Women: The Missing Half of Church Planters

By Larry Walkemeyer

Arguably the most impactful pastor of the past 25 years, Rick Warren, recently wrote a tweet that sent shockwaves through the church in America:

My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women. Shame on me… I think maybe it was because I didn’t WANT to know anything that might challenge the view I WANTED to believe for 50 yrs. 

But eventually, integrity required that I read over 70 commentaries by INERRANTIST scholars that blew apart my comfortable, traditional, and culture-based interpretation. No seminary told me that those commentaries even existed…So I accepted the interpretation that was most comfortable for me as a man with my background.

Then reading over 100 books on the early church and the history of the Great Commission… demanded my repentance. That journey was both painful and humbling…

I PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE to every good woman in my life, church, and ministry that I failed to speak up for in my years of ignorance. What grieves me is that I hindered them in obeying the Great Commission command (And Acts 2:17-18) that EVERYONE is to TEACH in the church.

I held them back from using the spiritual gifts and leadership skills that the Holy Spirit had sovereignly placed in them. That breaks my heart now, and I am truly repentant and sorry for my sin. I wish I could do it all over. Christian women, will you please forgive me?

B.T. Roberts and Rick Warren (an unlikely pair) agree — fully empower women in the church because the Holy Spirit fully empowered women at the birth of the church! 

If we as Free Methodists are to be a Spirit-fueled multiplication movement, we must hold high the authority of all of Scripture (not two or three obscure texts) that liberates and empowers both males and females to plant and pastor churches.

A New Priesthood

If we fail to equally empower our sisters, we muzzle half of the missionary force God wants to use to spread and lead the church. We create a “male-only” royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9) and subjugate women to a “lesser than” value and role.

In the Old Testament, it was a “men only” priesthood, but the day of Pentecost birthed the New Testament church with its new priesthood. In Acts 2, God emphasizes a new order of mutuality in ministry — one liberated from the confines of ethnic and gender exclusivity (Acts 2:17–18).

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“The first-century model of church, however, was dramatically different from our current model.”

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The New Testament church advanced rapidly as both men and women partnered in the spread of the gospel and the planting of churches. One has only to read Paul’s church planting team list in Romans 16 and note that 10 of the 29 names are female to realize women in leadership were key to the initial gospel movement. The first-century model of church, however, was dramatically different from our current model. This reality helped open the door for women like Lydia, Priscilla and Junia to lead churches in an overtly patriarchal society.

In the early church, a pastor was not a formally educated Bible teacher with oratory and management skills who raised money for ministry programs. There were no church buildings until the 4th century, no pulpits until the 9th century, no printed Bibles until the 15th century. A “pastor” in the early church was a house church leader who was making and gathering a network of disciples together for prayer, worship and fellowship.

I am a strong advocate of all sizes of churches and all models of church planting, but I also know that the prevailing model of church in America today (with its boards, budgets, buildings, websites, online services, plethora of programs and attendance growth as the hallowed scorecard) creates a significant hurdle to who can effectively “pastor” a church.

Sixty-eight% of pastors in America lead churches of under 100 people, and most of them will minister in frustration all their careers because they are trying to just “grow” their church instead of “multiply” the church. They mistakenly think the size of their church determines their value and the impact of their church.

Kingdom Identity

The early church model, however, opened the door for all kinds of churches led by all levels of leadership talents and by moms, homemakers, businesswomen, caregivers, etc. Management skills and the gift of leadership were not required for pastoring. Instead, the emphasis was on sharing the gospel, creating fellowship, engaging in prayer, caring for the needy, teaching the way of Christ and making disciples who would make disciples. Many of these tasks women (in general) naturally do better than men.

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“The focus was growing God’s kingdom, not just the local ‘castle.’”

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With the goal in the early church being impact and multiplication, the church size and complexity remained manageable for bi-vocational women and men. The focus was growing God’s kingdom, not just the local “castle.”

I know many women capable of leading large, complex churches. I see them doing it with God’s blessing. But as long as we expect women — who are often homemakers, moms and caregivers — to lead growing churches in the prevailing male-dominated management model, we will be setting many women up for disappointment. We will fail to see much movement in the needle of unleashing the leadership gifts of our sisters. We won’t get close to the 34% female leaders we see in Romans 16. However, the closer our model grows to the New Testament church, the more we will see our sisters thrive as shepherds and leaders.

Through my ministry with Exponential, I work with many different denominations, some complementarians and some egalitarians. We minister together with the unifying message of Jesus as Savior and Lord, the mission of the gospel, the essentiality of the church and in the prayer of John 17. We are a kingdom ministry.

As Free Methodists, we too are kingdom people, ministering in what John Wesley describes as a “catholic” spirit (meaning a person with firm convictions, yet reaching out one’s hand to all fellow Christians who may disagree on certain topics, “opinions” as Wesley calls them). But, also as Free Methodists, we have a passion for the authority of Scripture that leads us to fully empower both men and women. This scriptural position is not a slippery slope to feminization of the church, or to affirming LGBTQ+, or to confusing God’s distinctive design for men and women. On the contrary, it is an upward call of obedience to the Word and Spirit to live out the full reality of our new kingdom identity in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28)!

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“We need you fully empowered and released if we are to become a Spirit-fueled movement such as was born at Pentecost.”

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As Free Methodists, we are not alone. Assemblies of God (the fastest growing denomination in America), Church of the Brethren, Foursquare Church, Church of the Nazarene, Church of God (Anderson), ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians, Evangelical Covenant, Salvation Army, Global Methodist Church, Vineyard USA, Wesleyan, Evangelical Friends and many others (now including Rick Warren) join us in this biblical and missional conviction.

So sisters in Christ, we do apologize when we have in any way discounted your gifts and callings, failed to value your voice, tried to cram you into male-centric models that did not fit you, been reluctant to open doors for you or give you the pulpit due to people’s (even leaders’) opinions. Please forgive us. We need you fully empowered and released if we are to become a Spirit-fueled movement such as was born at Pentecost.

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