the sound of silence: women in the Church ~m

**hi, it's me after I've already written this blog. I just want you to know that I said about 29% of the things I wanted to say in this discussion. I hope I did this topic some sort of justice, but I know it's not all-encompassing or even close to the end-all discussion I wish I could communicate. Enjoy the blog.**

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"Privilege will deceive you.

It will minimize the pain of others.

It will tell you that your opinion is more important than their humanity.

It will make you feel righteous while you oppress and marginalize.

And it will lie to you about how God sees your privilege."

-Carlos A. Rodriguez via Twitter

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 *Please note: my request is that before diving in to this blog you would stop for a second and pray for God's presence in the room to make itself evident to you. Allow the Spirit, if you believe in him, to communicate in any way he wants to. To give you some background, I've been praying about this subject so, so much. I'm earnestly seeking God's discernment through new experience, wisdom of those older than me, and of course prayer. 

intro

I’m quite terrified to post this. I’ve normally stayed fairly quiet about most topics that could be seen as controversial, and ones that are sources of division. Part of me is afraid of taking a stand on something that I know smarter and more experienced people than me disagree with. This topic, however, seems to be a source of division when nothing is said or it's only whispered about. Harm is being done by the silence that’s being spoken by respected people who either want to retain their respected title or don't think it's a topic appropriate to address publicly. I disagree fundamentally with that mentality. 

I unfortunately have had this conversation with multiple leaders in the Church who understand the context of certain Bible verses I’ll bring up later and acknowledged together that for the sake of tradition and comfortability the topic would not be immediately discussed or acted upon. So the topic is pushed to the back burner and not thought about. Years later we seem to be having the same attitude and, surprise surprise, nothing seems to have changed. 

I’ve heard and participated in the jokes that are humorous because of the portion of stinging truth in the punchline. 

I have also seen firsthand the desperation, depression, and hopelessness of ministers who aren’t allowed to be called ministers in their home circles. Cries of people who genuinely want to say "yes" to the calling of being a public vessel of Christ have fallen on my ears and when I began to actually listen to them a few years ago my whole life changed. I've seen these ministers lead people to Christ in unique ways that I would never have been able to do but someone else got the credit. 
There have been times when I have seen one or two scriptures quoted more than the Gospel in defending the traditions of old.

I cannot stay non-partial in this subject. Speaking freely, I see people I love who are being oppressed by people I love. I wish we would have learned from our country's history in racism:

Not standing up to or quieting loud, wrong people is a contribution to the noise they are creating. By disagreeing with oppression silently we contribute to that oppression, or at least give it room to grow.

I won't contribute to that silence anymore.

let's jump in

Let me start by asking you questions, please spend time on each one and answer them honestly and to yourself to prepare for the rest of this blog. I'd ask that you answer "yes," or "no" based on what you honestly believe: 

1. Do you believe a woman has a place standing in front of people, with men in the crowd, communicating Truth about God to people who need to hear it? (Judges 4:6, Acts 21:7-9)

2. Do you believe God's power is bigger than and not limited to gender? (Job 26:7-14)

3. Do you fundamentally believe it's a sin or against the Bible for a woman to lead in a group setting? (Exodus 15:20, Micah 6:4)

4. Do you believe a worship service on a Sunday morning is more holy or set apart than a gathering of people in Christ's name on any other day? (Matthew 18:20)

I'm very obviously leading to what I believe with those Bible verses after each question, in case you didn't pick that up. As much as possible I tried to focus more on Biblical examples of the questions being played out in real life, actual history, rather than the taken-out-of-context words in a letter and written instructions that seem to be quoted over and over again. 

These questions are the basis of the four issues that I really had to dig deeply into myself to find a truthful answer on. That was the only way for me to truly come to terms with what I believed. I'd encourage you to do more than just read a blog on this subject, but I'm glad you're still with me at this point. I have a little bit more to talk to you about. 

the sound of silence

            I'd like to call upon this classic song, originally (and performed best) by Simon and Garfunkel. It’s a tune well known by older and younger people alike, and I haven’t met a single person who doesn’t enjoy its haunting melody and shadowy, mysterious lyrics. The “sound of silence” seems like such an oxymoron and yet holds a significant amount of weight in the communicated idea that silence, or the complete absence of sound, is in itself a sound. It talks about thousands of people staying quiet simply for the fear of disturbing the sound that silence was making.

Why do they want to keep the silence...?

Who is benefitting from the silence?

I'm a guy. I've always been guaranteed leadership in the Church whenever I want it. Multiple times it has not been because I have the best things to say but simply because I have been a young man in the Church. I'm more than 80% more likely to be hired as a minister or pastor, and therefore it seems as a man I may be benefitting from the silence.

The more important question: who is being hurt by the silence?

You see where I'm going.

Silence is an action, action communicates belief, and belief is passed from generation to generation and results in more action (silence, in this case).

My point here is this: if you are consistently not saying that discrimination in the Church based on sex is wrong, or if you don't have an answer, or if you are okay with it happening, you are consistently telling those who see your action, or lack thereof, that you believe it is okay.

Perhaps that is what you believe. I just want you to know what you're doing.

God's design

"Male and female, he created them." -Genesis 5

Here's a hot take: God has given us strengths to help us, not weaknesses to limit us. What makes us feel like we need to confine those around us based on sex?  

God has designed us with incredible abilities. But is a man nothing if not a fighter, a father, and a provider? Is a woman nothing if not a homemaker, a mother, and a nurturer? What makes a human less qualified to communicate God's love to another human through speech? 

What environment is too holy to approach God's presence together? From what I understand, with the tearing of the veil (Matthew 27:51) all were given access to His glory and our bodies, male and female, became temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). We all have access to the holiest environment on earth (God's presence), so do we truly believe a church service, a gathering of believers who have ritualized a certain number of songs, prayers, and communion in a certain order somehow qualifies us more effectively for God's standards? I certainly hope not.

where do we go from here?

I want to propose that it's time for us to eliminate discrimination in the Church based upon words that are picked and chosen about one specific scenario. It absolutely tears my heart to think about how many times women must have stayed silent in a situation where they could have spoken the Gospel to people based on conditioning that humans have put on them. Think about how many more people would know Jesus right now if we had taken more time to invest in our women and stopped confining people who are desperately wanting to use their God-given spiritual gifts.

This can no longer just be a topic of theological discussion, though I hope it at least contributes to one being had. The sound of silence is deafening to those who are being hurt by it, though it seems like not a big deal to those who aren't affected. We can no longer make excuses for comfort's sake. You, reader, have to take responsibility for who you are in this scenario. 

Step out, stop contributing to the division and silencing of Kingdom work. Let people who need to hear about Jesus hear about him. Allow those who are called to speak about him to speak about him.

Of all my blogs, thank you for reading this one.

rocks (alt. title: i'm tired of waiting. alt title: "why are we naked?") ~m

intro - this is awkward

Oh hi. It's me. Mason. It's been...months since I've written a blog. Well, let's back up. It's been months since I've completed a blog. Riley's probably pretty frustrated at my lack of organization skills in the drafts column of our admin page. Sorry, my friend. It's a graveyard (GraceYard?) of half-written blogs that were abandoned because they just didn't seem quite right. I decided to dig up the bones of one of those for a thought that returned to me last night. I'm presenting to you a blog I wrote mostly on March 30, and then tweaked to fit my thoughts today, July 7 (oops).

Before I actually begin, I want to give you context as to where I am right now:

I spent some time yelling at God last night, if we're honest.
 I've been pretty frustrated recently with him for the ways it's felt like he's guided me into brick walls that I keep slamming into and hurting myself, and I've also been mad at myself for feeling entitled to a life above the hurt.
The theme my life keeps coming back to is that God's been telling me to wait. To be patient. I've prayed for guidance on things I felt I needed to act on...all I've gotten is the feeling and resources to wait. Wait for what, you're asking? I don't know, guys. I don't know. I can tell you I was on my face last night as I'm sure many of you have been, wanting to know what to do with one of the many things I have trouble surrendering control of in my life. I waited for an answer. I begged for an answer. All I got was that indescribable feeling of conviction. Patience. WHAT. NO. No more of that. I'm fresh out of that resource (your fault, God), and I thought you were making big moves in my life finally. That's what I deserve, right? After all I've given you?
Yikes. That sounds a lot worse written out than in my thoughts. But yeah, that's basically my thought process recently.

Okay, now that that's out of the way here are my constructive thoughts:

the easier-said-than-done waiting command

I remain confident of this:

    I will see the goodness of the Lord

    in the land of the living.

14 

Wait for the Lord;

    be strong and take heart

    and wait for the Lord.

-Psalm 27:13-14

Ever have a verse or theme get stuck in your head/life for a while, and you realize the reason later?

I'm having one of those right now, so I figured I'd write about it.

The Bible App verse of the day yesterday {UPDATE: this was the verse of the day for March 29th, haha} was Psalm 27:14, and an alarming number of my friends (if your friends don't see that you did it, does reading the Bible actually count?) made verse images for it. I finished my first Bible App plan in a long time a couple of days ago, and guess the real kicker verse the final devo was based off of? Psalm 27:13-14. I'm just coming out of a fairly significant season of attempted self-discipline and waiting in my life, and after really diving in I think there's so much to learn from this concept.

faith = trust...?

Let's go back to the beginning. Of life. And death. You're probably familiar with the Fall of Man (Genesis 3), the first act against God committed by humans, basically the entire reason life sucks sometimes. Thanks, Adam and Eve. Thanks guys.

 I recently gained a new perspective about our relationship with God, and if I'm oversimplifying this, please address all complaints to rjs16b@acu.edu (that's Riley's email address. Send me an email if you want his number. He takes complaints very seriously). 

I think that one of the most important attributes that went away with the Fall, and pretty much the reason for all our pain, was trust. Wow, Mason. Soooo profound. We need to trust God, good blog. Keep reading and I'll try to make it more interesting, I promise.

Have you ever noticed that the areas of life you feel weakest in seem to be the areas where you feel most attacked?

In Genesis 3, where all the crap that affected our entire lives on earth goes down, Satan starts his whole plan into the works simply by creating the opportunity for lack of complete trust.

rocks

This concept is so basic, but I forget the simplicity behind it almost every day. When complete trust isn't there, it creates a metaphorical crack, AKA an opportunity for Satan to put a metaphorical wedge in the metaphorical rock of our non-metaphorical faith. I mean, there's still an entire rock there when a small crack is in it, right? A small lack of trust doesn't mean a huge lack of faith. Big faith can still be there when a crack appears, but big faith can fall hard. Don't be fooled: a small crack can absolutely destroy a huge rock. {Side note here: doubt is an awesome thing that helps faith grow. Doubting with faith doesn't mean letting trust go to the wayside in this context. I'll cover that in another blog sometime, hopefully}

"You won't certainly die," the enemy says in Genesis 3 verse 4. "You won't certainly give into temptation," he says to you and me. There's a practical way out of every downfall, every addiction, and every misstep. Until things are so piled up that it feels like there's no way out, and you've done the unimaginable.
Maybe that snake is right. I didn't notice how legit this fruit looks...smells good, too. I'll take it from the tree and give it to Adam, he hasn't said anything...I'll eat it if you do, hubs. Oops. Down the hatch. 

Boom. Wait. Why are we naked? 

Back to the trust thing. In reading Genesis 3, do you notice that as soon as they lost trust with God, they lost trust with everything? The first thing they realize is that they're not clothed, and they no longer trust each other or whoever else was around with who they truly were.  So. Relatable. Trust was so important in the world when it was perfect. They acted without fear with their trust in each other, in God, and their surroundings. 

But we can't do that. Have you been hurt? I have. Sorry if this is too punk rock for you, but I have trusted earthly things to get me through life and been throughly disappointed. I still catch myself doing that, all the time. I've lost trust in my surroundings, and at times I feel callous to so many of the positive experiences and people in my life because I'm expecting to be let down. I think it's completely okay to not trust this world, it's just part of who we have to be sometimes.

jesus is the best vine don't @ me

Alright. Where does that leave us? We're in this waiting game and God's saying we need to be patient and wait on him. We're in enemy territory, we can't trust our surroundings. Waiting in this environment is like sitting and waiting to get hit with a stray bullet. 

Here's what we have  to do if we're going to make it through: we have to give God every piece of our lives. If you hold ANYthing back, you're not trusting him completely. Remember the rocks? We can't let a crack get in there. If one does, we gotta remove whatever Satan's using to chisel away at us, and Flex Seal that bad boy up. 

What does that look like? Uncomfortable analogy coming up: being naked. stripping down and letting God see what we're too ashamed to show the world. No fig leaves allowed.

Why would I say that? To get the point across, of course. Trust is a huge deal, and that's something many people struggle with, myself included. Here's the best part of this entire blog, though:

God delights in our deepest and most intimate corners of our lives, because we are a part of him. He's the Vine to our Branch.

(See John 15:4-6)

It's an incredible feeling, truly abiding in our Vine. He's where we belong, anyway. He created us to be naked (you thought I was done with that analogy, didn't ya), and he LOVES who we truly are. We're just a branch of him, anyway. Therefore we have zero reason to not trust him. We have every reason to be patient when he tells us to be patient, no matter the length of time or the confusion. Trust in him, friends. Trust in him, Mason. 

wrap-up

Don't get me wrong. It takes strength to wait, read the verse in Psalms again: Wait for the Lord. be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. You have to rally yourself.  Here are three ways to wait when God tells you to be patient about something. We all have something we want to jump the gun on. Identify that thing in your life. 

1. Wait with intention to stop waiting. Not going now means you're going to have to start at some point. Be prepared, and don't sleep on God's signs in your life. Patience for one thing doesn't mean ignoring everything else in your life.

2. Wait with trust. So basically what this entire blog was about. Renew your trust to be refreshed.

3. Wait with strength. Wait, but never stop moving. Patience doesn't mean being lazy. The enemy is going to try to distract you if you're doing the right thing. Keep your goal at the front of your mind. Eyes on the prize. 

Eyes on the prize. 

"I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus, when we meet him face-to-face, opens the books and allows us to see the good things from our lives with a greater clarity than when we first experienced them. Such speculation is not wild theology. It is near to the heart of the Bible. After all, Jesus said that the Father knows you so well--better than you know yourself, in fact."

 -Kevin Ott, Shadowlands and Songs of Light 

~m

The Unbelieving Believers - R

Man, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Since the last time I wrote a blog post, I moved into a new house, graduated college, went to a different country, saw two friends get married, and started my summer internship.

In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller: life moves pretty fast.

I do want to focus more on one item on that list, though, and that's going to a different country. I had the amazing privilege to travel with a group from ACU to a small village in Ghana called Ateiku. This was my first time ever leaving the country, and I was a little nervous I will admit. When I first heard about the trip, it just fit so perfectly with my schedule (between graduation and my internship) and sounded so compelling that I felt like it was very important for me to find a way to get there. And I think it was important for me to be there, but more on that later.

First, I want to try to give you a small taste of the colossal amount of work God has been able to do in that country in the last twenty years. Our main contact was a man named Lawrence Oduro. It is very difficult to overstate the impact that this one man has had on the community around him. He walked by faith to that small village of Ateiku to spread the good news, but when he saw how deep the needs of that community were, he did more than start a church. To skip a few steps in the story, because of Lawrence's work in Ateiku and the surrounding villages, over 100 wells have been dug, which bring clean water to hundreds of thousands of people; dozens of churches have been planted all over the country; because Lawrence cannot preach at all these churches, he started a school to train preachers, which this year graduated twelve new preachers; he also started numerous primary, intermediate, and high schools to raise the quality of education in the area; and most recently, he built a hospital in Ateiku to make healthcare more affordable and more available, since the next closest hospital is a two hour drive from their village.

Like I say, God has done an incredible amount through this one man. The area has been completely transformed. If you'd like, this amazing video gives a little more information on the ministry there, and I'll even promise not to continue with the blog post until you finish watching it.

The entire time I was there, I was keeping an eye out for why exactly God had me there. What was I meant to learn? What was I meant to see? Who was I meant to meet? What was I meant to do? I'm now fairly convinced that one of the most significant things to come out of that trip was a one-hour conversation that our group got to have with Lawrence one night. We asked him about the culture, about the ongoing work he was conducting, about the state of Christianity in Ghana - everything we could think of really. He very graciously answered all of our questions, happy to share with us ignorant Westerners.

Towards the end of that conversation, I asked him (since he'd been to America numerous times and often hosted groups of Americans in Ateiku) what the main differences were between American Christians and Ghanaian Christians. What followed was a conversation that might rattle around in my brain for the rest of my life.

The first thing he said: "Huge, not small." Seems like a belief in Jesus may be the only thing we actually have in common. He thought for a half-second and smiled. He said, "I would say that about 70% of American Christians are not believers."

We stared. Not really sure I'm following Lawrence.

It turns out that Americans really don't know what faith is. He talked about American churches trying to plan, trying to accomplish something. The first place they turn is not to God with a prayer but to the budget with a pen. We have to make this make sense, we have to plan and be organized, we have to work out of the carefully constructed line items that keep the church running.

Lawrence said that Ghanaian Christians don't have that luxury. They have to operate out of faith. When they see a need, they trust that God will find a way, big or small, to fill it, and they ask God to do just that until he does.

My first thought was to be defensive, to think that well yes, we pay attention to the budget so that we don't run the church into the ground, we want to be responsible, don't we? Then I remembered a discussion that I once had in class on the disciples and the feeding miracles.

During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.”
His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?” “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied. He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.About four thousand were present. After he had sent them away, he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha. - Mark 8:1-10

Let's go ahead and agree that the disciples here represent American Christians. They're asking a pretty good question. Or at least they would be, if they hadn't already seen him feed more people with less bread. Just two chapters prior to this in Mark, Jesus fed the 5,000! And then he walked on water! And the disciples are somehow still concerned with the question of how. It seems almost laughable at this point to think that Jesus couldn't find a way to do this, but it seems like they're doing exactly what Lawrence observed that we do. They're trying to make it make sense. They're trying to operate out of the numbers that work in their minds.

In the immortal words of Randy Harris, "God doesn't do math like that."

The sad reality is that Americans don't have faith because most Americans don't need faith. We are some of the wealthiest people in the world, we live in relative safety, we have an amazing infrastructure, and we have some of the lowest rates of hunger on the planet. For the most part, our needs are met regularly. We don't need faith, because we have the expectation that we'll be taken care of.

As someone who currently works in not one but two churches, I feel it's necessary to say that I'm not advocating for fiscal irresponsibility. I think budgeting is smart and important. The lesson I'm learning is that the budget cannot decide what we are capable of. What are mere dollars and cents to the creator of heaven and earth?

This is challenging me more than I can remember being challenged in a long time. I realized that even though I'm a proud Christian, I don't think that I'm a true believer. But there's no time like the present to practice. What's the wildest change you're hoping to see happen in your life or in the world? What's that impossible thing that hasn't happened yet? What's that thing that you could never do because the budget or the schedule wouldn't allow? Be crazy enough to believe that God can do that any way he wants. Start praying and start looking for opportunities. It may not make sense to us, but it doesn't have to.

Since when does God have to make sense?

~RJS~

The God Who Verbs - R

One of my favorite tasks I've ever been given while working at a church came in February of 2017. Ash Wednesday was upon us and I was gifted the job of making the ashes for the service that would end up on hundreds of people's foreheads. High stakes work for an intern, but I don't back down.

If you don't know, we don't use just any old fireplace ashes for an Ash Wednesday service, they're ashes from burned palm branches to honor the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. I made an impressive sight standing there outside of the church standing beside a trashcan with an open flame inside it being stoked by palm branches while wearing dress clothes. Afterward, my clothes smelled like the smoke from a slightly different plant that might have gotten me fired, but altogether a great time was had by all.

Palm rhymes with psalm. (Nailed it)

So Psalms is a cool book! It's not one that I find myself reading often, but I feel like every time I do, I find something incredible. I love that Psalms gives us such a rich vocabulary to talk about God in ways that we'd probably never think of. Most recently, the one to catch my eye was Psalm 103, a truly beautiful psalm. I'm only going to be talking about the first few verses, but it felt like a disservice to shorten it, so here it is:

1Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

6 The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel:
8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
15 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.
17 But from everlasting to everlasting
    the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
    and his righteousness with their children’s children—
18 with those who keep his covenant
    and remember to obey his precepts.

19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
    and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Praise the Lord, you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his bidding,
    who obey his word.
21 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
    you his servants who do his will.
22 Praise the Lord, all his works
    everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I've been struggling mightily to be in a "Praise the Lord" type of mood. And I think that's okay. I'm of the belief that God wants all of our emotions, positive or negative, just as long as we're bringing them to him. He can take it.

But that's not the point.

How do you think of God? I'm sure if you were trying to tell about what kind of God you worship, you'd play a fill-in-the-blank kind of game with the sentence "God is _______." In America, we tend to fill this in with adjectives such as loving or gracious or merciful or just or all-powerful.

Hear me say, these are both theologically correct as well as wonderful aspects of our Creator. But I do think that the ancient Israelites had a better vocabulary when it came to talking about their God. They knew that adjectives would just never do the trick.

For the Israelites, the single most important defining feature of the God that they served was that he was the God who brought them out of Egypt. During the Exodus, he enacted the ten plagues, he split the Red Sea, he defeated Pharaoh's army, and he brought them into their Promised Land.

To put this another way, Israel was far more concerned with the verbs than the adjectives when they spoke about God.

It is important to understand the qualities of God, though they may be far above our own understanding, but I think our human brains will have a much better concept of who God is when we focus on the actions of God. That's what the psalmist does in Psalm 103, and I think we have something to learn from this. They focus on the actions of God before they ever look at the attributes of God. In answering the question, "Who is God?" they decide to start with the verbs.

"Well let me tell you: God forgives, . . . heals, . . . redeems, . . . crowns, . . . satisfies."

When we limit God to adjectives, we tend to forget that he actually acts. He's alive, he's working, he's moving in the world all around us. We stop looking for his activity in our lives, content to just accept the kind of God he is. Genesis 2 tells us that our God gets in the dirt, works with his hands, and still makes things that are good. Who says that isn't true today? He works in the dirt that is our lives and transforms it into something good.

How is God working in your life? And if your answer is "I have no idea," like me, I have a follow-up question: how hard are you looking for God's working in your life? Keep your eyes open, and he might surprise you. Are you looking up to heaven asking him to come down and help you? Because chances are, he's already down in the dirt working, waiting for you to see the good that he's making.

~RJS~