What do Women Church Leaders Need Most? Opportunity!

In a recent podcast interview with Faith Today (Canada's main Christian magazine), Cathie Ostapchuk talked about how to encourage and mobilize Canadian women to lead in the church.

She believes one of the most needed things for women leaders in the church is OPPORTUNITY. In short, she says that it doesn't matter if we have the possibility of opportunity for women on paper (such as in policy) if we don't provide actual opportunity for women in practice.

Women, she states, don't just want to be welcomed into leadership environments, but wanted there. And in order to understand their calling, they need lots of opportunity:

"If you don't have opportunity to lead the executive team at the church in a meeting, a strategic meeting, then how do you know what's in you? How do you get the feedback?"

Among other suggestions, here's 4 tips she gives for churches (my summary):



4 Ways to Change the Environment for Women Leaders at Your Church

1. Invest in the development of your female staff
2. Highlight your female leaders
3. Tell positive stories about your female leaders
4. Ask female leaders to lead staff in leadership meetings

One of the ways we do #1 and #4 at our church is to rotate the chair of the weekly staff meeting among pastoral (and sometimes even non-pastoral) staff. That way female and junior staff receive regular opportunities to lead and chart the course of meetings, and not just when the lead pastor is away!

Ostapchuk ends with this thought right before quoting Acts 2:18:

"Every time there's been a spiritual awakening, women are called up into ministry and spiritual leadership. It is one of the signs of revival."

It's what I refer to in The Pentecostal Gender Paradox as an "eschatological authorizing hermeneutic," which tends to be the preferred (even if unarticulated) hermeneutic during times of revival.

You can listen to the podcast, visit Cathie's websites, and read the print article all from this page.