GlocalNet

This morning Pricilla Shirer is speaking to several hundred women at Northwood Church that have gathered for our women’s TWIRL conference.  I’m really proud of Nikki - my wife - she’s worked really hard during the past year and a half in developing our women’s ministry and it has really grown. 
  I’ve watched my wife lead women and work around the world and do things with people and gain access in ways that I never in a million years would be able to do.  Last month she was in the West Bank working with Muslim women that were refugees teaching health, hygiene, and lots of other things.  I’ve heard so many stories about the ladies there.  She was just invited to a country in the middle-east that’s affluent but has massive slave trade and some of the women from various countries have taken asylum in their embassies trying to get home and away from their task-masters.  They want her to come and do training there as well.  In a few days she leaves for Hanoi and then up in the mountains near China where she will be teaching, and building corrals for water buffalo for a micro-finance project she’s involved with.  That doesn’t include the cell group she leads - all the mentoring and counseling she does - or the speaking she does.  She’s not paid a dime for any of that but is busier today than she was when she taught full-time.  Her ministry is extensive and impressive. 
  My daughter grew up watching her mother and me, and traveling the world with us.  Recently she graduated from Baylor and began working at NorthWood as an intern, then on “glocal” ministry for youth.  Now she’s in our global impact office because the work she did for the youth grew fast and wound up involving so many adults.  Her heart for the economically disadvantaged and refugees is seen not just in her work - but where she spends her time and relationships she has when she’s not “at work.”  She also blew me away when she preached for the youth a month ago - she was good!  Not that I thought she wouldn’t be - but that’s just not something we ever “did”. 
  My mom is perhaps the greatest Christian lady I’ve ever known.  Anyone who knows her knows her grace, compassion, kindness, and incredible servanthood.  She’s over the top.  Anything good in me today - came from her.  I remember her feeding servicemen in our home Sunday afternoons in Wichita Falls, Texas.  I remember her feeding “bums” who needed a meal.  My mom lives the gospel - doesn’t talk about it or lead seminars on it.  In another life, my mom would have been a singer/actor/global humanitarian - those who know her know she’s got a gift, and often those that didn’t know her so well have been blessed by her.
  My sister is one of my intercessors.  She prays for me in powerful ways daily.  She knows me - good & bad - and lifts me up to God.  I call her when I need “extra” prayer.  Cynthia Mabry & Vicky Porterfield are also intercessors that pray for me regularly and I call on them when I have a major issue I need prayer for. 
  Some of my greatest teachers have been women.  Bertha Smith signed my Bible when she came to speak at our church and taught on the Holy Spirit when I was a teenager.  Carol Davis was perhaps the first to help me understand the world and missions.  Carol Childress, like a big sister, always made a place for me at the table wherever she worked, be it Leadership Network or the BGCT.  Linda Stanley opened doors for me in the U.S. with relationships. 
  I’ve never had the view that leadership disqualified women from leadership - it had more to do with roles.  I’ve taken a historic position on male leadership in the church.  But candidly, what I’ve seen around the world doesn’t always fit my “historic” view.  When you study The Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea and pastor Cho you see that it came about because he mobilized the women to lead cells.  When I’ve been to countries globally - I’ve found teenagers, men and women alike, leading house churches.  No one is trying to make a statement of women in leadership in these contexts.  It’s simply a matter of someone finding Jesus, telling others, lots of people accepting Christ and that person leading masses to faith in Christ.  I wrote in a blog last year about the lady I met in India who God healed and now has 30,000 in attendance along with a young “reformed” “charismatic” dean of a church planting school she started.  Most of the teachers in the school are male that now train the pastors.  How could you say this woman is in sin or out of God’s will or doing something she shouldn’t?  If she hadn’t accepted Christ, she wouldn’t have led these others to faith in Christ - there wouldn’t be hundreds of churches.  Is there anyone who would honestly say she did the wrong thing?  Is there anyone who would say people would be better off without Jesus - going to hell - instead of someone serving? 
  I was in the Middle-East recently and met a lady of another nationality who is a medical specialist and is working in a war zone.  She’s led so many women to the lord that she now has a “church” for them and she was “ordained” as a pastor by her sending church in the Middle-East.  I was stunned - I’ve seen this in China, India, etc., but the Middle East - would men allow it?  Yes, many of these women wind up bringing their husbands. It is primarily a movement among women.  I’ve met maids from other countries who “sold” themselves into “slavery” in order to live in homes and tell people about Jesus. 
  Historically - women were the gatekeepers to Roman civil society in the early church.  If you read books on the spread - it took a while for men in leadership of Roman society to hear the Gospel.  Their wives made the way.  Women did lead in the Old Testament and the New.  But it wasn’t leadership born out of “equal rights” - it was leadership born out of call, open doors, and necessity. 
  What difference does it make?  We in the West must be careful what we say.  When we try to “speak” in absolute ways for God and the world, we may actually be in conflict with what God is doing.  Where there is gray we must not be absolute but show grace. Where it’s black and white, we must stay true.  The church that has been built in the West has been built over centuries of culture and interpretation specific often to context.  We should NEVER violate what scripture says - but we should be slow and listen both to someone God has raised up and to what the Scriptures really say. 
  When I preach on Sunday - I want every woman, young lady, and little girl to know and believe God can use them for him and his glory just like women can be effective in business, government, etc., so God uses them as well.  I’ll never forget sitting in a systematic theology class at Southwestern Seminary and the professor was challenging us to be “open” to what God can do in people’s lives.  The guy sitting beside me joked, “There’s no one that can clean a john like a Mary!”  Everyone started laughing - me included.  Growing up in a mono-non-global-western Christian-culture - Scripture reinforced my culture.  I’m sorry I laughed now.  I could only see the world through my experience and culture.  God is much bigger than we see.  Should men be leaders in the Church?  No question.  Does that exclude women from leadership in the Church?  If it does, we need to do a “Jefferson” on the Old Testament and New, on God powerfully using women. I have no answers - only questions - and a call to move slowly in telling someone what they can and cannot do.
was perhaps the first to help me understand the world and missions.  Carol Childress, like a big sister, always made a place for me at the table wherever she worked be it Leadership Network or the BGCT.  Linda Stanley opened doors for me in the U.S. with relationships. 
  I’ve never had the view male leadership disqualified women from leadership - it had more to do with roles.  I’ve taken a historic position on male leadership in the church.  But candidly, what I’ve seen around the world doesn’t always fit my “historic” view.  When you study The Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea and pastor Cho it came about because he mobilized the women to lead cells.  When I’ve been to countries globally - I’ve found teenagers, men and women alike - leading house churches.  No one is trying to make a statement of women in leadership in these contexts.  It’s simply a matter of someone finding Jesus, telling others, lots of people accepting Christ and that person leading masses to faith in Christ.  I wrote in a blog last year about the lady I met in India God healed and now has 30,000 in attendance along with a young “reformed” “charismatic” dean of a church planting school she started.  Most of the teachers in the school are all male that now train the pastors.  How could you say this woman is in sin or out of God’s will or doing something she shouldn’t?  If she hadn’t accepted Christ, she wouldn’t have led these others to faith in Christ - you wouldn’t have hundreds of churches.  Is there anyone who would honestly say she did the wrong thing?  Is there anyone who would say people would be better off without Jesus - going to hell - instead of someone serving? 
  I was in the Middle-East recently - and a lady of another nationality is a medical specialist who is working in a war zone.  She’s led so many women to the lord that she nows has a “church” for them and she was “ordained” as a pastor by her sending church in the Middle-East.  I was stunned - I’ve seen this in China, Inida, etc., but the Middle-East - would men allow it?  Yes, many of these women wind up bringing their husbands- it is primarily a movement among women.  I’ve met maids from other countries who “sold” themselves into “slavery” in order to live in homes and tell people about Jesus. 
  Historically - women were the gatekeepers to Roman civil society in the early church.  If you read books on the spread - it took a while for men in leadership of Roman society to hear the Gospel, their wives made the way.  Women did lead in the Old Testament and the New.  But it wasn’t leadership born out of “equal rights” - it was leadership born out of call, open doors, and necessity. 
  What difference does it make?  We in the West just must be careful what we say - when we try to “speak” in absolute ways for God and the world - we may actually be in conflict with what God is doing.  Where there is gray - we must not be absolute but show grace - where it’s black and white - we must stay true.  The church that has been built in the West has been built over centuries of culture and interpretation specific often to context.  We should NEVER violate what scripture says - but we should be slow and listen both to someone God has raised up and what do the Scriptures really say. 
  When I preach on Sunday - I want every woman, young lady, and little girl to know and believe God can use them for him and his glory just like women can be effective in business, government, etc., so God uses them as well.  I’ll never forget sitting in a systematic theology class at Southwestern Seminary and the professor was challenging us to be “open” to what God can do in peoples lives.  The guy sitting beside me joked, “There’s no one that can clean a john like a Mary!”  Everyone started laughing - me included.  Growing up in a mono-non-global-western Christian-culture - Scripture reinforced my culture.  I’m sorry I laughed now.  I could only see the world through my experience and culture.  God is much bigger than we see.  Should men be leaders in the Church?  No question - does that exclude women from leadership in the Church?  If it does, we need to do a “Jefferson” on the Old Testament and New on God powerfully using women. I have no answers - only questions - and a call to move slowly in telling someone what they can and cannot do.