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Recovering the Blessed Alliance

"It's awkward and uncomfortable - like a three-legged race. I'll have to learn to walk all over again."

I nearly fell out of my chair! Frank managed an uneasy smile. We were drinking coffee with a young friend who, in an unguarded moment, was talking with disturbing pessimism about his impending marriage. Neither Frank nor I thought of marriage as a three-legged race. For us it was more like a sprint. Astonishment turned to sadness over this young man's dismally low expectations of what a male/female relationship might promise.

Happily, not every prospective groom shares this gloomy perspective. However, his attitude points to a reality that not only characterizes a lot of Christian marriages, it spills over into working relationships between women and men in other venues. Even in Christian circles - even on ministry leadership teams - we joke uneasily about the "battle of the sexes" because, truth be told, even here relationships between the sexes can be as awkward and cumbersome as a three-legged race - or worse.

Whatever happened to the sure-footed alliance the Bible envisions?

In the days before Synergy, I was dumbfounded by the number of successful women in leadership who confided to me the difficulties they were experiencing in working relationships with men they respected on their ministry teams. More often than not, they were enjoying opportunities other women only dream about. And the men with whom they struggled were sometimes the very ones who had opened doors for them.

Still, something was wrong.

One woman discovered to her dismay that she was the only church staff member excluded from a private male-only staff meeting to develop strategies for the ministry, including her department. Another ministry leader found her female voice didn't carry the same weight as the men around the table. Her ideas were largely ignored unless a man repeated them.

And here is the real kicker. Difficulties were surfacing in both conservative and progressive contexts. Remarkably, it didn't seem to matter what the formal stance was on the role of women in ministry. Even the most progressive ministries still found themselves struggling to find the right balance for women and men to work effectively together. The real problem is not primarily about how far a woman can advance in a given organization, but is bound up in something deeper that is impacting everyone.

If, like the pessimistic groom, the best we can hope for is to adjust to the three-legged nature of our relationships, have we set our sights too low? Doesn't the Gospel take male/female relationships to a completely different level?

When "God created the heavens and the earth," he had a world-wide kingdom in mind. His key strategy for building that kingdom centered on his image bearers - male and female. Their shared mission was to represent him and to advance his kingdom over every square inch of this planet. And he called them to build it together.

He couldn't have been clearer about the makeup of this team than when he made the unqualified statement, "It is not good for the man to be alone," and created a woman as the resolution to that problem. Put more starkly, God's strategy is not primarily for men to work with men, or women to work with women, but for a blessed alliance in which his sons and daughters band together as warriors for his purposes.

God put his stamp of approval on this strategic partnership when he blessed them and commissioned them together with their global mandate (Genesis 1:28).

Sin broke up the Blessed Alliance. Jesus brings it back. He calls his followers - male and female - to be one body where every member is vital to the health and strength of the whole.

At Synergy, we embrace God's creation vision for men and women to serve him together. We aren't settling for any awkward, hobbling three-legged race. Our sights are set higher than maintaining a delicate balance by determining who does what and when and where. We want to recover this Blessed Alliance in our ministry relationships - where men and women are sprinting forward together to fulfill God's calling on their lives.

Mark your calendar - March 6-8, 2009 - and plan to join us at Synergy! Our brothers are coming too, and we hope you'll invite your male colleagues as we collaborate on ways to recover the Blessed Alliance.

None
September16, 2008 at 12:42 PM

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