Submitted Single Seeking Friends

Try as I might, I’m not sure I can hold the identifier “Single Complementarian poster-child” at bay much longer. We’re a rare breed—some of us sold a barefoot and pregnant mantra since we played dress-up in our mamas’ clothing and learned to make a perfect omelet. It’s hard to let go of dreams as big as these. For those of us who made it past 25 without a ring on our finger and a bun in the oven, more schooling seemed to be the only option. Slap an MA on the back of our name, we’re still casting sidelong glances at our sisters with misters. Many graduated with honors, fidelity, and an MRS, while most singles are pounding the pavement looking for a job to secure us some semblance of a future.

You ask why we’re a rare breed and I’ll tell you this: we’re not. Well, we are, but that’s just the nature of any conservative position in a swiftly tilting planet. But within the church we’re not all that rare. You don’t hear us talking much, though, and that’s something I’d like to talk about today.

Three reasons (of many) why single female complementarians may not be speaking up.

1. For too long the Church has relegated submission to what happens in the home and the sanctuary. The concept of submission to one to another (Eph. 5:21) has been glossed over in our rush to get to the juicy stuff in the following verses. Who wants to talk about something like submission to one another when there are husbands to be submitted to and wives to be loved? Well, I do. I want to talk about it because we don’t have a framework for life in Christ if we don’t understand being in something brings with it a certain amount of submission (sitting in a driving car, for example—you go where it goes.).

In the broad conversation we have often placed the discussion of submission firmly within the confines of marriage or our relationship to Christ, and not in regard to one another. This has created a generation of women who want to submit but are waiting to submit until Prince Charming comes along. In theory we’re complementarians, but we don’t have anyone standing in that gap, so practically, we’re egalitarians. It becomes difficult to talk about something we believe when because of brokenness in the family and an overwhelming absence of fathers, we’re not given a clear framework to practice it.

2. Speaking of frameworks, in the absence of the marriage we were nearly promised, we’re floundering a bit. I’m not going to make marriage out to be a cup of tea, but in marriage there comes a security and measure of certainty that simply doesn’t exist within singleness. Accidents and sin happens, yes, but if death comes in old age and fidelity is kept, there is the promise of a long-term security.

Godly singleness, on the other hand, is actually intended to be the opposite of long-term security. To be “concerned with the things of the Lord” (I Cor. 7:34) gives a wide berth, open pasture, and a degree of flexibility for the unmarried to discern what is the good and acceptable will of God. Our culture, however—and even in the church—lauds a security that will keep us constantly at odds with the things of the Lord. Single complementarians who have been primed for the simple security that marriage affords, might spend years trying to gain their footing in a world that wasn’t what they expected—even for the ones who understand Christ is their ultimate security. So where are we? Still trying to recover from the whiplash that is singleness in our 30s and on.

3. Single complementarian women simply haven’t needed to commit mental energy to contribute to the sort of study and scholarship necessary to defend a conservative theology of gender roles. Many married complementarian women are making radically different choices in the way their marriages look and so live with a constant awareness of the counter-cultural choices they’re making. But for singles unless their lives look radically different from those in the world—and a growing number in the church—they have nothing to defend. The biblical paradigm of singleness we’re given is one who is concerned with the things to the Lord, how she may please the Lord—this is a radical call in a tepid world, few rise to it fully, and even fewer defend it well. Without the pressure to defend, though, many won’t rise to the occasion of sound, biblical defense.

Don’t be discouraged. There is hope here and I think many complementarians are chomping at the bit to see a change in the conversation:

1. Change the culture of submission. Reframe the conversation. Speak of mutual submission, teach young people the value of covenantal living, helping and protecting one another in Christ. There are a few things we don’t have to wait for marriage for.

2. Change the expectation of marriage. Encourage it, yes, but don’t epitomize it or idolize it. Don’t allow those creeping cultural expectations to overtake what God is doing today. Today is a rich, rich day in the life of every person, single or married. Expect God to move today.

3. Encourage singles to be faithful with their concern for the things of God. It is no small thing to study to show ourselves approved. Christians ought to do everything within our capacity to help create a space for good scholarship and dialogue.

Proverbs 18:16 says, "A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before kings." Singleness is a special and beautiful gift, and we need singles to come before the rulers of this world, standing firmly for the gospel in an ever-shifting culture.

She is Beautiful

I met the Church this week and she is beautiful. Her hips are wide and she sways to the praise of her God. She laughs loudly, her head thrown back, two rows of gleaming teeth; her sound is joy. She is too short or too tall, too much, not enough. She sips her wine slowly, savoring the taste of life. She gulps the last drops, never afraid to do anything boldly. She is half a century old, she is twenty-two. She is a writer a speaker a story-teller a friend. She adopted her children. She lost hers.

I met the Church this week and she is beautiful.

I gathered with some women this week, thinkers, dreamers, ministers, travelers, speakers, writers. They are half the Church and there was nothing halfway in our gathering. There was robust fullness, women fully there, fully present, fully themselves. There was no competition, no idle chatter, no small talk, and no shortage of prayers or tears. There were rooms fully alive in the fullness of God.

I am a Church-girl, I have always known it. There is nothing, nothing, I love more on earth than a diverse community of believers wrought together by one common thing: an uncommon man. On a local level, this means I serve her, I love her, I pray for her, I believe in her. On a broad level, this means I see her place in the manifold plan of God.

We are His plan. The Church is it. Without the Church we are factions of individuals broken by the things that set us apart. With the Church we are reminded it is our brokenness that binds us together, planting us deep on the level ground before the cross.

The Church is beautiful because she has met with God. She has seen Him and been seen by Him—fully, all her blemishes and beauty, all her brokenness and bravery, all her boldness and belief.

I met the Church this week and she took my breath away.

Delivering Hope: What being saved through childbearing can mean for the unmarried

I woke a few mornings ago and felt the familiar void. It is no stranger to me and I know it acutely. I feel the angst of it in my belly, the fear of it in my heart, and the curse of it every moment.

A friend sent me a link to an old sermon in which the pastor preached a strong and stalwart message about women being saved through childbearing (II Timothy 2:15), and I turned it off five minutes before its conclusion. “Why did you send it to me?” I asked my friend because we have been having ongoing conversations about these subjects and my soul balks at the customary consolation prizes of womanhood. For one who grew up hearing a woman’s highest calling was to be a wife and a mother, yet finds herself as single as the day she came squalling into the world, a future swaddled in babies sounds bleak.

This is my call? To bear what I cannot bear? To hold up a bargain as impossible as Sarah’s to her husband. As impossible as God’s to Abraham? This womb is dead, or feels dead. Oh, I have plenty of years until it is pronounced medically dead, but the hope has died. It has died seventy times over and dies each day a little more.

It is 2013 and most of my good-church-girl friends married a decade ago. They are all declaring the babes in their wombs, “The last!” and I barely hope for a first. To them two or three is enough, the curse lasts far beyond pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16) and they have seen enough of life to know promises about babies on schedules or Sunday-School attendance stars will not guarantee the safe arrival of their little ones to spiritual-adulthood. So it appears neither of us are saved through childbearing after all. We both limp with one hand held to God our helper and one hand anchored to earth our friend. Where is our salvation?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In an early morning class last week we read Romans 4 and I wept tears in the second row. I felt them coming on again in this coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon. A thorough study of Romans is not for the faint of heart, and not for those who feel they have somehow escaped the curse by either perfect children or singleness.

The end of Romans 4 is about Abraham’s body, his circumcision of flesh, and calling into existence things that do not exist: his seed. God, who is the only author of life and the only bider of time, has made a promise that even with hope against hope still seems impossible. A father of many nations? A boy from these loins? From the barrenness of Sarah’s womb? If pain in childbirth was the curse on all daughters of Eve, it would seem Sarah’s only curse was she would never feel the twisting beautiful pain of birthing anything.

Anything but hope.

My friend was also in class that morning and I sent a text to him: “This is it!” I wrote. “Maybe this is part of how we are saved through childbearing!”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Even if we never birth a child, we birth hope. We are built to birth hope. It lies restless in our womb, expectant in our hearts, and unlimited in its gestation. We are crafted to see the future, to look at what is not and believe God will still do what He said He would do. We are made to birth hope into impossibilities. I think about my sisters, those whose deepest desires are to take broken places and make them whole; who have been hurt, neglected, broken, and cast away, and who still come back strong and desperate to see wholeness birthed in dark places.

I can’t stop thinking about it all week. And I think about it when I wake early a few mornings ago, feeling the familiar ache of the barrenness accompanying singleness.

Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Faith in the hope against hope God was who He said He was and would do what He said He would do. Sarah, our barren sister, laughed at the promise and so Laughter was given to her for the rest of her days, a reminder that sometimes the only pain in childbirth we experience is 80 years without childbirth. A reminder that God is a God who saves and He saves by bringing life from dead things, hope from hopelessness.

Penned sometime this past spring. 

A Profound Mystery

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:31-33

You don't reach the ripe old age of 30 without having worn sixteen bridesmaid dresses to sixteen weddings. (Actually, seventeen, I wore the black one in two weddings.) Standing beside seventeen women as they vowed to love, honor, and cherish the guy facing them, as well as walking through countless relationships with nearly all of my friends, you learn a thing or two.

This morning, as yet another friend and I were talking about how to handle a situation with a guy she recently started dating, it occurred to me that there would be much more clarity in dating relationships if we really took the "profound mystery of Christ & the Church" seriously. That illustration is about marriage, yet, but shouldn't that be the aim of dating?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Christ pursues us from the foundation of the earth. He doesn't wait until it is less risky or for us to show interest in Him. Because of this, the Church knows Christ's love for us is true and will not be depleted when the going gets rough.

Men, do not wait for a riskless situation, pursue anyway. Women, don't make it difficult for him to pursue you.

Christ never wavered in His sacrificial offering. He wept in the garden, but did what His Father asked Him to do. Because of this, the Church trusts that Christ's word is true and trustworthy. There is no question or doubt about His intentions.

Men, state your intentions, simple though they may be, right up front. Women, trust a man who does this and believe him without second guessing.

Christ spreads wide the arms of love. He doesn't withhold until we are lovable, understandable, or beautiful. Because of this, we can take our unloveliness to Christ with confidence. He sees past our blemishes and we are lovely because He loves us. We love Him because He first loved us.

Men, look past culture's demands for a perfect wife, love what the world calls unlovely. Women, you become lovely because you are loved first by Christ—rest in that loveliness.

Christ intercedes on our behalf. He does not stop going to the Father in our defense and for our petitions. Because of this, we know Christ will fight for us. He will not allow anything to break us beyond His capable sight, so we trust Him.

Men, don't give up on a woman because she is difficult to understand; seek the Holy Spirit for understanding. Women, be clear about what you need or how you feel, without making it difficult for him to meet your needs—trust him and the Lord's work in him.

Christ reminds us of our sufficiency in Him. He doesn't make us wonder if we are enough or too much. Because of this, the Church can trust that every difficult and beautiful thing will be used for the fruition of His kingdom—nothing is wasted, nothing is too much, nothing is not enough.

Men, find your sufficiency in Christ, not your girl's approval, respect, or admiration of you. Women, trust your "not enoughness" and "too muchness" to the finished work of the Cross, and know that in your weaknesses He is made great.

It is a profound mystery, I think, Christ and the Church, marriage, all of it. But I think it could be a little more profound here on earth if we really took Paul's illustration to heart.

A few quick thoughts on feminism

A few quick thoughts on feminism (a loaded word, I know) in the Church: If you beat someone with a wooden spoon, then try to show them its primary use is for cooking, don't fault them for never seeing the spoon as it was intended. The rise of secular feminism within the church, from what I can see from my small corner of the world, is many times (though not always) in response to a poor construct or a partial framework of God intention for men and women.

Essentially, if you beat someone over the head with theology that was either poorly enacted, poorly constructed, or poorly represented, and then you try to show them how beautiful the theology is at its heart, you're going to lose them. This is because God created us with an innate and beautiful sense of right and wrong. Wrong use of something beautiful results in something ugly. A rose on one end is a beautiful bloom and on the other a prickly weapon.

One of the ways I seek to change the conversation within my realm of influence is to remove the spoon for as long as it takes and show them how cooking at its heart brings life and substance, community and joy. I want to show the beauty of the thing at its starkest form, before I need the help of the spoon. The garlic and onions popping and sizzling on the stovetop while I dice tomatoes and mushrooms. The splash of wine, the story of how it came to be. These things are the beauty of creation in their plain form before I stir and toss with spoons and spatulas.

To follow the analogy, I want to remove what has been misused and made ugly from the situation until we can see the heart of God and the beauty of the Imago Dei and then when those trappings are gone, we can talk about intention for gender roles.

Just a few thoughts. I'm still working them out, but I thought it might help to put them before you so you can see how my brain processes these matters.

IF : GATHERING

I was 22 when I first wore mascara. In our home beauty was a scorned woman and adornment her harlotry. I asked for my first nail polish when I was nine and my father offered toilet water instead. I ran crying to my room and it was a family joke, but I still don't paint my nails.

My brains were my brawn and I was the first and only to graduate from college and twice over. I made a tent of my blankets, lit by a flashlight, and read Emily Dickinson, the plain and proper poet. Women are workhorses and beauty is fleeting; fear the Lord and the father, never be a robust and full and beautiful woman. She is the whore on the street stealing innocence from the eyes of boys.

Be smart, but not too smart.

A few years ago a friend told me what he appreciated most about me was my femininity, that I was wholly his sister and he my brother; that my femininity was trustworthy, and I wept from the backseat.

My womanhood is the biggest wrestle of my soul, every time I glimpse a peek at the beauty within, I convince myself of its vaporousness and it flees. Charm is deceitful, but it doesn't always say you are the most beautiful, sometimes it says you are the most unworthy.

My heart, more than anything, is to take the faces of women around me, wipe the black from the eye-rims and the red from their lips, point them to a mirror where their blemishes are bold and say, "This. This is the you He loves. This is the you He values. This is the you He came to redeem."

Because we are so hurried in our covering, so quick to fix, and slow to let bloom.

I have never thought myself as a teacher, but like Robert Frost said, "as an awakener." I want to awaken the worth in the heart of women, to show them their minds and hearts are as valuable as any other attribute, maybe more. I want to wake it in myself, but I know of no other way to do that than to do it alongside others. I want to ask the question: If, then?

If God created and it was good, then what?

If God knit us together, just as we are, then what?

If God formed our minds, our bodies, and our souls, then what?

If God, then what?

Will you join a generation of women in asking those questions?

On February 7-8, 2014 in Austin, Texas, we'll be gathering to discuss, dream, and determine what it can look like it we see God at the helm of us, and all of us poured out, blemishes and brokenness, and all to Him.

Sign up now for the IF Gathering.

Join Jennie Allen, Lauren Chandler, Ann Voskamp, Jen Hatmaker, and all of us as we work to awaken our generation of women to the beauty of God's goodness and design.

IF : LEAD We are gathering and uniting a team of women, who already lead our generation, and unleashing them to lead in their spheres of influence. Together we will create a community and foster an ethos – connecting, encouraging and collaborating together.

IF : GROW We are creating a blueprint for intentional equipping – reaching women with tools that are holistic, strategic and deep. By providing easy online access to a like-minded community and relevant resources, we will release women around the world to live out their purposes. // Online · 2014

IF : GATHERING A fresh, deep, honest space for a new generation of women to wrestle with the essential question: IF God is real… THEN what? This 2-day conference brings women together and wrestles out how to live out the calling God has placed on our lives. // Austin, TX Feb. 7–8 2014

IF : GLOBAL By partnering with organizations like Food for the Hungry, coming alongside women around the world, fostering relationships and utilizing our God-given gifts, our hope is that this movement will not only transforms hearts but leave a tangible impact on the world.

Sign up now for the IF Gathering.

Read what others are saying:

Jennie Allen Lindsey Nobles Jen Hatmaker Sarah Bessey Sarah Markley Logan Wolfram Kelly Stamps

My Camp, Your Camp, and Virtual Shunning

A few months ago I wrote an article that caused a bit of a firestorm among some of my writing compadres. Perhaps I gave it a provocative title, but I maintain its truth: Mark Driscoll is Not My Pastor. Amongst the backlash of that article there was also a curious phenomenon on the twitter chat: the affirmation of the virtual church.

What was being espoused by person after person was the reality that they considered their online friends their church. "Twitter is my church" and "You guys are my church and my pastors" were among some of the statements I read. The definition of virtual is "Existing or resulting in essence or effect though not in actual fact, form, or name."

Hear me out, one of the ministries to which God has called me is of the online variety. This blog and other publications I write for take a good amount of mental and spiritual energy. You are my ministry. But you are not my local church.

More and more I read articles lumping authors into clear and present camps. You have the Jesus feminists, the red letter Christians, the social justice-cause driven, the reformed, the story-tellers, the orthodox. There are these hard and fast lines boxing authors to a particular movement or theological framework, and once they have been flagged as such, they are blacklisted or embraced. There is little room for grace in this world because if I confess I agree with Rob Bell in this one area, that is a blight on my character to those who disagree with him. If I confess I agree with John Piper in this area, well, count me out of an entire sector of the blogosphere.

If we are in an age of the virtual church, then we are also in an age of virtual shunning.

You won't ever hear me disavow the importance of the global Church. That I can consider someone who lives thousands of miles from me one of my closest friends—that is the power of the bond we have in Christ.

But love for the global Church does not negate the biblical importance of the local church. Too often I hear great passion in my brothers and sisters for the health of the Church, without seeing evidence that they value it at its most local level. I see bloggers calling men and women to task, and shunning those who associate with them, without seeing any accountability to authority in their own lives. I see much concern for orthodoxy and discipleship and brotherly love, without seeing evidence of those things in their lives.

I am not saying those things are not happening, what I am saying is that I don't see it.

I don't see it because they are not my local church and I do not know them in the way I know the people alongside whom I walk. I don't see it because I am not privy to the conversations they have with their pastors (if they have pastors) or elders. I don't see it because I don't see them taking meals to new moms or visiting the sick or weeping with those who weep. Seeing those things is reserved for those who are not virtual, but real life, flesh and blood.

I'm writing this because too often the assumption is made that the virtual groups with whom I am associated are somehow the people to whom I am submitted. The assumption is we ascribe to the same set of theological ideals, we have discussions behind closed doors, spit-shake on how we'll handle certain situations, administer church discipline and the sacraments together. And it's simply not the truth.

I have pastors and a local church. I write for publications, enjoy friendships, but they are not my local church or my elders. Simply because a publication for which I write or a group of online acquaintances embrace a certain stance or ideal, does not mean I agree with them.

A year ago I had a conversation with one of my pastors. I met with him to discuss an opportunity put before me to participate in a publication where I would share the platform with some diametrically opposing authors. Should I do it? was my question. Yes, was his answer. Why? Because every opportunity we have to proclaim the gospel is good and we should prayerfully consider taking it. Some of the places I write, I write because I do disagree with their stance on certain issues. I write because it is my prayer that the gospel would go forth. My name doesn't matter, but Christ's does.

We proclaim Christ best by loving what He loves. What Christ loves best is the glory of His Father, and the Father is glorified when we are his disciples, when we love one another—at the most difficult, personal, beautiful level: right here, locally.

Love the Church, friends, but start by loving the church.

Poverty of Theological Vocabulary

The poverty of theological vocabulary results from the fact that most theologians are not full-fledged citizens of what Wordsworth called "the mighty world of eye and ear." They do not speak a "language of the sense." Theological vocabulary is the vocabulary of conception not perception. Take from your shelf any commentary, introduction, history or systematic theology and look for words with some tactile, olfactory, visual, sonorous or saporous quality. They just aren't there. Theological vocabulary does not include honeysuckle, orange, shady, giggle, juicy, willow, brine, mud, clover, concrete, feathery, pudding, chimney and the like.

Someone may suggest that theological language is poor for not using "the language of the sense" only insofar as a steam engine is poor for not using gasoline. Indeed, perhaps the language of the sense is for poets, and the other kind of language is for theologians. Personally, I am not ready to concede that theology must be done in the desert while poetry roams through forests, mountains and meadows.

Waking Up to our Mighty World

But even if theological vocabulary must remain poor, the point I want to make is this: "The mighty world of the eye and ear" is always there for us. It is very sad when anyone passes through life oblivious to the joys this world can quicken—like that joyful motion in your chest when from atop Mount Wilson you can see the sun boil its way into the Pacific; or like the quiet gladness of rising before the sun and smog to join the happy birds in welcoming the day.

There is an intimate relationship, however, between our power to enjoy a sensuous experience and our capacity to describe it with words. In "Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey" Wordsworth is not taken up nearly so much with the joy of revisiting the banks of the Wye as he is with the pleasure this moment will bring him in the coming years "recollected in tranquility."

To put it simply, without a full and rich language of the sense, we will lose the enduring quality of our sensuous joys, and, what's worse, with the atrophy of our descriptive capacities the power of all our enjoyment languishes. When you cease to use the word "tree" in your vocabulary, you have probably ceased to look at trees.

The Value of Stretching

The relation this has to theological vocabulary is this: The fastest and easiest way to obliterate the language of the sense and the power of the senses is to read only poverty-stricken theology. If we in seminary do not stretch ourselves beyond the pages of our dogmatics we shall all be dead by graduation day. And that evening, diploma in hand, we may lament with Samuel Coleridge,

All this long eve so balmy and serene Have I been gazing on the Western Sky And its peculiar tint of yellow green And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!

The Poverty of Theological Vocabulary is from Desiring God written by John Piper. A friend sent it to me this week and I loved it so much I wanted to share it with you all in its entirety. 

Link Love

Why We Need More Women in Ministry: "Second, male leaders can intentionally seek out female input. Women have an incredible wealth of wisdom, insight and parallel perspectives to offer the Church and the world—as men do." Should a Christian Dentist Fire His Too-Hot Hygienist? "At the root of this is, I fear, a kind of misogyny which identifies women themselves as the problem rather than one’s own lust and self-control. That’s not what the Bible teaches."

Sanctification in a Season of Singleness: "I think that this regular emphasis on our roles as men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, and so forth can obscure the one aspect of our identity that we have in common..."

In light of some blog-battles recently, regardless of where you stand on issues, we all ought to stand in goodwill and charity toward one another. It is not enough to simply admire someone's level-headed in matters of controversy, without taking a cue for oneself. A few bloggers had some good things to add.

The Blogs, the Battles and the Gospel: "I commend these seven rules to my fellow bloggers and to all of us who engage in online discussion."

Dude, Watch Your Jargon: "The easiest thing to do in a world where we get more air time but less ears is to nestle ourselves into a rut of discourse. We speak macro-jargon."

On the Separateness of Preaching and Healing: "Some broken people you want to love, and other judgmental people (even though we know in our hearts that this, too, is a form of brokenness) you want to give a double-barrel of exegesis."

And this week's winner of all, Say Something Right Now, or Else! "Silence is not always golden. But the “say something, or else!” form of public shaming is frequently manipulative and the cries are sometimes best ignored."

An Apology to the Wounded Birds

I'm sorry.

You were sold the story, hook, line, and sinker. Do this, don't do that, build it, tear it down, cover it up, write it over—do it all and then this...

This will happen for you. Or this bad thing, that won't happen for you. Obey, honor, submit, then shut your mouth, don't ask questions, don't dare defy. Do all that and it will go well for you.

And then it didn't. It didn't go well and it went really bad. Really, really bad. On the other side you stood there with nothing. No morals, no laurels, no crowns of glory, all your delight in shambles and your hope in rags. They said it would go well for you and then it didn't.

This is a letter to you, you women who grew up asking how short was too short, how obedient was obedient enough, how submission looked on you, and if every single thing you did was right enough, good enough, pure enough.

This is letter to you, you girls who grew up with mothers barefoot in the kitchen, with fathers stern and unappreciative, with every boy a threat, and every girl a comparison.

This is a letter to you, liberated woman. You came out in college roaring. You threw off the shackles of fundamentalism, of second guessing, of moralism, of theology that bound instead of freed.

This is a letter to you, freed women, ones who are looking for the voices of your sisters, the ones who know it as acutely as you do. Who know the shackles, the questions, the fears, and the injustice of growing up always looking over your shoulder.

I'm sorry.

I am so, so sorry.

I am sorry that something beautiful was perverted by an enemy who steals, kills, and destroys. I am deeply sorry that you felt damaged, a cowering bird in a coyote's world. I am so sorry that you spent your life in front of a fun-house mirror, a distortion of who you truly are. I am not your parent or your pastor, but I am you, and I am sorry.

I know you are looking for strong female voices, women who will lead the charge toward full freedom, birds who have found their flight above the heads of squabbling coyotes. I know you are looking for women who will say that yes, that was wrong, what happened to you. That, yes, the reflection you've been shown is not a true woman, a woman who fears the Lord and loves His word. That, yes, the subservient cloistered crouching woman is nothing like what a daughter of the King ought to look like.

I know you are looking for her.

And so I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I haven't spoken up. I'm sorry that in the face of one perversion, I've let another extreme pass me by without saying anything.

The enemy's favorite tactic is to pervert what is good, and there is none good, no not one. Except Him. And the wholeness of Him cannot be perverted.

Here is my promise to you, my sister, my friend: I promise you I will fight on your behalf. I promise I will fight for truth, for the culmination of all things in the Only One Who Is Good. I promise I will wrestle with theology and that I will not let go of God. That I will not let go until He has changed the names of each of us. Until we do not find our identity in a name or label, but that we find it in the fullness of Christlikeness. I cannot promise we will not walk with a limp, each one of us, but I think our limp will be our mark, our Ebenezer, our fist in the face of the enemy.

I promise to wrestle with the One who promises to lead us through to the other side.

After much prayer, counsel, and time, I've accepted an offer to join the teams of writers over at the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Many of you are encouraged to have my voice there and I know many of you are disappointed in me. My promise to both of you is that my fight is not for equality or distinction, biblical womanhood or feminism, my fight is against the powers of darkness and my delight is to walk in the light.

I believe that CBMW recognizes the lack of a strong young female voices in the Church today and they care about the practical implications of a complementarian view. I am a complementarian, that hasn't changed, but I believe the answers many egalitarians have been pressing for have not been handled well. Unanswered questions, coupled with the distortion of truth many of us grew up with in evangelicalism, only breeds room for more distortions. I do not aim to answer questions, so much as I am to fight for purity of the Gospel. With the Lord's help, I will aim for clarity and consistency, that's my promise to you.

Real Men & Real Women: Tough & Tender

The Young, Restless, & Reformed Complementarian crowd is often caricatured by a flannel shirt wearing bearded young man who gulps craft beers and talks theology from scribbled notes off his moleskine notebook. He quotes Piper and Packer and Paul. He opens doors for his sisters and uses the word "damn" with frequency, except when his simple fundamentalist Baptist mother is around. He never feels completely capable of leading anyone because he feels like he's playing catch-up for all his years of not. He drinks his coffee black.

Because the movement has historically been so stalwartly male, made of all things growly and gruff, there just hasn't been a similar caricature for the female side of YRRC. Though if you were going to attempt a one, she's probably an avid Pinner, crafting the perfect home for her bearded [future] husband, reading Proverbs 31 and feeling like she falls short of everything except being a wife of noble character (and only because the YRR guy wouldn't choose anything less than nobility of character for his wife). She probably shops at Whole Foods, or for the more frugal, Trader Joes. She writes Bible verses on index cards and tacks them to kitchen cabinets.

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One of the enemy's favorite tactics is to take what God has not called ultimate and make it so. If he can confuse the Christians, get them to devour one another, well, he can call it a day. No need for the Crusades part deux, Jesus came to bring a sword, and by golly, the first people we're gonna use it on is one another.

One particular area of glee the enemy is basking in these days is the division he's bringing to the Church concerning gender roles. And he does it by making caricatures rampant.

Humanity is important, which means individuals are important, which means men and women are important, which means what men and women do is important, and if the enemy can make what we do (or have done) more important than what God has done, he will seem to have won this particular battle.

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A concern of mine I see as I stand on the sidelines, and am being invited into the midst, is that we are taking caricatures of men and women and making them ultimate. For the YRR complementarian man, he thinks a principal way of Being A Man is fighting for his sisters: he wants them to be protected and flourishing—only he's a little clumsy at it sometimes and it can come off like he's being a chauvinist. For the complementarian woman, it's to find a husband as quickly as possible—not because she's half a person without him, but because how can she prove she's a distinct helper if she's not helping anyone? For the egalitarian man, he wants to serve his sisters by fighting to give them a voice where traditionally the most a woman can do in the Church is change diapers and hand out bulletins (Note: both tasks are valuable, I'm not knocking them, just how they limit the abundantly distinct gifts of women.). For the egalitarian woman, she has distinct powerful words burgeoning up inside of her and wants desperately to share them with the world; she wants to help, even if she ends up just sounding shrill.

Theologically we're not at all alike, but practically I think we are.

I don't think we all are. But I think we are sort of kind of maybe are.

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Hear me out.

If the enemy's favorite tactic is to distract us by what is not best, so we would miss what is, wouldn't you say he thinks he's succeeding in some respects (Gen. 3.1-5)?

We have brothers who are fighting on behalf of their sisters, wanting to see their strengths utilized and maximized within the bounds of scripture, and we have sisters who want to do what they were created to do: help bring wisdom, counsel, a distinct voice, a feminine voice.

We're not so different after all.

But if we continue to get distracted by terminology, practicality, and sustainability, we're going to lose sight of the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel. I am not saying a theology of gender roles is unimportant here—I'm saying the world and its constructs are dead to us, we boast in the cross alone (Gal. 6.14).

Piper said, "We're not here to make men and women, we're here to make disciples." And my heart leaps inside of me when I hear that. Practice is important, but our practice should be to make disciples in the shadow of the cross, not to make mini-mes. "Come and die" is our mantra, "it's gonna hurt" should be our caveat.

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Are you trying to fit yourself into a caricature of what your church or your theology deems you to be? Can I plead with you to not? You are doing a disservice to your theology, your brothers and sisters, and most of all the Gospel, if you make your position or personality ultimate.

Brothers, help your sisters. Fight for them when they are being marginalized. Fight for them not because you want them to lead you, or because you think it will make you more capable of leading them, but because the more you fight for your sisters, the more they will fight for you, and the more you will contend for the Gospel together as one.

Sisters, fight for your brothers. Help them see things in different distinct ways, help them with gentler tones and aspects of humanity that have been characterized as feminine. There is a deep need in the Church today for strong gentleness, ferocious lovingkindness, and articulate passion, and you are absolutely built to bring it to the table. But bring it for the sake of the Gospel, not your voice.

"Jesus is tough and tender, absolutely will get in the face of wicked, self-righteous leaders, and then hug a child. So when we come to Christ, men get appropriately tougher and appropriately more tender, and the same thing happens with women. It's like the last chapter, the end of a movie. There's a sense that my life makes sense, my experiences make sense. I am a female, but it's a bigger deal than that, I am a part of a greater story, I have a sense that I'm bringing to the table not just my femininity, but my spiritual gifts. I am not just a man, but I'm here to give my life away for the body of Christ. And that only happens when we come to Christ." —Darrin Patrick

For the sake of the gospel, friends, be like Christ. Tough and tender, both for both, all at once, all one in Jesus Christ.

Leading Ladies Everywhere

I am, however, still interested in faith trends. I'm lured by them because I love the culture of heaven and I think it ought to affect the culture of earth, and what are trends if not culture's response to heaven's delay?"

Continue reading Leading Ladies Everywhere over at Project TGM today.

While I am calling to mind the things for which I’m grateful this week, it seems that singleness is topping that list for real. I italicize that because I have exercised that muscle of gratefulness before, but it has never felt familiar, good or right. It has always felt like a cheat, stealing away the best years of my life, chances for babies, young love and all that.

Continue reading Every Single Season over at Single Roots today.

Project TGM: Theology, Gospel, Mission

There was a new kid on the block in 2012 named Project TGM: Theology, Gospel, Mission, and they recently asked to make me the newest kid on the block (and the first woman to join their team.) I jokingly said to them yesterday that I have seven brothers and ain't skeered of them, but I'll be honest, it's a solid line-up over there and I'm humbled they asked me. I hope you'll join me over there today, but also make a habit of heading over there for some great pieces by regular writers (Owen Stracham, professor of Theology and Church History at Boyce College, Logan Gentry, pastor at Apostles Church in New York, and others) and occasional guests.

My inaugural post is up today on how the greatest need for women is not parenting/marriage/singleness advice or tactics, but gospel realignment. Please hop over and give it a look!