A couple days ago, I opened Facebook to be greeted by the picture above.
Baptist Women in Ministry (BWIM) shared the picture with a caption saying, “This billboard will greet approximately 20,000 Southern Baptists arriving in Orlando for the SBC Annual Meeting next week [June 7-10], where the role and value of women in the church will be debated once again.
“We want every Baptist woman to know that God calls women to ministry and always has.
“Our prayer is that this witness of hope, freedom, and abundant life reaches those who need it most.”
Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, has proposed an amendment to the SBC’s constitution that expressly limits those who could hold the office of pastor/elder/overseer or any of the functions of such roles. In short, the SBC delegates will soon vote to constitutionally restrict women from serving in ministerial roles.
In a press release about the billboard placement, BWIM’s Executive Director, Rev. Dr. Meredith Stone named that “Many women who are committed to their SBC churches are navigating what the passage of this amendment would mean for them. … As proposed, the amendment goes further in limiting women than anything proposed before. Its provisions would mean if a woman preaches, teaches, ministers or leads in any role that is interpreted as a ‘pastoral function,’ her congregation could be disfellowshipped.”
She went on to say, “Even beyond the SBC, when women everywhere learn Southern Baptists are once again arguing about women’s value to God and the church, they also feel the pain caused by harmful theology and rising threats to women’s rights. … We are speaking out so that they too will cleary hear the message that women are equally valued. We want all women to know that their callings, gifts and worth are determined by God and not by any denomination.”
This is me circa 2013 standing outside the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in a shirt that says, “This is What a Preacher Looks Like”
Their post reminded me of a time that I went to my old stomping grounds and created some holy mischief of my own.
I grew up across the street from SBTS. I often joke that I went to seminary before primary school, because I attended daycare at SBTS. I was a member of the SBTS Saints swim team. Many afternoons after school, my friends and I walked over to the seminary to do homework in their study rooms or play in the gym. To say that place itself had a hand in raising me would be an understatement.
As some of you have seen on facebook, I believe it was walking these grounds as a kid where I heard some of the earliest whisperings of God’s voice calling me to a life of ministry. Everyone I met there – from preschool teachers to camp counselors to swim team coaches – taught me to believe in myself and to live boldly the life God had in store for me.
Today, I would not be welcome there simply because I followed the voice of God pushing me into Gospel Ministry.
Maybe another day, I will list off all the biblical and theological reasons I disagree with an anti-women in ministry stance. Perhaps it should be enough that Jesus met a woman at a well and it was her evangelism – her preaching – that turned an entire town toward him. Or that the first people to share the Good News of Christ’s resurrection with the [male] disciples were women.
But, today, I am thinking of the young women who weren’t/aren’t lucky enough to grow up in a community that fostered their call. I am thinking of the ones who will ride in the back of their parent’s van to Orlando next week and wonder why their gender makes them “less.”
I’m often slow to comment on the anti-women in ministry sentiments spewed by Al Mohler and his ilk. Thankfully, I’ve found a place to belong in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and I serve a church that embraces me fully. His words rarely change anything for me.
But for that young girl in the back of her parent’s van, BWIM’s billboard could be the spark that ignites the fire of the Holy Spirit within her. For the young adult who finds her way to Frankfort, the holy mischief we engage in might just be the thing that leads her to believe in herself.
Meredith Stone shared with me that BWIM has a “‘when they go low, we go high,’ philosophy to say that when the SBC guys are speaking negativity and oppression, we will not return their negativity but will only put out positive messages.”
As someone who knows what its like to lose a spiritual home, I needed this reminder that people like us need to engage in some holy mischief every now and then so that people know the arms of God are wide and waiting to embrace them.
