How Can Women and Men Better Minister Together?

I'll introduce the panel. I've got over here to my right is Sue Edwards, Associate Professor of Educational Ministries and Leadership here at Dallas Seminary. Sue how long have you been at the seminary?

I started a bible study that now we all know is bible study fellowship, one of the best bible studies I've ever been a part of, I ended up being a teaching leader. I was not familiar with Dallas Theological Seminary until I had to go for teaching leader trainings and several professors from Dallas Theological Seminary did the training, so as a result of that I was familiar with Dallas.

My husband passed a few years ago and I thought I needed to change my career from what I was doing so that I could spend more time with my family and decided to get a counseling degree and I did that at Dallas Theological Seminary.

So I want to start off first with kind of theological base of how you see certain things and then we're going to talk particularly about that interaction. The first question I'll have for you all is: How does the doctrine in the image of God, your understanding the image of God inform your ministry? In particular I think what I have in mind in asking this question is thinking through how you see the early chapters of Genesis and the issue of male and female relationships as portrayed in the creation. I guess Sue I'm going to start with you.

Especially because the church is by and large are made of more women by far, Barna says about 60 percent.

But I'm trying to always in my ministry make sure that it's not segregated. Even when I was doing women's ministry we involved men in the process just because we felt like we're made in the image of God and we need to partner.

So when I have a teaching assistant I usually try to find a male just so that we're modeling in front of the students a healthy male-female interaction doing ministry together. I can't tell you exactly what it brings, I can just say that it brings something beautiful.

What I spend a lot of time doing in counseling is helping women to understand that they have value even in this male-dominated society, even though they're so many men who are the managers certainly in corporate settings where I've worked and even to some degree in the educational setting. The men have more dominate roles, but women have gifts that need to be exercised. So we have to be freer to go ahead and exercise those gifts.

Michelle you mentioned something I want to come back to and that is the idea of women feeling valued. I think the way I want to walk into this conversation and this topic is to say that I'm assuming that in the midst of that and in the need to do that that it's easy for women to feel less than valued and that's why that exhortation is necessary.

Now help me understand that need and the flip question is and what kind of advice would you give particularly to men in ministry to make sure that the women that they minister alongside don't struggle with the question of being valued or not?

So that's placed a strain on relationships, it's placed a strain even on women as they think through, "What type career path should I have and should I seek?" Recent studies have shown that so many women who work outside of the home even though they don't shy away from managerial positions they're not always thinking about taking a top-level position because of the demands that they have outside of their profession.

So I would say for men especially and it's not just for companies but also in ministry as well I think there needs to be a sensitivity to the fact that women have a contribution to make at work, but there has to be some discussion and an open discussion without apology that there's times when somebody's going to have a temperature at school and I may have to run and pick that child up and take them to the doctor.

The other thing I was thinking about too is that Oprah Winfrey when she was leaving her talk show she was interviewed and she said she interviewed 30,000 people and the thing that they all had in common was the need to be validated. She said that what everyone was looking for was to feel like they are seen, they are heard and what they have to say matters. I think that's really that's heart of women that we want to be seen, we want to be heard and we want to know that what we have to say matters. So I think that's…

I think there are differences but I think it would be a lot more accurate we're of the same species to say, "Well maybe men are from North Carolina and women are from South Carolina," there's some difference, but we have all the gifts, we bring so much to the table. Now I do think if I were to say there are some things that are different, there is some brain research out that shows that are brains are actually made a little bit differently. I think women bring a sensitivity at times. They bring a caring and sometimes an insight that is very, very helpful when you're ministering to people and that's what the church is about is ministering to people.

But I am careful and I think possibly some of the stereotypes that all women are this way, all men are that way is partly and this is a controversial statement but has had an influence on our culture and the craziness of all people are doing crazy things with gender now.

It opens up the study of the scripture in the way in which people lived and functioned in ways that you just didn't even wrestle with or think about very much.

Michelle I'm not passing you by here. You have something to add to the question on what women bring to the table?

The second is just women are very good at community and just being a part of community, bringing people together. It's interesting that even though Jesus had male disciples it's interesting that it was often women who kind of came together on their own to walk alongside of him in ministry.

I'm going to shift gears a little bit here and I'm going to say it this way, it may not be the best way to ask the question, but what are some innocent things that male coworkers do that can make you feel marginalized? So this is the time to help us. Sandy I'm going to let you start.

There are times too in the boy's club when you know the men on staff will go out and play basketball together and you know it's like –

The other is –

But this is a new venture here having to work with the various ones. He said, "Look you go for it. I want you to get out there. You're the best person for it since you've worked on the East Coast, you know this area, I want you to take the lead to do it." That's encouraging. That helps in knowing that you know there's support there both from the office, the campus here and also in Texas and that's great.

I can think of a specific time thought that I also appreciated. I was walking down the hall with the professor who was mentoring me and another professor said, "Every time I see you you're with that woman." It was this awkward moment. He just didn't miss, the guy I was with didn't miss a beat said, "And isn't she a blessing" and just kept – like he wasn't going to let it go there and he wasn't going to let me feel demeaned by that, just let it bounce off and I really appreciated that. I was just his colleague.

My boss now goes to bat for us in incredible ways. I can't tell you – there have been many men who have come alongside and made a tremendous difference and I will bless them until the day I die I am so grateful. They are really the ones that make a difference. We thank you for even doing this.

Let me move on and ask this question: Name some of the issues that you think women face that are often overlooked by their men counterparts? What I have in mind here is kind of the things that we teach and talk about that end up being kind of not on the table. Let me give you one that I've become sensitive to, maybe I'll give you two quick ones that I've become sensitive to.

One is the whole area of infertility, okay? To be honest what 60 years of my life I probably haven't thought very much about it other than when I meet someone's whose gone through that and extend sympathies, but I don't think about what the impact of that is, where that comes from, where that deep concern lies. It's become clear to me as I've interacted more and more particularly with my female colleagues here at the seminary, interacting with the women on our staff how important an area this is and how it's almost never directly addressed other than by women. I think it would be fascinating to watch a man step into that conversation and see what they have to say.

Of course I start with the farmer, okay, who plants the grain and then it goes through a sequence and there's a huge sequence of workers, all kinds of people you know go through the grain, the milk, the bowl, the table, the house that you're in and think about the myriads of people that make it possible for you to sit and have a nice bowl of Wheaties in the morning.

She walked up to me after it was all done and she said, "You didn't mention the wife okay who fixes the meals and takes care of that farmer, who plants that grain, who gets the whole thing going." I looked at her and I said, "That's good Linda you're right." [Laughter]

I mean and I'm sitting here going, "Man I mean think about how much of the world takes place without that person whose there lending their support and really serving in a major way so that other things get freed-up so that they can be done." In one sense that's a bad stereotype, but it also is a helpful one because it shows how much we take that particular activity for granted.

Now we're short on time so these have got to be brief but go ahead, go for it Jeanne.