The "Holy Irritation"

The truth is, the Jesus we read about in the Bible who advocated on women’s behalf, supported our freedom and our causes, stood with us in the battles, defended our children and shifted culture on our behalf is not the Jesus we encounter in most churches today. As a result, many women can no longer see themselves in the Church. She is not in the sermons that are being preached, the discipleship programs, the leadership training, or the ways that churches engage in culture. The Church has seemingly settled into a narrowly interpreted set of scriptures and a belief system that has resulted in women’s roles being so limited that women are giving up finding themselves in the Church. Just like I did. Despite knowing that God called me to be a leader, I had no choice but to check out of the Church for a time, to rediscover God, because there was no roadmap or blueprint for me there. I had done everything the churches I attended asked me to, serving and serving and serving ridiculously and to the detriment at times of my own family and everything else in my life. However, I never did it out of true identity, authentic purpose, or calling because I had been taught and believed these things were reserved for men. When the underlying belief system excludes women in a way that requires us to negate what Jesus did on the cross for us, we have no choice but to disengage in any meaningful way and walk out our identity, purpose, leadership and calling elsewhere. 

I realized that the real crux of my “holy irritation” and the ongoing frustration with the men in leadership both in the Church and in Culture, was that while I disagreed with the limiting beliefs, I accepted them, sat in churches who believed them with my daughters as they were raised, and at times acquiesced to them without question. I accepted what I was being taught without ever researching it for myself. I accepted that I could never be a Pastor in a church, and I unknowingly accepted that God would not bless my leadership positions in any setting. I believed God would not call me, without a man