Vineyard Churches Move Toward Women Pastors

According to a report from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the national board of directors of the Vineyard churches denomination has adopted a set of guidelines opening the door for female pastors. The Vineyard is the largest third wave charismatic group, founded by John Wimber in 1984.

The guidelines ask Vineyard members, including those who reject gender egalitarianism, to "bless" the ministry of women in the role of senior pastor in Vineyard churches. Theologian Wayne Grudem, a former member of the Vineyard movement, responds that asking those who hold to a complementarian view of gender roles to "bless" such a thing is asking believers to sin.

Grudem says:

"Under the guise of ‘mutual respect’ I believe the Vineyard leadership, by this policy, will drive out the pastors who are most faithful to the teaching of John Wimber and most faithful to the Word of God itself," Grudem said.

"With sadness and regret I now expect that compromise with the spirit of the age will soon follow in other areas of Vineyard teaching as well.  I sincerely hope that the Vineyard will reverse this policy."

I am still hoping for evidence to prove me wrong in my assertion that feminism is winning the gender debate among American evangelicals, but the Vineyard downgrade doesn't help.

Comments

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>And - even if the Vineyard has suddenly become your "enemy" due to the position they've taken on women in the church, do you remember what Jesus said to do toward your enemies? BLESS and NOT curse them! <<<

So, then, you ignore those passages in the Epistles of Paul, in 2 Peter, and in Jude that warn us against false teachers and instruct us not to admit them into the assembly? Love thy neighbor is one thing. Validate thy neighbor's error is quite something else.

[Nola Smith]

You are right, the article did not villify the Vineyard, only disagreed. My bad. When we vehemently disagree or oppose another's viewpoint, they become the opposition theologically, so enemy was a bad word to use. I apologize.

I speak for myself, and I really don't know why I ended up on this posting site, but I've taken 35 years to ask God again and again about the contradictions in Paul's writings. One example -women to be silent in the churches "as the law also says". It doesn't say that anywhere in the law! Another: women led house churches and Paul complimented them as fellow workers in the Kingdom. There was a female apostle (much debate over the name but most authorities agree it is a female name.) I believe that when we see contradictions in the Scripture, they really aren't contradictions, they are just problems in translation from the original inspired Hebrew and Greek text.

After memorizing Scripture and continuing to find SEEMING contradictions, I began to read books on both sides of the issue by men more scholarly than myself - Two Views on Women in Ministry, Ten Lies the Church Tells Women, Who Says Women Can't Teach, etc. and more than I can name here, plus numerous articles. Finally, there were some decent explanations for the seeming contradictions and I could embrace what I thought must be true in my own heart of hearts as a woman. I think that, like Joyce Meyers, if it was wrong for her to preach, then did God make a mistake when the anointing on her has brought so many to Christ, healed marriages, changed lives? If the fruit is good, then the tree is good. There are more churches that have fallen apart and done great damage and dwindled in size under the leadership of men - because the problems in the church are NOT about gender -nor is gender to blame - the problem is what it has always been - sin - and sin has no gender bias. To blame females for the condition of the church, once again, is to introduce biased thought that is such a far cry from what the Bible teaches us where blame belongs - on sin. Sins of control and manipulation, sins of unforgiveness, sins of harsh authoritarianism, sins of bias, sins of immorality, sins of gossip, divisiveness, slander, sins of religiosity and legalism - all of these are what breaks up the church, and they are committed as much by men in leadership as by women in leadership (more, actually, because there are more men in church leadership!)

Women are no more to blame than men, and if you go back to the Garden, you will see that both of the genders were cursed, and God called them BOTH Adam, male and female, (Gen. 5:2) in the day they were created. As men and women, we SHARE the responsibility for the fall, and today, we share sin's continuing effect. We have the same Holy Spirit, we are equal heirs in the grace of life, and the Cross doesn't work better for men than it works for women. Men do not have a bigger Holy Spirit, nor do women. Men and women are equally capable of abuse of power, of deception, of harming others. So long as men keep their voice in the church and are highly honored, so long as women or men in church leadership do not admit feminist rebellion into the sound doctrine of the church, and so long as home-making and mothering and loving our husbands and wives and children continue to be held in high regard as they are in Scripture, and godly subjection to authority remains honored, and pastors subject themselves to peer and senior accountability, we need not fear "truly Christian" women in leadership! The problem has not been with gender, it has been with evil content - and both men and women of other denominations have been guilty of introducing and perpetrating sinful anti-family, immoral, and anti-authority thought and tolerance for every form of sin. I have heard evil teachings come from the mouths of both evil men and evil women on the same side - Satan's.

Satan is the author of all that, not women. And godly women are as able to discern by the Holy Spirit as godly men...we have the same spirit and same opportunity to hear God, the same living eternal spirit within us that, so that when we get to heaven and our mortal bodies fall off, we will not be encased in a male or female shell - there is no male or female in heaven. We are limited by gender, but not by our eternal, redeemed spirits. We can help each other, work side by side, honor each other, defer to each other, and hold each other accountable to Scripture. But being open to the possibility of mis-translations or misunderstandings from the original greek and hebrew into English text has always brought challenges, and changes. We are progressing to the day of His return, and each new, good move of God is questioned by the previous ones. History repeats itself.

I am a complimentairan with egalitarian leanings. I believe women can be called by the Holy Spirit, to every office of the church - apostles, prophets, pastors, teacher/evangelists. I believe that few will actually BE called because of time-consuming duties to husband and children and many women simply can't do both and do justice to the home. In the same way, most men cannot both support their families and be called to a senior leadership position. God knows what each individual is capable of doing and doing well, and many of those who thought they could do well, have done poorly in their homes - men AND women in ministry.

Some women, like some men, are so gifted they can do it all, and if their husbands champion it, and the fruit of that office follows them, then the tree is good. I think single women are more likely to receive a true calling from God, or women whose children are grown. I think we will continue to see many pastors co-pastoring, where it's not "the pastor and his wife", but "the copastors of our church", where those women have received equal callings from the Spirit to lead and to pastor. They may pastor part-time while their husbands pastor full-time because of domestic duties. Whether part or full-time, they are still pastoring.

I think this will be a huge blessing to the church because the Vineyard has not embraced sins of immorality any more than other good evangelical denominations. It is possible to have the baby without the bathwater.

[Frank Emanuel]

In Canada we've held a more egalitarian view from the beginning, we have a position paper on our main site www.vineyard.ca. Within the Vineyard our mode of operation is to name those gifts and callings we already see functioning. Most often we release (we no longer ordain in Canada) couples to minister as partners. But we recognize the member of the couple who has the pastoral gifting in the role they are fulfilling - even senior pastor. I for one am happy to hear that the US is catching up. Grudem was a bit of Calvinist for my liking anyway, it is hard to respect anyone who makes the statements you claim that he has made.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>ut we recognize the member of the couple who has the pastoral gifting in the role they are fulfilling - even senior pastor.<<<

Gifting? Is newspeak a requirement when one abandons the Apostolic Tradition?

[David Gray]

>I think this will be a huge blessing to the church because the Vineyard has not embraced sins of immorality any more than other good evangelical denominations.

That is increasingly a meaningless statement. However this is overt rebellion and that is sin itself and will bring its consequences as such.

[James A. Altena]

Nola,

The real problem with your position is its uncritically egalitarian notions of "gifting" and "ministry." The Holy Ghost distributes to whom He will, not to whom you want. St. Paul points out that not all gifts or ministries are given to all, nor do all who receive a particular gift or ministry receive it in equal degree. The very nature of the Trinity teaches us that (contrary to modern egalitarianism) hierarchy and equality are not contradictory and mutually exclusive.

Has it not occurred to you that if the Church has univesally taught and practiced for almost 2,000 years (and add to that another 1,000 or so for the OT priesthoood) that one specific ministry -- that of sacramental orders -- is reserved to men, it is because Christ designed this and the Holy Ghost taught that this was divine intention?

No one here has said or implied that men have not committed or do not commit the many sins you mention. But, as C. S. Lewis aptly noted in his classic essay "Priestesses in the Church?", it is no solution to men doing a job poorly to call women to do it instead. The proper solution instead is to call better men and uphold the original standards. The misuse and abuse of male headship is not cured by abolishing headship.

The sin of Eve in the Garden of Eden fundamentally involved usurpation of the divinely ordained male office of headship, a sin in which Adam participated by acquiescing and abetting. The ordination of women is simply a repeat of that all over again. We who are orthodox will not follow Adam's example.

Thus, while we can agree that St. Paul does not contradict himself, we cannot agree with your attempt at resolution, which is to accept the modern "hermeneutics of suspicion" and charge the apostolic church with modern-day alleged sins of sexism, patriarchy, etc. In fact, all these supposed "contradicitons" were already dealt with by the patristic fathers over 1,500 years ago. You would provide yourself healthful spiritual medicine by reading them, instead of imbibing the spiritual poison of the works you cite that distort the Scriptures to fit modern conceptions.

(E.g., there is no female apostle. The phrase about Junia in Romans 16 that she "is of note among the apostles" means that she is held in high repute by the apostles, not that she is an apostle of high repute. The tendentious attempt to create a female apostle to advance an egalitarian agenda is an example of the spiritual poison to which I just referred.)

G. K. Chesterton rightly warned against heeding those who do not practice the "democracy of the dead," but simply cut off and dismiss past generations as being in error, in favor of the supreme arrogance of "presentism," that holds us to be smarter and wiser simply because we are later in time and have more sophisticated technology.

[Nola Smith]

I had a very interesting conversation a few years back with my precious Baptist dad, who has been on boards, taught classes and just one wonderful man of God. He is now retired, health failing, and getting ready to go be with the Lord, still an avid Bible scholar and someone I love to banter with.

Our conversation was about prophecy, and I was explaining what i believed it was and he explained what he believed it was. We both cited Greek words, Strong's, definitions and as many passages as we could find. He believes that prophecy is a more anointed form of preaching - "forth-telling", and does not include fore-telling, or announcing God's plans or intentions supernaturally. We lovingly had to agree to disagree, as I believe that prophecy is both of those, and more the second, than the first.

But if it is the first "anointed form of preaching", then why is it that women who prophesied publicly were asked to wear head coverings as a sign that they had their husband's approval/ permission to do so in the public setting? (I Cor 11).

If prophesy is "anointed preaching", then women in the First Century Church WERE preaching, so much so that they had to develop an open sign that their husbands were champtioning the manifestation of their gifts in the congregation!

If it is fore-telling, or sharing a word from God for a congregation, a region, an individual, then women were doing that - announcing the words of God from heaven in the public, mixed-gender congregation. And, according to Paul, that prophesy that 'everyone should desire' caused ungifted and unsaved MEN who entered to have the secrest of their hearts disclosed so that they fell down on their knees and announced God was among them!

Peter had four daughters who were prophetesses. Miriam in the O.T. was a prophetess, Deborah a judge who precided over men and women in Israel, assigned by God to do so. Whether prophesy is the gift of anointed preaching or anointed prophetic utterances of God's intentions, his girls were recognized prophetesses, forth-telling OR fore-telling the utterances of God, if we embrace either of the word's possible definitions!

In any case, we cannot explain away that women prophesied, held churches in their homes, and labored alongside men like Paul in the work of the ministry, and were often recommended as peers and having great respect and of having a voice, if not some having equal measure of rank in the congregation.

You do not know your history for, in fact, 2000 years of Christendom supports the success of many women who preached and left behind a legacy of faith and huge influences. In every age! Because they were in the minority does not negate they were called, nor that they produced wonderful fruit for the Kingdom. Many of their sermons are available in print - in many languages and from many countries where the gospel flourished - and are as scholarly and helpful and pure and accurate as men's!

In America's short history alone we have the examples of Amee Semple McPherson who founded the Foursquare Church which continues to bear much fruit for God and has given us men and scholars like Jack Hayford. Kathryn Kuhlman introduced a greater measure of understanding divine healing and her ministry and teachings continue to bless the Church today. Many MEN went on to preach as a result of her influence.

Here are some excellent historical resources for your examination: "Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity. Edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London, UK: University of California Press, 1998. xxii + 362 pp. $50.00 (cloth)."

Another good resource is "Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1850-1979." If you are going to cite 2000 years of Christendom, then you must know your history, my friends!

Historically, women have preached successfully,raised up churches, and transformed communities for the gospel in nearly every century since Jesus arrived on earth. In America and England alone we had women like Susanna Wesley, (I understand that her sermons are available in print), and many Quaker women. These are within the early history of JUST American denominations - and America's religious history only represents 1/7th of Christendom's!

In his book "John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life," Charles Yrigoyen, Jr., observes: "Methodists flourished under the direction of class and band leaders, persons of spiritual strength and insight. Most of them were women! Among them were Sarah Crosby, Dorothy Downes, and Grace Murray, exemplary Christians whose witness persuaded many to accept God's grace and begin a new life....

In effect, [Sarah Crosby, Mary Bosanquet (right), Hannah Harrison, Eliza Bennis, Jane Cooper, and others]... were engaged in preaching, and many people experienced conversion as a result of their testimony and proclamation of the gospel.... In 1787, despite the objections of some of the male preachers, he officially authorized Sarah Mallet to preach, as long as she proclaimed the doctrines and adhered to the disciplines that all Methodist preachers were expected to accept."

Another reference is "Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700–1775". By Rebecca Larson. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Pp. x, 399. $35.00.)

"Daughters of Light, should be required reading for scholars and general readers interested in the history of women and religion in colonial America. It offers a highly detailed, often fascinating account of a large group of women preachers (1,300–1,500) who were active in the Quaker transatlantic community during the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century. These are women largely unknown to students of American history or the history of religion and whose achievements were of the greatest importance for the later history of abolition, women's suffrage, and gender relationships. Larson's book is essentially a reconstruction of the lives and values of Quaker women preachers."

That's just a very meager beginning of historical studies in recent centuries regarding women who preached, started ministries, extended the gospel, missionized new territories - both single and married.

What about previous centuries? Though I have not read it, I have been referred to "Sainted Women of the Dark Ages"
by John E. Halborg, Jo Ann McNamara, E. Gordon Whatley which allegedly gives examples of women who preached successfully during the Dark Ages, bringing truth and light in the midst of a very dark time.

Christian Classics Ethereal Library URL: http://www.ccel.org

Maintained by: Calvin College
Last updated: December 20, 2001
Reviewed: December 20, 2001

This site, which is maintained by a Reformed (Calvinist) institution, provides public domain editions of hundreds of Christian works, most heavily from the early Christian and medieval eras, but also including theology and literature from later ages. While the majority of the writings (including all of those in the "Recommended" category) are by males, there is a representation of medieval female texts, including those by Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and Teresa of Avila." These women wrote what they were speaking, just as the men did.

A false teacher or a heretic is determined not by gender, my friend, but by content of what is being preached/taught or written. Fanny Crosby did more preaching in her hymn-writing than many men of her day. She wrote solid, directional theology in the lyrics of her hymns.

If a woman preaches the gospel and teaches from Scripture in line with what her denomination believes (and we hope this demination remains true to Scripture), then her words are true and accurate. If she, like myself, teaches that we as women often have a subordinate role but occasionally have equal ones in the church, so that we are as subject to men in leadership as they are to one another in leadership,and honoring of all men, and we do not usurp (rise up and take over and take away), then we are not false teachers. Women cannot and have never been released to senior positions under the true Gospel of Christ, to preaching and teaching or any positions of authority, unless and until men have released them anyway - because men have held the prevailing and ultimate authority to do so. There have always been brothers in Christ that hve recognized true callings on a life, true fruit, regardless of age, nationality, ethnicity or gender!

If a woman does not have the favor of scholarly Christian men in leadership, if her ministry is not seen by them as bearing great fruit for the Kingdom, it is not likely she will be released or appreciated (unless, perhaps she teaches heresy and a different gospel - which both men AND women have done!)

Men as well as women, can usurp, and take what is not theirs, and what was not given by God - but the fruit will always be bad when rebellion rules in the heart of EITHER gender - i.e., people will NOT find Jesus, the fruit of their lives will NOT be holiness, families will NOT be healed, doctrine will NOT be sound, and churches that serve the saints and reach out to the lost will not be raised up.

I am sad that a few of my brothers here are so closed-minded, but that is why I had to leave denominations that did not support my experiences with Jesus in the 70's, where He healed my physical body miraculously, where He gave me the gift of tongues, and revealed to me the power of prophecy and prophetic intercession. Later He called me to teach and to preach, and I am released to do both, both by my church and by my husband. I have five sons and two daughter, and twelve grandchildren. My sons are not threatened by a mom who preaches and teaches and in fact, they champion it as much as my husband does. The fact that they are able to easily do this, shows me that they understood true manhood, and they are as proud of me as I am of them.

Demonimations which opposed the spiritual gifts coming forward in the Jesus/Charismatic Movement, were sure that they interpreted Scripture right, and some since have had to re-write their doctrine to support what God did. The Father proved and reproved Scripture they had previously misinterpreted about those subjects.

Both history, and accurately-interpreted Scripture, support the freedom of particular women to operate in the five offices of the church. So many works are being written now to support and defend the position with historical documentation, debunking bad translations and misinformation, that (I believe) we must rethink what we have been taught in right-wing evangelical circles heretofore.

I will resign from this blog now, so sorry I write so much - writing is one of my gifts and this has been very off-the-cuff and hurried. I'm a recovering talker as well.

I am blessed to get to travel the world and live in different places and see what God is doing elsewhere through men AND women....and I see the same beautiful results regardless of whose mouth the truth is coming from. I believe in my heart of hearts, that revelation and understanding will come by the Holy Spirit for the last day Church which will smooth out the seeming contradictions in the Scripture, making the rough places in our understanding smooth and the crooked paths of our previous revelation straight, so that we come into an understanding of God's true intent for women and for His wonderful Church.

Thank you for listening, you scholarly men and women. It is such a joy to know that our Savior loves us all and He is not shaken, but will reveal His plans and purposes over time.

I'm packing to move to Asia with my engineeer husband for six months, taking a sabbatical from our church duties and (grown) children. It will be some time before I have internet access I think. This is a good site for round-tabling.

In His Great Love,

Nola Smith