This letter is from someone we will call Rose, one of the readers of this blog.  She just found out that her church had nominated 12 men and 1 woman to next year’s Church Council.  She found that lopsided and wrote an email to her pastor.  This is exactly what I would encourage you to do.  Put it in writing.  She did. This is an excellent letter and speaks so well to the problem that women face, and to a congregation that is not even aware of what it is doing.

Shirley,

I just returned from a trip, and saw in the mail a notice from my church that 12 men and 1 woman had been nominated to the Church Council. I wrote the following email to the senior pastor. I didn’t write to anyone else because I like to go to the top man. 

He is really a good and humble man, and I am fortunate to have such a pastor that I feel comfortable talking to. You may enjoy reading my comments. I am quite relentless in my pursuit for equality. More people should be questioning their church’s leaders and hold them accountable. As my pastor said, they did not have gender in mind, but the result is the same. I never agreed with affirmative action before, but now I am beginning to feel what African Americans must have felt.

Dear Pastor, 

I would like to hear your opinion on the fact that our church has now nominated 12 brothers and ONE sister to be Council members. It does not reflect anything on the makeup of the church. In our prayer meetings, we  NEVER had one where brothers outnumbered sisters.

I don’t want to see an arbitrary numbers game, just like I hate to see the title giving game being played, but can you see that something is very wrong with this picture?  

Am I the only one cursed with this perception? 

While we do not restrict women per se, have we encouraged them? groomed them? pushed them to a higher level? put higher expectation on them? empowered them? treated them the same way as we do our men? 

We have men leadership training, but not women leadership training. While it is not wrong to have men leadership training, do we really need it when we have 12 men nominated versus ONE woman? Do we HAVE ONLY ONE woman suitable to be a leader? REALLY?

Have sisters felt uncomfortable with titles? If so, why do sisters in general feel more uncomfortable with titles than brothers? What have we done to change it? If year after year, a whole generation of congregation sees a sea of blue/black suits on the stage when we parade our Council members, the message is very powerful, more powerful than numerous sermons, not that we have ever taught the subject. Action speaks louder than both words and silence.  Signed Rose

Wednesday we will see the reply Rose received from her Pastor, and her to response to that.