Found the following through my friend Steve Schenk. I love Rose! In early February, I got to visit with her shortly as the church she leads in Seattle hosted the Society of Vineyard Scholars conference.
I first met Rose a few years ago when she taught and lead a breakout session at a Vineyard Central gathering on the Contemplative Charismatic. She has taught and helped me so much! One of the things I want to begin to blog about some after Easter and regarding Pittsburgh is toward the Contemplative Charismatic. But today, I thought I would share this video with Rose talking about Women in Leadership, because I love what she has to say about team leadership and women and men together...and that is definitely something that impacts what God is calling us to cultivate in Pittsburgh:
8 comments:
...were you around for the debate in the Vineyard over female leaders? What was your take on it if you were?
I have been having a few conversations with some of the guys in my area, and I guess it was a little divisive in this neck of the woods...
I like what she said at the end: we do indeed need BOTH women and men in leadership. To have one with out the other is to be unbalanced.
@ Steve S - I caught the tail end of the debate, and I can tell you that it was crazy. In fact, the emotions concerning women in leadership are still very high and divisive within the Northwest region....
@Steve S - I caught the tail end as well, but for the life of me I couldn't quite understand the angst and divisivness...and it was mostly the older generation that had such angst...I think later generations wonder what the fuss is about?
@Steve S.-There is a guy in my church who came from a church that left the Vineyard over it. From my standpoint this is not a make or break issue especially since the Vineyard's stance did not affect their local church government.
@Josh H-I think the necessity of both male and female perspectives in leadership has already been appreciated in the business world. Sometimes the people of this age are ahead of the game when it comes to perceiving the kingdom.
I am surprised that it was a divisive issue even in the NW. I thought you guys were pretty open up there.
@Steve H.-The fuss was about cultural assumptions of who should be in power. The later generations grew up with working moms and women in leadership in the secular arena. Therefore it's a no brainer.
@ramon - i think they don't realize their cultural assumptions are just fossilized remains of 2000 years ago..and just as contingent as ours are! of course, now i've really branded myself as a heretic in their circles. truth be told, i think the Vineyard used the best, wisest path forward in that God-moved change, doing it, while respecting local churches...
@pretty much everyone - i'd love to have a conversation sometime around disentangling power, authority and leadership. i always find that conversation well worth it.
I'm down Steven. I am actually going through two anthropology and mission classes and they are very insightful when it comes to power and its place in culture. Blowing my mind!!!
I really appreciate what she has to say about people being free to fill the role God has called them to in the church. That said, I was a little worried by the fact that she kept referring to the role of senior pastor as a position of power. I suppose that in many churches it is but that seems really unhealthy. I think it is taking a secular view of structural hierarchy and applying it to an organism.
I am certainly opposed to chauvinism both within and without the church but if a woman wants to be senior pastor for the sake of empowerment I think that would be as much a problem as a man wanting to be senior pastor in order to have power over women.
Just some thoughts and I realize she may not have meant what I heard.
@Bill - I hear you...I also am against power-plays and chaunvinism or hyper-feminism. It actually antithetical to Jesus' call of the gospel - servant leadership. Knowing Rose, and knowing her story, I heard her being tragicomic in the video, and actually two times taking the posture of humility. first, in a bit from the story she tells about the mega church she was asked to speak at and her submitting herself to whatever they thought best. And then in her own church, who having recognized the call and gifts of senior leadership and empowered her in that, she still cmes around to humility saysing it's about team leadership. I'm a huge proponent of that!
So, let me put my cards on the tabel vis-a-vis authority and leadership and women in leadership: for me Jesus has the authority, and expresses that through living through us. so it's about the Father's reign in Christ through His Spirit. all authority has been given to Him...and He exercises that authority through us via indwelling and living through us. James D.G. Dunn says it better than I:
"As E. Kasemann has rightly insisted, so far as the Pauline community is concerned, authority resides in or belongs to the act of ministry itself – it resides neither in the person nor in an office, but in the particular charisma itself. Moreover, the concomitant responsibility to evaluate that charisma is laid upon all. Now this fact is true of all ministry, of all charismata, in the Pauline vision of community.”
So Jesus expressing authority and leadership in the church isn't based on the broken vessel itself, but rather in Christ, and in Christ issues like male/female, slave/freeperson, sophistocated/primitive culture...all those are equal, because it's about discerning as a community what Jesus is saying to the churches and through the churches to the world...at least that's my two-cents.
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