The Short End of the Stick
Why women might not be getting the same quality of care, discipleship, and development as the men in church
Last year, when I began listening and reading up on women’s experiences in ministry, there was one topic that caught me somewhat by surprise: the unintended negative consequences for women when Christians implement practices like the Billy Graham rule which prevents men and women from meeting together.1
I heard women lamenting being treated as “dangerous” or being stiff-armed by male coworkers, which at first I didn’t fully understand. Then, I read Kadi Cole’s Developing Female Leaders, which touched on some of the shortcomings of these practices. She writes, “Be sure to ask yourselves and your female leaders what the unintended consequences might be and how you can do a better job creating a safe and inclusive leadership environment for everyone.” She also quotes a pastor referring to the idea of never being alone with a woman as a “strategy of isolation,” which is not a terribly effective strategy for either avoiding sin or helping female leaders thrive.2
Upon reflection, I began to see that the things these women had lamented had been happening around me all along. I had been told in the face of tragedy and grief that there were barriers to me receiving pastoral counseling. I had watched pastors and elders in my churches take the guys I worked with under their wings in mentoring capacities, while I and the other women had no one offering to do the same for us. I had thought all of this was simply normal, that I shouldn’t expect church leaders to do the same for me given that we were opposite genders.
Unfortunately, these well-intentioned boundaries often unintentionally result in women getting the short end of the stick, since church leadership usually consists of all or mostly men.3 When church leaders hold women at arm’s distance, this often will mean that the women on staff and in the congregation at large are not getting the same quality of at least three things as the men:
Pastoral care. Often, male pastors may be unwilling to meet with women for spiritual care or pastoral counseling. Who, then, can provide these things for the women?
Discipleship. Many pastors intentionally disciple a small handful of men either one-on-one or in smaller settings, but would not do this with women. In these instances, men are receiving discipleship by what are likely the church’s most theologically educated and pastorally gifted people. Additionally, many churches will train their elders theologically and equip them to shepherd others, and the elders will also in turn disciple more men in the church. However, it’s rare for there to be women in these churches who have the same theological education and training to shepherd and care for others spiritually. Hence, in many ways, women are often getting the “B Team” when it comes to discipleship.4
Development. When women are held at arm’s length by male leadership, this often means there are no leaders helping them grow in their gifts and skills.
Not every woman in a congregation will have felt or experienced this. For some women I know, these gaps haven’t existed because they found themselves in a unique situation. Perhaps there were mature women in the church who invested heavily in her, or she went on the mission field and had older female missionaries pour into her. Some churches also have been intentional to make sure their women aren’t lacking these things. But often these gaps do exist, and we must ask, if church leaders won’t invest in and care for the women in these ways, who will?
We don’t have to settle for these negative consequences, regardless of a church’s theology about gender and leadership. In fact, even if some of the men want to continue practicing the Billy Graham rule, there are still ways to provide women with the same quality and level of pastoral care, discipleship, and development. It just involves us recognizing the gaps and being intentional to fill them in.
My interest in this Substack is primarily in youth ministry from a woman’s perspective, so these kinds of gaps concern me for the women serving in youth ministry. If women in youth ministry often are lonely in their positions and at potentially higher risk for burnout, then receiving lackluster pastoral care, discipleship, and development will only further complicate their struggles. There are also ways that these boundaries can make their jobs more difficult and their ministries suffer, but that’s perhaps a topic for another post.
My hope in this post is merely to name this issue, so that others can begin to recognize and address it. Women, take stock of your situation, name the things you are in need of, and discern your next action step to move toward making it better. Leaders, look around and assess what the situation is for your women, and consider what you might change to fill in any gaps for them.
I understand this is a well-intentioned practice. Discussing the merits of the practice is beyond the scope of this post (and others have done a much better job of it than I could). Here I’ll focus on some unintended effects of it only.
Pages 110-111.
This is not a critique of complementarian theology. I’m not intending to argue for or against any particular theology related to men’s and women’s roles in this Substack.
I don’t mean to say that theological education leads to necessarily better discipleship. There’s much more to discipleship and spiritual maturity than intellectual knowledge, as I’ve noted in other posts. However, there is still value to theological education, which the women’s pipelines of discipleship are often missing out on.