, generally speaking, thinks, Why’s everybody fighting?
I know my education was traditional for a woman.
I learned how to be a schoolteacher, and my friends learned how to be nurses. We didn’t learn how to be the executives, so we’re playing catch-up. I sometimes meet with women before meetings just to go through the agenda and discuss the issues and how they may be played out. That kind of briefing helped me, and now I’ve seen it help other women improve their decision-making abilities.
Miller: Maybe the man is decisive but needs to learn to nurture; perhaps the woman hasn’t had experience setting agendas or reading a balance sheet. As leaders, our job for both genders is to find the blind spots and disciple people toward good churchmanship.
Petersen: And modeling goes a long way toward this end. I wear a blue clergy robe when I preach, and apparently it’s made an impression. A woman told me her 11-year-old daughter wanted to stay home from church one Sunday to hold her own service. The parents decided it would be okay just once. As they were leaving for church, the daughter, who previously had gotten dressed, came out of her room in her blue bathrobe. The mother asked, “Kim, why are you wearing your bathrobe?”
“I’m getting ready for church,” Kim replied.
Then they realized she was imitating me! I was in my mid 30s before I had a model like that.
Leadership: Do men and women have unique needs we can address that will help us reach them with the gospel?
Smith: Human beings share common needs regardless of gender. But how we make contact with them, how we win the right to be heard, how we get a message across-there’s where the gender differences come into play in evangelism.
Petersen: I’m a little uncomfortable with that approach. When we begin separating their needs and saying, “Men respond to the gospel this way, and women that way,” I think we’re being seduced by our individualistic society. So we start having men’s breakfasts and women’s luncheons and become, I believe, nonbiblical. In the New Testament, the community is important; kingdom values reign, not individualism or factionalism.
Smith: Nonetheless, in terms of evangelism, I think we have to differentiate. The cardinal rule of communication, after all, is to start with the known and move to the unknown. You never start with the unknown. The unchurched don’t understand kingdom values. Getting them accepted is a process.
So to reach men, for example, you start with a man’s primary ego needs, which, characteristically, are wrapped up with his performance in the marketplace. On the other hand, women-even two-career women-typically get their strokes and their self-esteem through relationships. We can argue about whether it should be this way, but it is, and so I try to be sensitive to it.
So if we’re to reach men, many of whom have little interest in “community,” then we’ve got to build a bridge to them. Effective men’s speakers say, “Let me talk to you about the gospel and how it can make a difference in your business world.” I don’t think we can get away from that kind of differentiation.
Petersen: I don’t think we can either, but the idealistic part of me hopes that as people become involved in the church, they will find less and less need for differentiation.
Smith: Actually, the picture isn’t simple anymore. Women in the marketplace now also appreciate a talk on the gospel and the business world, and there are more “Mr. Moms” around who might be more successfully approached through family and relational issues.
Petersen: We have about seventy men who meet at 6 A.M. on Fridays to learn how to be better fathers and husbands. I heartily support that kind of differentiation, because it has a goal. But eventually I want them to move out of that group into something more inclusive. It would be sad to me if they stayed locked in such a group until they died!
Miller: Perhaps we’re talking more about role-specific ministry than gender-specific ministry. We can minister to people in terms of the particular roles they happen to be filling-provider, parent, empty nester. We all end up holding four or five such cards in life. One outreach strategy is to offer ministries that address these roles, regardless of gender.
Petersen: We have another group designed for men in the marketplace. It’s a large support group, with teaching and prayer and fellowship. I don’t think the group would change if women attended, because it’s about support in the marketplace, and men and women share that need.
Leadership: Let’s focus on men. What are the needs that churches can effectively meet?
Miller: One need of men is for a mentor. Some men have had a falling out with their fathers. They might have been 16 when it happened, but they’ve never talked about it with anyone. They need a safe place in the church where male mentoring can begin to heal that wound.
And on the other side, there’s a large number of wounded men who have watched their adolescent sons trip out and never come back. I try to minister to that separation, too.
Petersen: Men need a safe place to begin going inward, to understand their inner feelings better. That’s part of being human, being able to be in touch with one’s self-and with God. The minute men pop out of the womb, they’re hit with a culture that makes that process difficult. Maybe the church can help them get in touch.
Miller: Timing is important. I have to be careful not to work on somebody else’s issue harder than he or she is going to work on it. I need to respect the person.
Then again, from my understanding, when men get into their mid 30s, many begin thinking more about their inner landscape. That seems an appropriate time for the church to help that process-letting the man set the pace.
Smith: I like Mary’s approach: do it gently. We can’t make men do anything. Nothing turns men off more quickly than to spring “touchy-feely” activities on them unexpectedly. They panic and then become angry that someone has “trapped” them.
At our church, we preach that it’s okay for a man to be sensitive. We model it and give men permission to be that way. They don’t have to be 100 percent macho. On the other hand, we don’t want to pressure men into “getting in touch with their feelings.” We’re just trying to achieve a balance, perhaps a creative tension.
Miller: Men also need to play. Many men have too much on their plates, too much responsibility, too much to do. They need to cease being overfunctional males who are responsible for the world.
Our church planned a men’s overnight retreat just for horsing around. Men of various ages and jobs, all feeling stressed out, got tickets to an Indiana University basketball game to simply enjoy being together. Our men who planned it were simply saying to one another, “Relax. There’s more to life than work. Go play.”
Smith: I know many men who struggle with the question: How do I survive in the business world while exercising Christian ethics? The men in my Sunday school class have an annual retreat, and we always spend a lot of time talking about the ethical dilemmas they get into on the job.
Leadership: We’ve heard men say, “Sometimes my boss or my profession requires creative bending of the truth. If I practice what my pastor preaches, I’d be out of business.” What do you say to such men?
Smith: I’m not sure I totally agree with the premise, but I know men are dealing with hard realities.
So I take along someone like Fred Smith, a man who has been out in the rough and tumble business world all his life, and we throw these kinds of questions at him. He brings a credibility I don’t have in that arena.
Miller: The important thing is to expose men and women to peers who have maintained Christian values. That way they know they can learn how to be whole persons-Christian persons-while still deeply involved in the community. They don’t have to be driven and ruthless to succeed.
Petersen: Here’s where small groups are so important. From the pulpit, ideas can seem idealistic. But in a small group, people can ask tough questions and support one another. People can’t do it alone.
Miller: Mentoring also works. In two churches I’ve asked confirmation students to choose an adult to serve as a sponsor. One boy chose a quiet man near retirement. They played handball about once a month and got together to talk through some of the confirmation questions. Building a relationship like that can make a difference to the next generation.
Leadership: A major issue for both men and women is sexuality in the marketplace. They’re asking, “How do I handle sexual ethics in the kind of culture we live in?” What can a church do to help them cope?
Smith: We can teach people the skill of setting limits. Men have to learn how to deal with seductiveness, and women to deal with being hit on. So we can teach them to set boundaries when they experience such behavior.
A woman once came to me for counseling after having been grabbed and kissed unexpectedly by her boss. Since the woman had previously been raped, this episode, though unrelated, threw her into an enormous tailspin, and at first she couldn’t go back to work.
Eventually, she set her boundary by writing a letter of protest to her boss and making a speech, which we had to rehearse. After she did that, he apologized, and things are going better now.
Petersen: We include assertiveness training among the classes we teach at College Hill so that both men and women will have skills in being assertive, negotiating, setting boundaries.
Leadership: Let’s focus now on women. How can churches better minister to women’s needs?
Petersen: We try to address the abuse some women have suffered both in childhood and in their marriages. Women need a safe place to begin to share and then experience hopefulness and healing. I’m pleased with what the church is gaining from the Twelve-Step programs and Adult Children groups.
Miller: Women also need help in juggling their various roles. I think women may be giving up the super-woman myth-that they have to be great at home and on the job. But now they’re wondering if they can be even good. The popularity of Roseanne Barr suggests that people are becoming cynical about even that. There’s just too much to do.
Women in our church are saying, “Friendships used to give me meaning, but now I don’t even have time for that anymore.”
Smith: I don’t think that’s gender related. That’s the name of the game in America, even in churches. Our church calendar looks like an American Airlines schedule.
So we try to get Christians to recommit to sanity. We teach people to say no (even though they’ll feel guilty) instead of saying yes and feeling resentful. I tell them, “Whenever you choose between guilt and resentment, always choose guilt, because the guilt is usually neurotic.” (Laughter)
The guilt is usually false guilt, but the resentment is real.
I know a man in his 40s who is dying of cancer. He told one of his friends, “I’ve started to reestablish my priorities. I’ve asked myself, What are the things that would be most difficult to say good-by to? Those are the things to hold on to. Everything else is negotiable.” If we could get women and men to start asking that question, it would help a lot.
Miller: In Detroit, I knew a young man whose wife found herself unexpectedly pregnant with child number four. This man worked at the most macho department of Ford; they got there at 6:30 in the morning and stayed until 8 at night. He had a masters degree and ten years invested in his career.
But to his credit, he quit and went to another job that gave him more time with his family. That’s the kind of heroic act I try to notice and applaud. I can say, “You sacrificed something, but that’s a worthy priority.”
Smith: Let me come back to women’s needs. Women, in particular, need permission to take care of themselves. Traditionally, they’re the great care-givers, but they have a harder time taking care of themselves, giving themselves time, not always being available to others. Men, characteristically, have much less trouble taking care of themselves. Women feel guilty doing so.
Petersen: Jim, you said women “need permission” to take care of themselves. I understand how you use the word permission, but personally I prefer support, at least from my brothers in Christ. Instead of their permission, I’d rather have the right kind of support.
Men have the tremendous privilege and responsibility to take women seriously, to call forth all their gifts. For instance, when I preach while wearing a robe, people tell me after church, “That was a good sermon” or “The Lord touched me.” I like that kind of affirmation, because that’s my calling.
But in the summer, when we don’t wear robes, people tend to say, “You looked nice up there today.” Isn’t that curious?
I’ve had to help some fellow staff members learn how to affirm a woman for something other than appearances. One would always tell me how nice I looked. He was being courteous, but I finally told him gently, “You know, I like that out in the parking lot. But after I have preached my heart out, I want to know from you, my peer: Was it a good sermon? Did it hang together? Was it exegeted well? I don’t really care what I looked like.”
Now, as a staff joke, we say to one another, “You did a great job-and you looked good, too!”
(By the way, to illustrate another difference between men and women: Last summer I experimented by wearing the same outfit three Sundays in a row. I had handfuls of women say to me, “You’re trying to say something, aren’t you.” Not a man noticed.)
I value greatly the support I receive from other women, but I also need men to speak up and be an advocate for my gifts and efforts, too.
Smith: The reality today-whether we like it or not-is that it’s still a male-dominated culture. Let’s not kid ourselves. So to use biblical principles, the powerful always have the responsibility to handle that power carefully, to minister. Men, therefore, have a responsibility to correct the power inequity, because it can be corrected only by those in power.
Leadership: Are there ways pastors may be able to minister uniquely to the opposite sex?
Smith: I spend most of my day counseling, and I’ve found that sometimes if a woman has been abused by males, she needs to work with a male therapist in order to work through her issues and experience a nonabusive relationship.
Then again, not all abuse is male to female; much abuse is female to male: emotional abuse, seductiveness, dysfunctional families. Even smothering is a form of abuse. Males tend to abuse in much more physical and sexual ways. So just as there are many abused women very angry at men, so are there many abused males who are very angry at women, and these men need a female pastor or therapist.
Leadership: What exactly do you do for an abused woman, Jim, that a female pastor couldn’t do?
Smith: Many times I’ve played the role of the nurturing male. Often I’m the first significant one in their lives. These women are healed when they can relate to me in a healthy way. It’s a long process, but trust is built in minuscule steps.
Miller: A woman in my childhood church lived with an abusive husband. She began to fear men in general, and she’d do anything to avoid them, even shunning mixed Sunday school classes. Church became her sanctuary where she didn’t have to deal with men.
Eventually, the pastor asked her, “You’ve been here twenty years; wouldn’t you like to become a member?” Through one of the wonderful mercies of God, when she showed up at the new-member class, no one else came. It was just her and the minister-a man!-sitting on the couch talking. That conversation, and others that followed, began to break down the terrible barriers she’d erected. The pastor simply noticed her, affirmed her, gave her value. She went on to enter friendships with other men, and when her husband died, she eventually remarried.
Smith: Like that pastor, I’m trying to affirm these women. I take three basic needs-their need to feel they belong, to feel competent, and to feel valued-and work with that. It’s amazing how the gospel speaks to those needs: we belong to the family of God through faith; we have value because of the price Christ paid for us, and we have competence because we affirm each other’s gifts.
For example, I try to teach them how to set boundaries in their relationships with men. I also teach them to trust their ability to make decisions, because bad marriages and other relationships may cause them to distrust their own judgment.
The difference I bring into the situation is that I’m a man, and I’m affirming them, not exploiting them. I value them for who they are, not for what they can provide or fix or give.
But it’s also important to work as a team with women counselors, because some of these women are terribly angry with their mothers for not protecting them from abuse. A woman can help them in that respect.
Leadership: When women minister with men, or men with women, there’s almost always another factor present: sexual attraction. How does that fit into the picture?
Miller: I was widowed at age 30, while I was a pastor. I was single for the next six years, and I had one stretch where it seemed that every man whose wife was in her third trimester of pregnancy would hug me. It was a very physical thing, and I’d think, Listen, Buddy, you may think I’m safe but I’m vulnerable. Bug off! These men and their wives were my friends in the church, so I felt constrained not to say anything. Fortunately, in every case, as soon as the baby was born, I was “abandoned.”
Looking back, I’m proud of how I handled the situation. I never returned any of the inappropriate affection. In fact, I decided to speak frankly to the diaconate board about my struggles as a young widow and how I needed their help and prayers. I also occasionally used myself discretely in sermon illustrations to get across the point that I wasn’t some kind of Protestant nun.
Petersen: We need honest talk-on a staff level or in small groups or one on one-about ourselves as sexual people.
I know when I’m communicating appropriate warmth and affection, and I know the minute I’ve stepped over the line and started giving sexual signals. I’m like anyone else-a sexual person-so I bring something of that into everything I do, and that’s all right.
We women, from the time we were little girls, have been taught how to be coy and flirtatious, and I suppose little boys learn their side of the game. There’s a place for that; that’s how people find each other and get married. The problem comes when people use sexuality in the wrong ways.
I have been guilty of giving sexual signals, but when I have, I back off and say to myself, I don’t want to do that. And I’ve received an occasional hug, for instance, that crosses the line and makes me uncomfortable.
In my ministry, I try to be mentally celibate toward married men, because it all begins in the mind. I may be interested in some single men, of course, and so I’ll signal that if I want. If I’m not interested, I go back to my celibate mind-set and signal no interest. To me, there are appropriate ways and times to send our signals, and as a Christian, I need to know the boundaries-what’s right and what’s not.
Smith: We need to be aware of pathology, too. Take a woman with a borderline personality disorder: 95 percent of them were abused as children; it’s part of what causes their disorder. Such women have deep emotional needs, and they learn to get what they need by being seductive.
When they end up in a male pastor’s office, and he doesn’t understand that, he can get into trouble in a hurry. He’s flattered by her attention, and maybe he hugs her. But that’s something you don’t do with a borderline, because she misinterprets the signals. And if things aren’t cooking well at home for the pastor, then there can be trouble.
The most caring thing to do is distance yourself and make her deal with her pain that she has been anesthetizing by being seductive.
Petersen: Jim, wouldn’t a woman spot that type more quickly than a man?
Smith: Absolutely. A female therapist or pastor would spot it immediately.
Miller: And likewise, men understand men. I’ve seen a male pastor who could manipulate women around him to do all his work. But he never deluded one man. They were on to his game.
Smith: That’s a narcissistic personality, who is exploitative but smooth as silk. Men can spot a Narcissus much more quickly than women.
Incidentally, the ministry attracts narcissists, as does politics. And needy women often are attracted to powerful people. The narcissistic pastor feels he needs to encumber himself with accoutrements that make him feel good. So when a borderline personality walks in-I mean, they are made for each other! It’s tragic.
Accountability is the name of the game. Find another pastor. If you’re a solo pastor, get another solo pastor to be accountable to. But it can’t be your spouse. That’s too scary for most spouses.
Petersen: A clergywoman experiences similar confusion with the dissatisfied male who sees her as warm and nurturing.
Miller: Men sometimes perceive a vulnerability in the woman in ministry-a kind of Mother Earth, the nurturant-and so if there’s an unmet need a home, you’re hit on.
Petersen: If a man feels the woman in his life “doesn’t understand” him, he may go talk to a pastor. And if she “understands me,” that makes her awfully special.
Leadership: So how does a pastor-male or female-prevent sexual misconduct?
Petersen: I establish clear boundaries that in many instances preclude the possibility. For instance, although I’ll counsel in my office and sometimes meet a man for lunch somewhere, I’ll never do so in my home or his. Just yesterday a male staff member and I talked at a restaurant over a cup of coffee.
Leadership: Does that cause a problem if, for instance, a church member spots you in that situation?
Petersen: No, because they consider us professional colleagues. In fact, two people did see us and came over to chat. I had my pad out and was writing things down.
Miller: Body language says a lot. Alice wasn’t sitting there holding hands or gazing into his eyes. I wouldn’t have any qualms with meeting in a public place like that. To me, that’s an acceptable practice.
When I think about it, I’m not sure I have a specific set of rules. Much boundary setting involves simply being careful, recognizing in myself the ability to fall. That recognition alone is a major help.
When I was single, I once had to deal with a powerful man who kept pressing me to meet with him for dinner to talk. It was a business-type agenda that didn’t seem to me to warrant dinner out. But he kept pressing, and because of his power over my job, I didn’t feel free to decline. Finally I said I’d go.
I remember rehearsing the agenda before meeting him for dinner. At the restaurant, there were five things we had met to talk about, and I left the moment those five subjects were discussed. I must have sweat off about five pounds that night, but I kept us away from a personal agenda. Fortunately, that was the end of it.
Smith: Mary has touched on an important issue: ministers need some memorized speeches for these kinds of occasions. These speeches need to be gracious, but also they should set boundaries, because you want neither to mash the person nor fall prey to his or her intentions.
If a woman suggests we do something I feel is sexually inappropriate, I say, “Thank you. I’m flattered. But no, thank you.” Or, “I respect your feelings, but let’s talk about them, because they could take us in an inappropriate direction.”
If a woman comes in dressed seductively, I may use a therapeutic intervention, such as: “I notice you’re dressed quite differently today. I wonder what that’s about?”
Petersen: My favorite line for inappropriate advances is “I’m not comfortable with that.” I’m deliberate about using an “I statement.” Then I go on to say, “But I would be comfortable if we would do . . .” I try to give an acceptable alternative.
Smith: Still another memorized statement is “I don’t trust myself with this.” That’s an honest admission. We dare not have illusions about ourselves. It is a hard speech, but a very important one.
Petersen: As a single woman, I’ve also grown to understand the importance of accountability. When traveling, I’ve sometimes thought, You’re on your own, Alice. No one here cares what you do. Who’s to know? I don’t really like that sensation.
And so I have a commitment with a friend that she will ask me about my life and I will tell her. She’s my “confessor” who helps hold me accountable.
I need that kind of relationship to check my temptation to harbor secret places in my life. I like what 1 John says about pulling secrets into the light so that rather than being doomed by them, we can confess them and be freed from them.
Smith: Alice, you’ve basically disciplined yourself, saying, This is not what I want for myself. This is unworthy. That’s a healthy, mature response.
But, sadly, few people are that healthy. That’s all the more reason for each of us to have someone holding us accountable. We ought not trust our nature, our flesh, no matter how spiritual we think we are.
Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
