Does Anyone Here Speak Complementarian?

Part 5 of My Gender Role Journey

For my third semester in seminary, I wanted to continue in Theology 2 but was intrigued by a class with Dr. Nicole Martin called “Race, Gender, and the American Church.” During the first 20 weeks of the year at my job, I worked 120 hours of unpaid overtime. Since the pastors said they could not increase my hours, I decided to take two classes during the summer, so my active brain had a place to expend that extra energy and time.

            Dr. Martin’s class was amazing! Having a space to study and discuss the similarly polarizing issues of race and gender was immensely helpful and I came away from this semester with new thoughts on key issues in the debates. I also discussed these things with my pastor, and we talked through some of my questions and how to discern my call to ministry. With tears in his eyes he said, “Lark, I am not sure the terms are all that important, but you are a shepherd. You move towards people and God has gifted you for this work.” I likewise sat teary eyed in his office because it was so meaningful that my pastor of 20 plus years affirmed the same gift I had begun to wonder about. It is now incredibly complicated to type these words since that same pastor is no longer speaking to me.

            The class also helped me process the practical realities of complementarianism in my ministry setting. Our first paper required us to reflect on our own awareness and conception of gender roles and consider how our perspective had impacted our identity and understanding of our vocational calling. I wrote this:

“The issue of gender roles in the church is receiving national attention as several books have recently come out challenging complementarianism. My life feels like a microcosm of that conversation. I am really struggling as I think through my views and stay open to the possibility of ending up egalitarian. I want to follow God’s word, but I am beginning to doubt the things I was taught as a naïve believer. However, I do not want to swing the pendulum the other way just because of disillusionment. As I have filled this staff role, I strongly identify with shepherding and feel more commonality with our pastors than with the other women on staff. I am thankful that my pastor is supportive of me and wants me to press into this issue with the Lord. For him it is a secondary issue, and he wants to encourage my gifts at our church even if I end up changing my mind on gender issues. But he also expressed that I should feel free to follow God’s leading if I am being called elsewhere because of a change in my position. I am wondering if God is calling me to be a pastor, but if so, it could cost me so much. For me, this topic is a daily, real, and consequential issue and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn more in this class.”

            We were also required to write weekly journal entries and reading back through them reminds me of all I was wrestling with at the time. I have such a tender heart towards the woman in those journals, expressing her concerns with a prophetic sense of foreboding. Knowing how my story would take a drastic turn a few months later, reading those journals feels like I’m watching a horror movie and hear the music turn sinister. I want to warn my younger self, “Watch out!” because I know the support I felt from my pastors was just temporary.

            In my journals it’s clear that I was conflicted about the practical inequality I was facing in my role on staff and struggling to understand what it means to be a pastor. I was the only female ministering to adults, working 15 hours per week as “Director of Adult Discipleship” while there were four men working full-time as Lead Pastor, Associate Pastor, Youth and Family Pastor, and Pastoral Resident, not to mention the all-male elder board. There were so many things I wanted to do and so many people who needed care, but I only had 15 hours per week. For instance, when a man was being removed from membership for church discipline, I spoke up in our ministry leader meeting and asked how we were going to care for his wife and their friends who would be deeply impacted by the decision. They said, “Oh gosh, we hadn’t thought of that, thank you for bringing that up.” No plan of care was ever created so when it came time, I sat with her as she processed the anger and grief she felt. On another occasion, it also fell to me to meet with a woman in the middle of the night as she considered leaving her emotionally abusive husband. Although I’m sure men could also have these conversations, there is something unique to how women minister to other women. Likewise, when families had questions and concerns about the direction of the church, the husbands talked to one of the twelve pastors/elders and the women reached out to me. I was meeting with several women individually who were worried that our church was giving in to the culture by allowing me to teach adults. These were some of my best “mom-friends,” women I had known for almost 20 years. We had all given birth to our first child around the same time, volunteered in the nursery together, led VBS, and now our children were in the youth group. I lost them all. One by one, they and their families left the church.

            Practically, I was ministering as a shepherd but could not officially be called a pastor. Like women in the SBC, I didn’t care what my title was, but I did care that I was obeying God and preserving the unity of our congregation.[1] I thought if I could just explain things better people would not leave. I wondered if the limitation had something to do with preaching. I was permitted to teach in the Fellowship Hall and speak during the “Missional Moment” in the Worship Center, but no women were allowed to preach a sermon. I had noticed that the content of the messages some pastors taught in the Fellowship Hall seemed similar to the sermons they preached in the Worship Center, and I could not articulate the difference. To better explain our position to others, I asked in our leader meeting, “What is the difference between preaching and teaching?” One pastor jokingly responded, “PowerPoint?” The other four chimed in with more thoughtful comments, and from the discussion I gleaned that the Sunday morning sermon (or any messages from elders) contained the church’s official, authorized teaching while other teaching did not carry the same authority. But later I still had questions like, “What about guest preachers? If a non-elder can preach, why can’t a woman in the church preach? If my teaching has no authority, wouldn’t it be better for an elder to do it?” I certainly didn’t want to preach, but it was increasingly difficult to explain to others how these lines were drawn in the sand and I wanted to get ahead of their questions. However, the more I thought through these questions myself, the more I realized I was doing the same ministry work as the pastors but without the same title, pay, benefits, or authority.

            At this point I was also meeting other people who ministered in Egalitarian contexts. When I introduced myself as the “Director of Adult Discipleship” they would ask about my work and were confused by my title. They were expecting me to direct some sort of discipleship ministry. After explaining that I taught Sunday school, sat on the Ministry Leadership Team, helped plan church events and services, and ministered to the general congregation, some would remark, “Oh, so you are basically an assistant pastor?” Once, in a similar situation, I was feeling tired of tiptoeing around the subject and having to justify my job title, so I just said, “I’m the Director of Adult Discipleship at my church. That’s complementarian for assistant pastor because I do pretty much anything except preach.”

             So, since I am fluent in complementarian, let me translate a few other things for you. A female pastor is a director. A woman preaching a sermon is “teaching a lesson” if she’s in a classroom, or “sharing a testimony” if she’s behind a pulpit. A female elder is the “Women’s Ministry Council Chair.” A female deacon is “Nursery Coordinator,” “Communications Specialist,” or “Outreach Manager.” Remember, women are not “ordained” for any of these roles, but they might be “commissioned” for them. If you are looking for the person who is the glue of the church and gives daily pastoral care in the church office, you need to ask for the “Church Administrator.” Why do we perform all these semantic gymnastics?

             None of these words (besides elder and deacon) are even recognized as offices the New Testament. Pastor is a verb, not a title. It’s supposed to describe what someone does, not determine their pay rate. The word for “shepherd” (poimen) comes closest to our word for Pastor, but you never see it used as a title like “Pastor Paul” or “Shepherd Paul.” Instead, there are lots of different words the Bible uses for people ministering to build up the Body of Christ in different ways. Apostle, prophet, evangelist, elder, deacon, teacher, shepherd, servant, co-worker. Ideally, when a man is given the title of pastor it’s because a group of believers has recognized his voice as a source of nourishment and care so, like sheep they trust and follow him. Unfortunately, that title is often given as an aspiration, not an affirmation.

So, why is there so much gatekeeping around a title that’s not even a recognized office in the Bible? Asking all these questions helped me to get to the root of them all: “Does God give women spiritual authority, or does it need to be mediated through men?” But the answer to that question is an entire post for another day.

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[1] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2024/june/southern-baptist-convention-women-ministry-church-calling-s.html