Last year I wrote a little ditty called “We Twitter, we Facebook, we blog.” 

We Twitter, we Facebook, we blog,

We invite you to dress casually.

Our women sing

Praises to the King.

But Pastor or Deacon she can never be

Over men she can not have authority.

She must be a good wife and bake cookies all day long

And teach her children with verse and song.

We Twitter, we Facebook, we blog

We invite you to dress casually

We proudly keep our women

In the First century!

The main point of this is that we keep our women in the First Century, while the men think they are moving along.  You can read more about this on my blog dated 5/13/2010. 

I want to use this again in this series of creating a new song – and no, I do not mean writing a new little ditty.  This is not about music at all.  It is about the future of the church.  The church being the Body of Christ, including men and women, equally. 

You have read the stories: 

1. The explosive content of  books promoting women’s equality
2. The woman on the plane who thought she was equal
3. The two ordained women in the group who were members of a church that recognized their equality
4. The Catholic family that belongs with the group that states flatly that change for women will never happen
5. The dead church that can be found all across America and in Christian nations 

To continue the series, we are going to reverse the order. 

1. The dead church
2. The statement that change for women’s equality will never happen
3. Ordained women in ministry
4. Woman who thinks she is equal –  in a church that doesn’t
5. The explosive content – The new song – REFORMATION

When I started my ministry, I visited at least a thousand Baptist websites.  A website is a church’s public face and you can read a lot of expressions in that public face. Many churches reluctantly embrace any future changes, while many think they are progressing very well and that their church is on the cutting edge of Christianity. But the vast majority of these Baptist churches, as seen on their websites, proudly keep their women in the First Century. 

To create a new song, we must know what our present song is. We are going to be dealing with the present song first – in the dead church.

Books that have influenced this series:

• Does God REALLY Prefer Men? By Leslie and Gary Johnson (Soon available free here).

Novels by Brenda Rickman Vantrease: (Novels on the 300 year period leading to the Reformation)

• The Heretics Wife
• The Mercy Sellers, sequel to The Illuminators
• The Illuminators

Books that have influenced me:

• The Lost Apostle: searching for the truth about Junia by Rena Pederson, 2006.
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, 2007