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 ...