Picking at the torn corner of my folder, I sat on my campus minister’s couch, eager for our mentoring session to begin. I had just taken a spiritual gifts inventory for the first time, and I was both shocked and excited to see how clear the results were: leadership, shepherding, and prophecy, to name a few. It made sense—I was already a small-group leader, and other leaders came to me for advice.
I’ll never forget my campus minister’s reaction. She looked me square in the eyes and told me to research the various Christian views on women in leadership. She didn’t want to discourage me. She wanted to prepare me. As a woman in ministry, she knew the challenges women leaders face. Thoughtful, God-loving people hold conflicting views on women in leadership, and my campus minister wanted me to do my own research, praying for God’s wisdom. To this day, I’m thankful for her counsel. It’s helped me navigate many conversations with wisdom and grace.
Evangelicals vary in their views on women in church leadership, and there are strong arguments across the spectrum. Some fall in the egalitarian camp, affirming women in all leadership positions, including pastoral roles. Within the complementarian camp, there are a variety of stances. “Soft complementarians” allow women to do almost anything in the church except preach. Others affirm women’s unique gifting primarily in hospitality, children’s, and women’s ministries.
Regardless of how women are able to lead in your church, women are likely serving in important roles. While most pastors are men (90 percent), most in the pews are women. According to Pew Research, 55 percent of evangelicals are women, and that number jumps to 59 percent in historically black churches. But women aren’t just sitting in the pews. Barna states that “women are the backbone of U.S. Christian churches,” making up the majority of volunteers.
Unique Challenges
Whether leading a small group, the finance team, or an entire church, women leaders face challenges that have been documented in numerous leadership books and studies. Get a group of women leaders together over coffee, and you’re likely to hear these findings confirmed.
Consider, for instance, the dilemma women face as they choose what to wear to lead, speak, or otherwise minister. Women must choose something that fits comfortably, that’s appropriate for their role, that’s mindful of the culture of the church and occasion, that’s not too revealing or loud, and that reflects their personality or style. It can be difficult to find a single outfit that fits all the requirements. Some choose to wear the alb to avoid the issue altogether.
If women will be wearing a mic, they must be even more thoughtful. I’ll never forget the first time I delivered a sermon. I chose a skirt, careful to select one that wasn’t too short or too bright—so as not to be distracting. My shirt was knit and a bit loose to avoid showing too many curves, and the neckline had the slightest dip I could find. The mic introduced a clear problem, though. The waist of my light, summery skirt simply wouldn’t hold the weight of the microphone’s battery pack. To make matters worse, the weight of the mic pulled down the neckline, turning it into a V-neck. Flustered and with few options, I chose to use the microphone built into the lectern, which prevented me from moving around as I spoke. Still, I appreciated the physical barrier hiding my knocking knees from the congregation.
Men may not understand why women leaders have to put this much time and energy into choosing what to wear. Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence explains in “Why Do People Only Notice My Clothes?” that, right or wrong, the pressure is real. It’s a documented social phenomenon in Western cultures. She writes, “Our acceptance of a [woman] leader partially hinges on her physical presence. … There is implicit bias that perceives a woman’s form as something to assess.” While congregants often remark on women’s clothing, accessories, or even haircuts, men rarely get these same comments.
Gender Biases and Expectations
Women church leaders often are the only women at the table or on the team. Nancy Beach writes in Gifted to Lead, “The pervasiveness of exclusively or predominantly male teams makes the entrance of the first few women to join those teams potentially fraught with uncertainty on the part of both men and women simply because it is new and different.” Simple things like driving to lunch as a team can become awkward.
The church needs the perspectives, gifts, and passions of women. Without them, we miss out on a fuller understanding of God and our faith.
When I served on staff at a church, I was invited to an overnight retreat with staff from several churches in our denomination. I was the only woman attending, though, so there were several conversations about where I would sleep and how the retreat coordinators could accommodate me in other ways so I wouldn’t feel awkward. I appreciated the extra steps they took to make me comfortable with the sleeping arrangements.
Women leaders also face assumptions based on gender biases that aren’t so helpful. For instance, a female children’s director once told me that, when she joined the team, the staff assumed she’d be in charge of making coffee and snacks for their staff meetings. Another woman who serves on the technology team during her church’s worship services shared that she was called out of the tech booth to clean up a mess in the kitchen—though she had never served in the kitchen or on the hospitality team.
Women are asked more than men about their work-life balance and about their family and children—even when those questions are intrusive. My friends compare notes about how soon after our weddings we were asked when we’d have our first child. (For the record, I was asked at my wedding reception. I was 21 years old.) Now that our daughter is a toddler, I’m frequently asked when we plan to have a second child, often by mere acquaintances. My husband, on the other hand, has never been asked this question. I can only imagine how these questions might affect a woman struggling with infertility.
When women leaders do enter motherhood, new challenges crop up. One youth pastor shared that, after she announced her pregnancy, the next board meeting’s agenda listed “Youth Pastor Search.” She had not planned to quit. The well-meaning board chairman simply assumed she’d want to stay home. After children arrive, women take care of the majority of childcare needs, according to Lean In. This may mean the hospitality director holds her meetings after dinner, when it’s easier for her to arrange for child care. (This trend is changing, though, as Millennial fathers take a more active role in parenting and child care.)
Communication Struggles
The way women are viewed in meetings is also subject to gender expectations. Lean In reports:
If a woman is competent, she does not seem nice enough, but if she seems nice, she is considered less competent. This bias often surfaces in the way women are described, both in passing and in performance reviews. When a woman asserts herself, she is often called “aggressive,” “ambitious,” or “out for herself.” When a man does the same, he is seen as “confident” and “strong.”
This dynamic makes it difficult for women to know how to act in leadership positions, which can create barriers to effective ministry.
According to Jennifer Coates’s research in Women, Men, and Language, women leaders tend to speak tentatively, using strategic methods to soften their message. Women often use hedges, “linguistic forms such as I think, I’m sure, you know, sort of, and perhaps which express the speaker’s certainty or uncertainty” about the topic. While a male worship director may request a date on the calendar for his next training event by saying, “I need Saturday the 20th for my next training event,” a female worship director is more likely to say, “I think the 20th would probably work best for my next training event. Do you think we could perhaps reserve that day on the calendar?”
Rather than making clear statements, women often finish remarks with a “tag question”: “That was really difficult, wasn’t it?” With this strategy, women soften their statements to facilitate a smooth interaction with others. Similarly, women are more likely than men to use “mitigated directives” when speaking to others. A man might say to a colleague something like, “You need to improve these numbers.” A woman, on the other hand, might say, “Let’s work on improving these numbers.” Using “let’s” includes the speaker in the command, making it less pointed and, therefore, less aggressive.
The Church Needs Women
Whatever ways women serve in your church, by understanding the issues women leaders face, we can better encourage the gifted, talented, called women around us. I love the way Laura Copeland says it in “Encourage More Women to Lead”:
When God gives a woman in your ministry the gift of leadership—something we see throughout the Bible and the history of the church—how will you help her steward her gift well in your church? Today, women are leading Fortune 500 companies and serving at high levels of government. They are professors, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and engineers. When the female CEO of a successful business becomes a member of your church, what opportunities will she have to use her leadership gifts to advance the gospel?
The church needs the perspectives, gifts, and passions of women. Without them, we miss out on a fuller understanding of God and our faith. Nancy Beach says,
When we limit the opportunities for all of us to hear from women, to benefit from their stories, to uncover gifts, to lend us their creativity, to contribute their strategic thinking as well as their tremendous capacity for listening and their track record for emotional and relational intelligence—well, we miss a truckload of benefits.
Amy Jackson is managing editor of GiftedForLeadership.com, SmallGroups.com, and ChristianBibleStudies.com. She has served as a small-group minister, community ministry director, and small-group leader.
