Why Porn is a ‘thing’ you can’t afford to keep

I’m the kind of person who readily admits that, although pornography hasn’t ever been an addiction for me, it is still a Y.E.T. People in AA circles will know what that stands for — You’re Eligible Too — meaning, if it’s not been an issue, it could soon become one if you let your guard down. None of us are too old nor too mature to be tempted.

In this article I want to appeal to the fear of self-preservation. That alone will motivate most people who need to change to change.

Now, there are many additional motivators to want to stop using pornography. It objectifies woman. But that’s not even scratching the surface. If you only knew what using porn does — the complete picture — you’d probably vomit. But not simply for disgust, but for the evil it endows, for the extortion it empowers, for the widespread exploitation it engenders, and lastly for the empathy it erases.

Then there are the personal and interpersonal impacts.

Pornography literally changes our brains. It changes how our bodies work and respond, not just sexually. And it changes how we interact sexually. For men trapped in the cycle, it is always bad news for the woman you’re romantically involved with. Honestly, in such few words I haven’t even scratched the surface, yet the impact is telling.

But this is the reason I’m writing.

What’s in your hand? What fills your hand most of your day? It’s a device. Like many people, you probably have more than one — a phone, a tablet, a laptop, a desktop. If you’ve got a real problem with porn, devices are a real problem for you.

What about what you’ve got recorded on your device? What about what’s on the cloud? What about your search and roaming history? What about others who may have access? Is there even one site you’ve been on that’s linked to the hidden web? (I’m only scratching the surface here.)

Can you be certain that the porn you’ve used or downloaded is “appropriate” i.e., legal? Can you be certain the women used in the content aren’t girls, i.e., children? (This question is only one of dozens of the kind you need to be asking yourself — yes, the others relate to a morality that breaches the divide into criminality.) Can you be certain that you’ve done nothing to warrant criminal charges and a potential jail term? Can you be certain there’s absolutely nothing to worry about? If there is anything, it would be better to confess it now and begin the journey of recovery. It is not too late, so don’t leave it until it’s too late.

Pornography is a slippery slope. Sure, porn is a shameful problem to have, but that’s the best of it if you’re concerned there is even one count of criminal dealing. One slip and life changes irrevocably. I presume people who read this have Christian faith. It concerns you, doesn’t it? It ought to motivate you to change. If that’s the case, I take it you’ll be feeling the Holy Spirit’s unction right now. If that is the case it is GOOD news. It will lead you to life if you act to obey God’s voice. It will be worth the cost of honesty.

Think of the possible consequences if you’re exposed. Shame to one degree, that’s yours. What about your loved ones? It’s better to own the thing now and get your recovery as you run a million miles an hour away from it into the loving and saving arms of Jesus. Seek your recovery today… yesterday… certainly don’t put it off until tomorrow!

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

What support can we give when devastation hits?

The fire season is on us, but these days the threat of fire is ever present. Recently there has been more catastrophic loss, and the images and video leave us lost for words.

The science of fire these days is remarkably salient. The threat of ember attacks makes no property safe, when in yesteryear such concern may have been unconscionable.

No matter how many times I watch vision of the 2011 Japanese Tsunami I get chills for the power of that irrepressible wave that sent a surge of water inland many, many kilometres.

What do we do for those who are far away who have been struck by the devastation? What do we do if we’re nearby and find we’re reeling within it?

Well, praying helps. Not only is it one way of re-directing our grief into words that we can express for those who are suffering, prayer gets our minds activated. If there is anything we can actually do, the Spirit can lead us there. These prayers of intercession are needed constantly, because weather events are happening very regularly now.

But it’s not just prayer. The vision we see on our TVs is indicative of what will upset those who are close to us, and even those in our presence. We can offer them comfort. We can listen to them in their empathic distress. We can take some time to talk about it. Or, we might find a change of subject is more beneficial. Sometimes it is all just too much!

Disasters are reminders of events that take place very often at a moment’s notice and they’re certainly reminders to be prepared. We can take this reminder for preparedness into other areas of our lives as well.

Of course, there are the responses in disasters of shock, exhaustion, despair, among the gamut of emotions arise when we’re forced into panicked reactivity. We needn’t be surprised when people react in the most off-the-wall ways. What we would least expect we ought to expect, if that makes any sense at all.

When people come face to face with realities they never conceived could be theirs, such revelations awaken trauma. Better to sit and be still with someone, allowing the tide of their emotion to rise and fall as violently as it will, as we ride those waves as best we can with them.

There are all kinds of practical supports we can provide, especially if we’re innovative and prepared to go more than the extra mile.

Image: thenewdaily.com.au

Jesus is inspired most when to simply breathe is courage

Whenever I need to feel grateful, whenever I am lacking thankfulness in my life, I know I don’t have far to go. I turn, I repent, I face those for whom just breathing is courage. You know who you are.

I know it is a relatively easy exercise to get the reminders I need to look at life the way my life truly is. I do think back to times when life was horrendously hard—and I hope someone reads this whose life is horrendously hard right now. It won’t last, even if it feels like it’s been forever already.

Know that I admire the way you breathe! — the way you keep going when life is so incredibly hard.

Whenever I’m feeling sorry for myself, I look to those for whom the simple task of breathing is courage.

Those who are bearing moments or entire seasons of inner panic, where anxiety ravages, where the mind cavorts with disaster, and the heart doesn’t know present from fear.

Those who are caring for those who have special needs; who are being driven from burned out day to the next; who not only face incredible odds every conscious second, who are otherwise dogged in the little sleep they do get, but are faced with systems and bureaucracies that sometimes seem bent on breaking them; and who may face the reality of an ambiguous loss that means their child will never achieve what their deepest dream desires.

Those who have special needs, and who face stigma, uncertainty, discrimination and exploitation, whose parents and loved ones face a never-ending fear of them being taken advantage of, or, hazard to say, breathing their last.

Those for whom grief is the present-day forecast. Grief impending, where confusion of spirit is the current bearing, or grief in actuality, where there’s no going back.

Those for whom trauma has interrupted an otherwise joyous life plan. Where there is a sense of regret for what can never again be changed.

Those who are derailed by anxiety. Those cast deep in the grip of a depression. Those whose every waking moment is terror, for breath, when breathing is hard. There are such times. I’ve had them. And looking back I know this to be true. At these times, when the horror of life is too hard to bear, I know that Jesus is inspired by the courage people have simply to bear the existential tear.

Those for whom the simple task of breathing is courage. Where the dilemma of breathing is courage. Where respiration is the resignation of an existential obedience to God. Where the grace given is a grace received.

~

Jesus, a man who spent as much time as he could with those who were ailing, who would sit with and smile with and cry with them in a connection of heartfelt empathy, by his Spirit, is inspired by you.

As the layers of bravery are peeled forth, to sit in one’s lament, or to run the race of hope never denying one’s anguish, we can know that we know that we know, Jesus is inspired right now by faith that can have life no other way.

Jesus is inspired most by faith that must accept life as life is.

A prayer of thanks and a plea for wise persons and caring community

God of care and community

I don’t know where to start with this prayer, but here goes… I want to thank You for the wise and generous souls in my life who pour their wisdom into me at the very times You ordain them to speak. You know just how much I need them to speak Your words to me in those moments I either too easily run awry or when I just need to discern the right way forward.

I also join with that note of thanks, a plea that You would add wisdom to our lives where we so desperately need it, whether we recognise it or not. Help us know that encouraging and correcting words come from You, as Your provision, through human ears and tongues. Help us to listen when we need to and help us know when to speak and when not to and give us only Your words.

Finally, about these wise persons, Lord; help us encourage them for their input into our lives, for their understanding, and also for their courage to speak what You give them. A plea, too, for the one who sorely seeks wisdom but as yet has no or few wise advisors.

Then there’s caring community, Lord, or which we’re all in need.

Thank You for the times when we feel alive within a broader throng of likeminded persons. Thank You that the tyranny of distance is overcome through social media. Help us to use that wisely to encourage and admonish others according to Your will alone. Thank You, that in community, we’re all mutually blessed and in the realms of humanity, anyone can bless another, that there’s no pecking order.

A plea for anyone who lacks both care and community that together make wise society we belong to. And for those times we lack such community, when we feel all alone in working out our salvation, help us pray for an embracing of loving ties that draw us together in truth.

Lord, thank You for the wise ones You have placed in our lives, and thank You in advance for the provision that’s in the midst of occurring.

In Jesus’ caring and wise name,

AMEN.

Photo by @gebhartyler on Unsplash

Gifts only available in the Spirit of weakness

Nobody truly gets the gospel until they understand the weakness of a Jesus who went to the cross devoid of power only to epitomise the ultimate in power just days afterward.

Want power? Choose weakness.
Want strength? Accept weakness.

God confuses every clamouring after wealth called covetousness. “Prove it!” you say. Okay. Chase happiness. The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us how that ends; “meaningless, utter meaninglessness!”

Choosing weakness when in conflict

Here is an astounding thing:

… in being revealed as wrong,
we get to choose to be weak.

In the moment of correction, we get the choice to listen. In the place of rebuke, we get to choose whether we will accept feeling small or not. In the moment of humiliation, when we’re revealed as being wrong—and let’s face it, nobody enjoys being corrected—we’d much rather be praised—we have the only opportunity available to us to sit up and listen and show humility.

That’s right, humility shines out of us when we sit humbly in humiliation. That takes strength; the resolve to be honest; the patience of bearing pain wisely. Few people do this well. This is raw Christian character at its maturest.

Not many people can do this. And Christians, though they should be adept at this, are really no better than non-Christians, because we all must deal with our prideful flesh.

Choosing weakness in conflict is a boon for relationships. The feature of the best relationships is both parties do this well.

Choosing weakness when we’re weak in ourselves

Here is another astounding thing:

… the more willing we are to be weak,
the more of God’s grace we get access to.

What does God’s blessing truly look like? How does God want to bless us most?

It’s looks like all kinds of material favour but is nothing of the sort. Truly God’s wealth of grace exists in the spiritual realm, and especially as it pertains to weakness.

“Satan’s angel,” Eugene Peterson says of Paul, “did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty!” (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Msg)

We never mature in the faith until we get this. Indeed, we never mature in the faith until we LIVE the life of being weak interpersonally and intrapersonally. In the context of intrapersonal weakness, the more patient and still we can be when all access to worldly power diminishes and vanishes, the more willingly weak we’re able to be then, the more of God’s grace we gain access to. And God’s grace is a never ending and mountainous supply, yet we’re only given as much as we need. The weaker we get, the more of God’s grace is bestowed to us.

~

Do you remain to be convinced? Okay, I know this is all pretty standard Christianese rhetoric. It’s probably more the case that you want something more challenging and revolutionary to read. Then, I challenge you to practice this. The challenge is in living it. That’s where this ends:

Want wisdom? Want virtue that wells up unto the fruit of the Spirit? Want all that God could ever give you? If you answer yes to these questions (and why wouldn’t you?) then you will find one common answer.

Be weak. Accept weakness. Choose weakness. Don’t disdain weakness. Delight in your weakness. As Paul did. Don’t expect the world to celebrate with you. It won’t understand you. But you will win the world over strangely enough. In weakness is the alluring fact: it’s the inspiration contained in every boy-or-girl-next-door story. It’s central to every come-from-behind story they make movies out of.

But none of us wants to pay the price. We only pay the price when the choice of strength is taken from us and we bear our weakness because all options are taken away.

This is WHY grief is a good thing. We don’t have any other choice than to be weak.

See how grief is not only a good thing but a great thing? From the end, comes the beginning.

Now here is the clincher. It was only after my life was crucified with Christ that I came alive in him through some kind of resurrection. Many, many people think this is ludicrous, because they haven’t borne witness to the crushing that precedes the true impartation of grace. Weakness is good, I tell you!

Acknowledgement to Carmel Wright who inspired this reflection.

Image above: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (Msg)

What repentance really means

Real Christians are more often wrong than they are right. Let me clarify that.

Real Christians acknowledge that they are, in Paul’s words, “sinners of the worst kind.” (1 Timothy 1:15) They are spiritually aware of their mistakes and misdemeanours and they put those things right by prompt use of the very tool God gave broken humanity for putting things right: repentance.

Repentance is what sets Christians apart from non-Christians. By repentance Christians call Jesus, “Lord.” By repentance, Christians worship Jesus in the Spirit and in truth. (John 4:24) We cannot lie and worship in the Spirit and in truth. Repentance is worship.

If, at the moment we first proclaimed our faith in Christ, we acknowledged we were sinners, and were then saved from the CONSEQUENCES of our sins, we can see a heavenly transaction taking place. We exchange our acceptance of who we actually are (sinners), for we accept the truth now, for the saving grace of God.

Things have changed forever now. Something has been changed in us. Now that we’ve agreed to follow Jesus, we’re set to the task of learning and practicing worship. Because we’re now committed to the one who is Spirit and truth, we now align ourselves to Spirit and truth, too, no matter what.

It is a costly discipleship. There is no cheap grace. We cannot say “yes” to Jesus and “no” to his requirements. Yet, all of his requirements could be summed up in the Spirit of repentance, which is to act on the conviction of the Spirit, which occurs in all true believers; therefore, the test of true believers, then, is a fruit of repentance.

See how repentance is a sign whether you’re a real Christian or not? I lived my first 13 years in the faith not really getting it; there was NO fruit of repentance in my life.

Now, this is the importance of repentance. The moment we turn back and don’t live like those who were saved by grace—in other words, the moment we refuse God’s invitation of humility to repent—is the moment we turn our backs on that grace that saved us. We blaspheme grace.

The moment we’re called by someone to reflect on our actions toward them, and don’t acknowledge our sin, is the moment we can consider we’re out of favour with God. We can postulate as much as we like about how wrong they are. How we deal with their claim is, however, between us and God.

But this is where real Christians come unstuck. They exhibit the fruit of repentance and they please God, but they may quickly find they’re in relationships with others who do not repent—other Christians. Now, I’d use the term loosely, “other Christians,” because I believe the Bible teaches that the Kingdom of God lives in the heart of the believer, and if the person who says they believe doesn’t repent when they should, they’re treasonous. Christians don’t go around hurting people and leaving them hurt. It’s direct contravention of Matthew 5:23-24 and the Spirit of Jesus, which is a ministry of reconciliation. Christians come unstuck when they live as they ought to—bearing a positive, daily fruit of repentance—and are transgressed by those who refuse to reciprocate. Those who are called children of God, Jesus said, are those who make peace (Matthew 5:9); not those who allow a war to rage. We make peace when we find ourselves in conflict by repentance.

Now, those who profess faith and who are not often wrong, not only do Christ a disservice, they live a lie. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us,” says 1 John 1:8-10 (NIV).

To the one who says, “Well, I know I’m a sinner, but I’m not wrong on this occasion,” we might hear the Holy Spirit say, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re wrong or not; what matters is how you treat the person who has the grievance against you; that’s what I’m looking at.”

The test of our wrongness is the response of true repentance.

If Paul could say he was a sinner of the worst kind, surely, we can see the purpose in his hyperbole. We share the same heart as Paul. It is tainted by sin. But this is the good news! The very fact that we can’t save ourselves, heralds the fact that God in Jesus can save us, but only if we’re willing to acknowledge we need him, and we only do that when we see our sin—and the effects of our sin as it flows into others’ lives—as it really is.

Only as we face what others say
do we respond to God the right way.

To face others demands humility.

To face others and seek to make peace is repentance,
but to do an about-face shows contempt.

~

Real repentance means this: I am sorry.

Not just a little sorry, enough to say sorry. Even that’s not enough. Saying sorry without meaning it, or meaning it fully, often makes matters far worse.

Sorry enough to understand what we did wrong, and sorry enough to fully become aware.

Sorry enough that we spend time and effort empathising with them for the hurt we caused. This is about testifying against ourselves and that takes courage, but it is often the only way the relationship can be restored. Sorry enough to prove we actually care for the relationship; that we care for a fellow human being (especially human beings we can gain nothing from).

Sorry enough to change not only our mind, but to be challenged enough to modify our behaviour. Repentance means nothing if not the complete commitment to specifically change our ways and permanently.

Sorry enough to convince the person or people we had wronged that we’re serious. Sorry enough to want to earn that lost trust back. Serious enough to warrant forgiveness. Committed enough not to relapse. Prayerful enough to rebuild what was precious that has now become broken.

Because conflict is everywhere, and because we all sin, we need to bear the fruit of repentance every day of our lives.

The best test of the Kingdom of God in us, is apologising to the one we wronged when we have absolutely nothing to gain by it, other than to set them free.

It is a very sad thing for those who have been abused; who have not seen repentance in their perpetrator for the initial act; and because of that, there is an ongoing vicarious trauma suffered. There is nothing of God’s Kingdom in that.

The power in telling it as it was, how it shaped you, and how it will no longer

There is a story I tell when I learned the power of story, that as I told it, the story itself unravelled and became what it was; a fiction.

The reality with the story, of course, was real. I made meaning of it, so I’d made of it a reality; one that stood up wholly by the testimony of my nodding yes to it.

I had a story that was filled with words and lines and paragraphs and pages for what I thought others thought of me. Their facial expressions and gestures and even their words would at times fill my mind. They stayed for a long time. Even now, they sometimes make a little cameo… before I bid them farewell once more.

We all have stories. Most of them are very unhelpful. And it’s only when we get into a room with a trusted confidante or counsellor, where we’re asked to pour the contents of our story out onto the table, where we put labels on the pages, that we see the plot.

As we tell the stories of what actually happened to us, somehow a miraculous thing happens. Even as tears flow and we trust our quivering chin to the words that teem forth, a beautiful therapy is taking place; those things that happened to us, we find, no longer define us. They happened, but only what happened, not what we made of them. The harrowing power dissipates and dissolves.

Even as we utter things we had resounding on our hearts for years or decades—those utterances that were destined to be converted into sound waves.

And into the ether of a physical world, those realities are sieved. The real remains, and that real is us. The terror that threatened to interminably torment us rots away, because there, in the telling, is God’s way of restoring us to who we were always made to be.

The power in telling it as it was, how it shaped us, and how it will no longer, is part of the one conversation, and the less power we give our past the better. We stop enabling it. It was how it was, sure. It has shaped us, most definitely.

And that shaping process, of all things, we can be thankful for, because we would not otherwise find ourselves challenged to the point of searching for the truth if not for that which has shaped us.

Our stories cause us to search; they manacle us to faith in search for hope; through such trauma, they’re the vehicle of redemption, and they will take us all the way to our restoration.

See how God has purposed to restore us
THROUGH what the enemy did to destroy us?

God redeems us as we expose the devil’s schemes.

Fear not the story. Fear only the silence. Find words for what might feel indescribable. Settle for gibberish if that’s what comes. Smile at the enemy and know you have his measure.

That story wasn’t formed in you to crush you; the story graced you so that it would motivate you to move toward freedom.

Your story is not destined to keep you where you are. It’s destined to get you where you’re going. And where you’re going is into others’ stories, where your redemption connects with theirs to give them hope. So, thank God for your story.

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

The demand of forgiveness is a form of spiritual abuse

A reader question: “Can forgiveness be demanded? What I mean is, can what the Bible says about forgiveness (e.g. Matthew 6:14-15; Colossians 3:13) be used in a way that isn’t biblical, or doesn’t glorify God?”

It’s a great question, with such a simple answer; an answer worth time explaining.

I think of the situation where an abused person is forced on stage at church to “forgive” their abuser—yes, this happens!

Here’s my answer: anything in the Bible can be misused, misconstrued and abused. Where the heart and the Spirit is taken out, it is no longer the Word; it’s just words. That’s the general answer that helps us understand the premise behind much spiritual abuse.

Now to the specific question through the lens of scenario:

If I go up to someone and apologise to them very sincerely, and as part of that apology, seek their forgiveness, can I then expect them to forgive me? Whilst it’s so important to own our own part in conflict, and to do the heart work of apologising fully and sincerely, including asking for forgiveness, it’s not appropriate to expect to be forgiven. No matter how well I repent and make restitution, I cannot demand forgiveness. Any other understanding is not biblical, because love never makes demands.

A second scenario: If the wrong thing is done to me, and someone in reverse offers the same apology as above, very sincerely, even deserving of forgiveness, am I duty bound to forgive them? No, I’m not. This is because forgiveness is in the domain of the heart. Sometimes it’s because we’re still hurt (or, if it’s in the reverse situation, they are), or we need time to pray on it. Sometimes it’s also the recognition that we’re trying to discern what to do. Sometimes it’s that our heart doesn’t feel it. Sometimes it’s a spiritual mystery. For the time being.

Forgiveness is the domain of the heart.
The heart cannot be fooled.
The heart feels what it feels.
We betray our hearts to our peril.

In other words, we cannot deny
what we feel at the core of who we are.

The heart can discern what the mind
can occasionally fail to know.

A third scenario: What about if a wrong is done to us and there is no apology, no admission of wrong, no confession, no repentance (or veiled repentance), no right of challenge or any correspondence entered into? That’s abuse, of course. The first act done—the initial wrong—may or may not have been an abuse; the second act—the failure to acknowledge the hurt—certainly is, without any doubt, an abuse. Do the “rules” of forgiveness still apply? What if someone demanded we forgive the abuser? Would that ever be a kind, loving way of them serving us—to polarise and spiritually confuse us? No, it would just indicate a lack of compassion or empathy. It would reveal a legalistic expression of faith.

Now, the chances of forgiveness being granted are high when full and sincere apologies are given, such is the nature of humanity’s common desire for reconciliation.

~

Forgiveness is a sacred gift. It is given for free by a heart offering it unconditionally. It is received in a likewise spirit. It cannot be forced. It cannot be coerced.

Forgiveness is the supreme gift where God gives freedom to both the giver and the receiver of the forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is, of course, the true mediator of all forgiveness.

Like all acts of true love, forgiveness is an act of the free will, and where the will isn’t free, the act falls short of forgiveness, and unlike love, it will fail. The “forgiveness” won’t stick.

Forgiveness cannot be legislated, nor can it be mandated. Neither can forgiveness be the product of influence, unless it is by the Holy Spirit’s conviction alone.

Now, to withhold forgiveness can also mean there is a problem within the heart of the person withholding, and again that’s a matter between them (or us) and God.

It is a correct teaching of the Bible that we must forgive. But this teaching is held in perfect tension with the equal and opposite truth—the facts of the heart, which oppose decree, must be honoured. The facts of the heart are incontrovertible.

The Christian knows they must forgive, but how and when and why is between them and God.

The word “demand” is a trigger word for what is unhealthy at best and abusive at worst. Whenever we demand anything of others, we stand on thin ice relationally. Whenever others make demands of us, they breach a subtle and sacred boundary.

When Christians TELL other Christians “you MUST forgive” they at once speak truth with an abusive heart. They do not speak the truth in love. They miss the mark. They sin.

5 Biblical Reasons Why Women Must Preach and Lead

I think this will be a boring article, because it just seems so obvious. God must wonder why we put shady doctrines together that deliberately exclude one section of any community from participating fully in it. No, actually, on second thought, I think it must really anger our Creator, who made all humanity to rule over creation (Genesis 1:26-28).

Here are five obvious reasons, reflected biblically i.e. they reflect God’s heart as reflected in our Bibles and through plain observation, why women must preach and lead:

1.    Women are human beings just like men are.

There will be many no-brainers in this article, and this is the first one.

Honestly, how on earth are men supposed to be more appropriate, better, or more authoritative preachers and leaders? With 90% of domestic violence propagated by men? The best leader I’ve seen in any arena was a woman. Not saying I haven’t had great male leaders; I have. But there is nothing a woman can’t do that men can do.

The more we know about humanity, the more we realise that men and women have similar if not the same capacities of thought, emotion and reason, and barring anatomical and hormone differences there is no significant physiological difference between men and women that suggests men speak or lead better, or even that they have a societal role to be the “head”. That being the case, why would it be that men should preach and lead and women not?

2.    Women are safer, statistically speaking, than men are.

A simple Google search will tell us that narcissism is more a problem in men than it is in women. According to that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, there is a significant difference between the sexes. It cites research that indicates 7.7% of men have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), whereas with women it’s only 4.8%. But that’s not all.

More specifically, the variety of narcissism in men is a big concern in terms of leadership. Of the three aspects of narcissism measured on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) — (1) leadership/authority, (2) exploitative/entitlement, (3) grandiose/exhibitionism — men significantly outnumber women narcissists in the first two of the three aspects. These have quite obvious implications, and are directly more problematic, regarding abuses of power in the church.

Very sadly, we know that pastors are quite highly represented in terms of narcissism (Ball & Puls, 2017). We can see why. It’s a position that affords incumbents in the ministry authority, favour, notoriety, adoration, access to the vulnerable, etc. If narcissists are attracted to a career in ministry, statistically more women preachers and leaders can translate in less narcissistic pastors overall.

3.    The world needs to see that the church is a champion for equality.

I didn’t grow up in the church. I’m from a non-Christian family. It makes no sense to me that women can’t do this, and women can’t do that. I wasn’t brought up that way. Why is it that parts of the church undermine women? The unchurched think like this. And more so these days than ever.

Those outside the church EXPECT those inside the church to run the church with exemplary standards of integrity and justice. Any sense that any group of people is favoured means that there are groups of people who are marginalised. Unchurched people know within their bones that the church should be a champion for the marginalised, not be setting up structures within it that create marginalisation.

Those watching on in the world — those who would be tomorrow’s converts to Christ — are watching us in the church. Their BS meters are piqued and they’re looking for examples of BS, ready to say, “Look, there you go, hypocrites!”

The unchurched and the dechurched are looking for authenticity. My wife, for one, preaches with such economy of words, together with a gentleness that is unequivocally authoritative, that what she says reminds me of the economy of God. God speaks succinctly and there is weight to what God says. Women seem to make far fewer assumptions when it comes to the pulpit than men on average do, for they truly appreciate that it can’t be taken for granted. This makes them work harder on average than men do, because, let’s face it, men like me have never had to face the idea that we can’t preach. Even though I’m an ordinary preacher, I’ve never given it even a passing thought — like I know a lot of women have — that some or many churches just wouldn’t have me preach; because of my gender. The fact is I’ve always been welcome in many different churches. Because I’m a man!

4.    Women have more to teach men than men have to teach women.

Women are more marginalised in more parts of the world than men are, and it’s traditionally been this way. There is an innate humility that comes within the biology of women as opposed to men, and “privilege” is one word that is commonly used to describe the instinctual expectation for favour in men. As men, we expect to be well treated. We feel entitled to it. I see it in me, and I see it in other men.

God is the God of humility, and we’re called, biblically, to live a life of humility as we walk out each day of our lives with God (Micah 6:8). We all need to be taught humility and we all need to be ensconced in it.

Women are in humbler positions throughout life than men are, where they’re inherently more vulnerable themselves; to physical and sexual abuse by men, and to serious dangers bodily through pregnancy, to name just two of what would be an inexhaustible list. Women have more to teach men about the plight of the vulnerable than men have to teach women. Women have more of a lived experience of vulnerability than men do, in general, and all pulpits need more of this.

5.    Men and women are missing out when they don’t have access to wisdom from God from any and every single one.

Another fundamental idea. Both men and women, all humanity, miss out when they only hear from one gender; when only one gender preaches and leads. Half of all the wisdom is automatically cut off to us. Half of what God is saying we don’t have access to. Half of what is right and just and fair about life is quashed. We only get mens’ slant on things.

Both men and women profit from being “under” the preaching and teaching of women preachers. Men get insights they would not get from men preachers, because women preachers can say some things that men probably can’t. Women get encouragement they wouldn’t get from men preachers, because there is an inherent authority and integrity in a woman teaching another woman. Plus, the woman who hears another woman preach discovers what she too can do.

Let’s face it; anyone can preach, and anyone can lead.

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Given what I’ve laid out above, it is either lineball that both men and women are equally righted and placed as far as preaching and leading is concerned, or it may actually be argued that women overall are MORE qualified to preach and lead. They are safer and humbler, overall. And they have wisdom and life experience that men just don’t have. Both men and women prosper when both men and women preach and lead, according to their individual gifting.

Photo by Forja2 Mx on Unsplash