*Catch up on this series:
Part 1: Women In Discipleship | Part 2: Women In Ministry | Part 3: Women In Marriage + Family
I’m writing the fourth piece of this series on women’s roles and Christianity years after writing the first three blogs. One of the young women I mentor encouraged me to share my journey as a woman in ministry with you, and she was right.
I actually don’t like talking about my story very much because I’m concerned people will assume I support the full participation of women at all levels of preaching ministry and church leadership because of my personal feelings and experience, but that’s not true. Ultimately, I hold my egalitarian view in the Church and in the home because of the Bible, but here’s how I got involved in ministry and some challenges I faced along the way.
My Journey As A Woman In Ministry
Called As A Teenager
I was raised in a Methodist denomination, which is known for its support of women in all areas of ministry and church leadership. Growing up my senior pastors were a married couple, and the wife preached, pastored, and led just as much as the husband did. I had amazing examples and leaders pouring into my life who were godly women (and men) preachers, pastors, worship leaders, prayer warriors. It was awesome.
This church also had an amazing youth ministry that empowered youth–myself included–to lead in the church in every area from serving communion, worship team, altar ministry. It was serving in these roles that I developed a deep love for the Church and for God’s people. One day, when I was 15, God showed me a vision in my mind of me preaching at a church service at my youth group. I knew at that moment God was calling me to be a preacher of the Word and calling me to ministry as my occupation. The problem was, I was very shy back then and terrified of public speaking, so let’s just say I was surprised to feel this tug from God on my heart. God has a sense of humor.
After several weeks of internal wrestling, I mustered up the courage to call my youth pastor one day after school and tell him I sensed God calling me to preach. He invited me to join a ministry team and mentoring program my youth group offered for youth leaders who felt called to preaching and vocational ministry.
I preached my first sermon when I was 16, and somewhere around that same age sensed God putting a desire in my heart to pastor one day. And, alongside my peers, I was trained as a minister and served my youth group by preaching sermons, leading Bibles studies, and helping facilitate services until I left for college.
Challenges In College
However, my college years presented a tension. On one hand, I was privileged to be an active student leader in my campus ministry. During my entire time in undergrad, I led worship, led small group Bible disciples, discipled fellow women students one-on-one, crafted and preached sermons for the large group gatherings, led prayer meetings. I was even the president of the entire ministry for one year. My friends and I joke that we should have graduated our secular university with a minor in ministry, and it’s true!
But it was also in college that I first personally encountered Christians from different backgrounds who didn’t believe in women pastors or preachers the way I, and the Christians I was raised around, believed. Talk about culture shock! Suddenly, my spiritual gifts, and my encounters with God calling me to ministry, and my aspirations to preach and pastor and lead God’s people were no longer things I was excited to discuss openly with people because I didn’t know how I’d be received.
I had disagreements with close friends over this topic, especially during my freshmen year of college. I did a Google search one night about different views Christians have about women in ministry. This, of course, led to me ripping a page out of my journal where I’d written down some ministry dreams God had placed in my heart and throwing it away, then running to my Physics class choking back tears because I was hurt and confused by what I just read.
I was angry with God for a season. I asked Him all kinds of questions:
I was taught that the restrictions on women preaching and leading in the Bible were cultural; was that wrong? Did I hear You wrong, God, and I’m not really called to minister and be a shepherd to Your people? If I get this wrong, I could be in disobedience to You! Why did You give me these pastoral, teaching, and leadership-oriented spiritual gifts and these deep desires for ministry work if You didn’t want me to use them? I didn’t give myself these desires and I can’t make them go away. Am I supposed to just suppress them for the rest of my life? Why did You allow me to be raised in a church that championed and supported me as an aspiring woman in ministry and let me believe I could actually do this if that ‘s not the case?
I was angry at men for a season because, in my mind, “they can do whatever God calls them to do and no one will ever question them, but I’m not afforded that same benefit of the doubt as a woman.”
The beautiful thing about this painful experience was that it pushed me deeper into God’s Word to study what He had to say about this topic for myself and form my own conclusion, and I encourage you to do the same. God met me deeply in that process, and it’s been one of the most fruitful experiences of my life. The thoughts and resources I shared in the previous three blogs in this series are the result of those years of study.
Stepping Into Full-Time Ministry and Finding Healing
Shortly after graduating college, God led me to formally step into ministry as my full-time occupation and I began working in college ministry, which I still do this day. And alongside that, I launched this online ministry, through which I get to share the gospel, teach the Bible, disciple people online as well.
I am so blessed to be a part of a ministry and Christian community that fully acknowledges and supports the spiritual gifts God has given me and allows space for me to preach and teach and prophesy, lead God’s people in worship, pray with people, lead small groups and staff teams and more. They have encouraged and challenged me, and given me space to grow and mature as a believer and as a servant of God and people. And if God’s called you, He can give you community and outlets to serve like this too.
Some of them even gave me the nickname “Pastor Jas,” even though that’s not currently my title although it is my function in many ways. I have dear friends who are brothers in the faith, and they’ll ask me for input on sermons they’re preparing or ask to reference my study notes in their teaching. And there’s no “just because I want a woman’s perspective,” which is not wrong, by the way. But they simply view me as an equal minister of the gospel with valuable gifts and insights from God to contribute, no catch. And they have no idea how deeply healing these acts of value, love, and friendship is to my heart.
It’s also not lost on me that several of the young woman college students God has brought into my life to mentor also have a call from God to ministry on their lives, many of them with leadership, pastoral, and preaching gifts. I pray He can use me to be the example and resource to them I wish I had as a young women discerning a call to ministry and wrestling through tough theological questions. God sure knows how to take the challenges we’ve overcome in our lives and use them to be a blessing to others, doesn’t He?
I don’t want you to think I never struggle. Honestly, to this day I still often wonder in the back of my mind how I’m going to be received by people as a woman in ministry. I still struggle with feeling like I have to work harder to prove myself than guys do or with believing the lie that I can’t make mistakes as I’m growing, because if I’m not perfect I won’t be welcomed by the Church to minister in my gifts. But by the grace of God, I am not ruled by those struggles anymore. If you need healing in your heart and your story in this area, I know He can do that for you just like He did for me.
***If you’re a woman serving in or aspiring to ministry, I recommend you check out the Women In Ministry Leadership Podcast. The interviews and insights in these conversations always encourage me and I hope they encourage you too.
Resources:
- Start here: Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James and Two Views On Women In Ministry present both sides without taking a stance.
- For an egalitarian-leaning view:
– this blog by Debra Fileta and Marg Mowczko’s blog
– These sermons by Pastor Jon Tyson, Pastor Paul Bergin, Pastor Daniel Grothe
– These books: Rediscovering The Scripture’s Vision for Women by Lucy Peppiatt and Equal by Katia Adams. - For a soft complementarian-leaning view: Worthy by Elyse Fitzpatrick & Eric Schumaker and Is The Bible Good For Women? by Wendy Alsup
Let’s Talk: Who is a woman in ministry that’s encouraged you in your faith? If you’re a woman in ministry, how did God call you into ministry? Discuss this post in the comments below.
