Support from our Brothers!

We Thank the Lord for His men who have heard the heart of God through the Spirit and are speaking “release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind!”  The following are just a few.  GLORY!

 "When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, his friend came out from the tomb alive but still bound up in the burial shroud. Jesus told those standing around to loose him and let him go free. Lazarus needed someone’s help to free him. Multiplied thousands of women today are alive in Jesus but still tied up by the burial shroud of human tradition – tradition that says they are second-class citizens – and cultural ideas that tell them they cannot carry out the highest callings of God’s kingdom." 

Loren Cunningham
Founder, Youth with a Mission

“It’s time we stop spreading these insulting ideas and quit using the Bible to hold omen hostage to a male-centered religious agenda.  Jesus Christ came to save, sanctify and empower us all—male and female—for Spirit directed ministry.  Nowhere in His Word does He endorse the idea that women are inferior to men or that the spiritual gifts and callings of the Holy Spirit are conferred only upon males.

Yet for centuries the church has taught godly women that they must quench the holy fire of God that burns within them.  As a result, half the labor force in the church has been sidelined and devalued.  And while women have been disqualified from the game and sent to the bench, we men have arrogantly told our sisters in Christ that this is God’s perfect plan. 

J. Lee Grady
Editor, Chrisma Magazine
10 Lies the Church Tells Women.

“What can we say about Jesus’ attitude toward women?  It was positive, liberating and accepting.  …He accepted women as capable and fully equal with men in all thing.  He closed the door to the Old Covenant and ushered in a New covenant wherein there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, only oneness in Christ.  He set the captives free, both men and women, from all the bondages of sin, the curse and religion…nowhere does the bible from Genesis to maps forbid any woman from serving God in any capacity He calls and prepares her to fulfill.”

Charles Trombley
Teacher, Missionary, Author
Who Said Women Can’t Teach?

One of Satan’s greatest fears has to do with women... Women need to discover this truth. The devil knows that God does not lie —what God promises always comes to pass. This is why Satan has spent centuries belittling women and weaving a web of lies into a formidable worldwide network of oppression to hold them down. He knows that when women find out who they really are, his evil kingdom will come to an abrupt end. He cannot afford to have women walking upright. He desperately needs to keep them down. But Satan cannot do this forever. The Scriptures tell us that the day is fast approaching when God will lift women up and release masses of them into ministry. Psalm 68:11 declares that at a strategic time God will give a command, and a company of women who proclaim the Good News will defeat His enemies.

Ed Silvoso
Author, Evangelist
Women God’s Secret Weapon

There might never have been a feminist movement in this county if the church had been true to Jesus’ teaching about women.   The New Testament has only a couple of passages, which are traditionally used to put down women.  Properly understood in their cultural context, and properly translated from the Greek neither of them restricts a woman’s role in the church and home…Christian leaders who have an investment in traditional teaching have difficulty accepting this.

Eddie Hyatt
Author, Evangelist, Historian
2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity

What’s Happening on  the Web?

We want to call your attention to some new articles that have recently been put up on the website.  You can always find the latest by clicking on “What’s New” found at the top of each page. 

Testimony of Marli Spieker - Marli is executive director of Project Hannah  a ministry of Trans World Radio, that  is reaching out with compassion and hope to suffering women across the globe living in spiritual darkness.  These are exciting words that you don't want to miss.

Testimony of Catherine Clark Kroeger Catherine tells what led her to write I Suffer Not a Woman, Rethinking 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence.

The Challenges of Intimacy," by Richard Barnor.  This is chapter five of Divine Intimacy—An Invitation to Passionate Love.  Richard stirs up the reader to recognize that Adam and Eve's condition of nakedness didn't need to bring shame because it speaks of intimacy.  Because Adam and Eve initially possessed God's unconditional love, transparency--the ability to be the real you--was the result. 

Youth With a Mission  is planning Connexity 2002, the first international YWAM gathering on global women's issues

Connexity 2002  will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from the 2nd to the 5th of September 2002.

Connexity 2002 is intended to be a one-time Youth With A Mission Conference, connecting generations, genders and nations. It is not an exclusive women's event but is for everyone who desires to see a greater release of women within YWAM and beyond. Connexity 2002 aims to celebrate the nature and the purposes of women with a view to greater release and equipping by:

1. inspiring and encouraging individuals to reach their potential with God.

2. exploring God's purposes together, and reconciling how the female identity can work out those purposes within today's world.

3. examining the global community of women, highlighting their suffering and unique concerns (such as prostitution, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence).

Anyone who shares these concerns is welcome. We invite you to come and be part of shaping and contributing to the outcome. Please, you can visit our web-site: www.connexity2002.org (where you can also meet the core team)

God’s Word to Women is supporting this conference.  If you would also like to help, contact Director of Operations, Teresa Bird (birdt@sfcos.org).

New release by Dee Alei! Excellent, exciting  reading!

Dee Alei has finished her book, From Bondage to Blessing, The Redemption, Restoration and Release of God’s Women.  We have had her first chapter,  “A Symphony of Discordant Notes,” up for quite some time now.  From Bondage to Blessing presents a panoramic view of woman's journey into bondage and shows how God has intervened to bring redemption, restoration and release into her destiny.  This book is a "must read" for anyone who has questions regarding the role of women in the church.  

In the foreword, Dr. Fuchsia Pickett wrote:  “I have read, studied, searched and listened to many share and teach on the subject of women in ministry, but I have not found anyone who has exceeded Dee Alei’s writing in addressing the issue, enabling us to find the truth about women direct from the heart of God.” If you would like to order a copy, you may do so for $12 by going to the website, clicking  “What’s New,” find the article and click on “order form.”
 

SHOULD WOMEN SERVE AS PASTORS? By Barbara Collins

When God desires to express Himself and His nature through someone, He sovereignly calls them unto Himself.  To hear the call of God and to be ignited with a passion to serve Him causes the response to be generated entirely out of love.  Although I served as a co-pastor for two and one-half years, God never called me to be a pastor.  I did hear His call to teach and preach His Word and responded to Him years ago.  To answer the call of God is not to respond in service to Him but in relationship to and intimacy with Him.  He’s the one, first of all, that is to be satisfied, and not us as we serve, nor the people we serve.  Satisfaction, however, filters all the way down.

 Our faithfulness to our relationship with Him may cause us to put aside some of the “work” we do and some of the associations we make because relationship with Him is not only the main thing, it is the only thing in the end.  That relationship evolves into our total and absolute dependence upon Him whereupon we are truly saved and finally able to enter into the fullness of the destiny He has for our lives.  When the Lord called me to preach, He quickened to me in various ways I Corinthians 9:16.  It frightened me.  I knew He hadn’t forgotten that I am a woman.  New King James says it this way:  “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.”  The word “necessity” simply means that preaching the gospel is not something one does because they believe they have an affinity for doing so or because some one appointed them, but a divine compulsion brings forth the preaching.

Since teaching is the primary call upon my life, preaching interweaves itself into the teaching.  When I began teaching, the Lord reminded me that my sufficiency was anchored in Him.  What I lacked in being equipped, He would provide through His enabling grace.  Would God have called me to teach and preach if that call was contrary to His Word?  NO!  Did I misunderstand what He was saying about being set apart for the gospel?  NO!  When we look at the qualifications for bishops and deacons in I. Timothy 3:10, Paul included women.  In verse 1, the word “man” is used for someone seeking the office of bishop.  However, the Greek word used is tis, a neuter word meaning male or female.  Had Paul wanted to communicate that this office was to be limited to the male gender, he would have used the word andron which specifies male only.  In verse 11, the word for “likewise” is hosautos in the Greek.  “Likewise” joins the whole list of qualifications of bishops/elders with deacons and with women here in v. 11.  Notice in the King James how the translators chose the word “wives,” whereas Amplified uses the word “women.”  In his book, Who Says Women Can’t Teach, Charles Trombley rejects the use of “wives,” stating that “some commentators say Paul gives additional requirements for the bishops’ and deacons’ wives.  Since there isn’t a definite article in the sentence construction, nor is the possessive case used, this suggestion must be rejected.” (p. 195.)  “Women,” then, is the correct translation.  For an insightful article on “Women Pastors in the Early Church” by Kathryn Riss, go to www.godswordtowomen.org/pastors.htm and examine the lives of Mary, the mother of John Mark, Chloe, Lydia and others." 

To illustrate misplaced zeal for doctrinal purity, Southern Baptists issued a prohibition against women pastors and altered their Baptist Faith and Message in the year 2000.  Recently, their International Mission Board has made a requirement of missionaries overseas to sign this revised document.  The Japan Baptist “Convention leadership has continued to express outrage that missionary colleagues have been asked as Baptists to sign any creed and especially one that discounts the calling and service of women called by God as pastors.  In contrast to the concerted effort to exclude women from the pastorate in the U.S., Japanese churches have continued to recognize God’s call and to educate women for ministry.  SBC missionary women, both those ordained and those who choose to serve as church planters in a functional pastoral role, find that the Convention and the churches in Japan are open to their service and leadership.”  (Press Release, Lydia Barrow-Hankins, June 3, 2002)

We’re not trying to single out Southern Baptists.   Because I grew up as a Southern Baptist, I remain more sensitive to what is happening in that denomination than others.  What God is after is not just the release of His women but men, too, whose giftings have been neutralized by the clergy-laity system.  The hierarchal system has robbed the church of much talent and giftings that could have benefited and increased the Kingdom.  Certainly, the Church is propelled at half-steam in those churches that ignore the callings and giftings of women.  

In her classic book, God’s Word to Women, Katherine Bushnell says, “Judaism commingled with paganism born in the ‘days of mingling’ (the time between the O. T. and the N. T.) and placed the badge of inferiority and servility upon woman.”  Why did this scripture twisting occur?  The Jews were simply attempting to reconcile O. T. teachings with the customs of the Jews mixed with some Greek paganism.  

Bushnell continues, “Originally, woman had her place in the regular Tabernacle services, either as priestess or Levite,” which “is now conceded by Bible scholars, as proved by the technical term used in Ex. 38:8 and I. Samuel 2:22, translated ‘serving women. . .’  Ancient versions followed suit in purposely mistranslating the word as ‘assembled’ or ‘prayed’ or ‘thronged’ but really meaning ‘served’ as the R. V. rightly renders it.  This illustration of women ministering at the door of the Tabernacle had become so odious that it was willfully mistranslated and is just one of many instances of falsely erected barriers against women’s service.  The Council of Laodicea of the 4th century declared,  “Women may not go to the altar.”  In the beginning of this present millennium, little has changed; for the altar is where the pulpit is.  To a woman, the altar basically is a place of repentance, rededication and rejoicing rather than a place of ministry.

Bushnell maintains that the Church has often told woman. . .that Paul commanded her to “keep silence in the churches.”  Is this one statement by Paul some kind of scriptural “law” to silence women?  If so, what do we do with hundreds of other “laws” in the Old Testament which open the mouths of women?  What do we do with “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,” or simply “Praise ye the Lord” (repeated some 100 times in the Psalms alone)?  Some believe that the attempt to shut women up in service and speech lies at the base of the doctrine of silence and subordination for women, which was the pretext for her original exclusion from service at the altar. 

The Lord hates the doctrine of the Nicolaitans (control over people), and He’s getting ready to break the spirit of control to smithereens!  Women, are you ready?  It really doesn’t matter what you’re called.  “Pastor” is only mentioned one time in the entire New Testament and is better thought of as a participle rather than a noun. “Pastoring” is something that the entire Body does rather than the responsibility being concentrated in one or a few persons. What matters is that the gospel is preached in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.  David’s prophetic psalm will surely come to pass.  “The Lord gives the command; the women who proclaim the good tidings are a great host. . .”  (Ps. 68:11, NAS).