Kerith’s Journey on Women in Leadership
I was recently asked to write a piece on both my personal journey and Kerith’s journey with regard to women in leadership. Having finished it I thought it might be something which people within our community might find interesting too, so thought that I’d post it here. I’d love to hear any thoughts or comments.
In 1989 when my wife Catrina and I joined Kerith Community Church, the church was modelled around a hard complementarian theology. This meant that only men could preach, lead ministries, lead worship and serve as elders. In 2002 a group met to reassess the church’s theological position. This group (which I wasn’t involved in) affirmed a soft complementarian position, concluding that women could serve everywhere in the life of church other than as elders. As a result, a slow process began of opening every area of church ministry, other than eldership, to women.
In 2007 I took over the leadership of the church, and continued the process of encouraging women into leadership with increasing numbers of women preaching and leading ministries and a woman leading our first multisite location. By 2019 our practice had largely caught up with the soft complementarian position adopted in 2002. Ironically, it was only then that I realised I had never carefully examined my own biblical convictions. Our practice had moved ahead of my theology, and I felt compelled to consider my own theological position on women in leadership. I was aided in this by starting a Graduate Diploma in Kingdom Theology with Westminster Theological Centre (WTC), which gave me the tools to think more deeply and theologically about the issues involved. If I’m honest when I set out, I expected to conclude that the hard complementarian position would make the most sense of the Scriptures. However, the more I studied the more I found myself increasingly unconvinced by the arguments advanced by John Piper, Wayne Grudem and others. I found the soft complementarian position to be even weaker, with its sense that women can do some teaching and exercise some authority, but without any clarity from Scripture as to where those boundaries actually lie (in my experience this lack of clarity is often more damaging for women in ministry than the hard complementarian position where at least the boundaries are clear).
As I studied I became convinced that Genesis presents men and women as equal partners in God's creation, that Paul's ministry consistently involved women exercising significant leadership, and that the New Testament restrictions are best understood in their local context rather than as universal prohibitions. One stumbling block for me was 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul writes ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.’ A particularly significant contribution came from Leland Wilshire's Insight into Two Biblical Passages, whose study of the rare Greek verb authenteō offered an interpretation I had not previously considered. While this was not the only factor, it helped me reconsider whether Paul was prohibiting all forms of authority or a particular abusive exercise of authority within the Ephesian context. With this revised understanding of 1 Timothy 2:12 I concluded that there was no Scriptural basis for limiting the roles of women in the church - what is know as a mutualist position. Based on this I wrote a paper titled Is there a warrant from Scripture to appoint women elders in the contemporary church? which laid out the position I had come to.
Having clarified my own position, I sought to initiate a conversation within Kerith as to what our church’s position should be. The final decision on our theology lies with the elders, but I was keen that the whole church was aware that the conversation was happening and had the opportunity to comment. To do this I made my paper available to the everyone in the church, and offered to interact with anyone who wanted to discuss it. I also suggested books outlining a number of different positions which people might find helpful. The elders read widely and we met on multiple occasions to discuss where each of us had got to in our thinking. After around a year of discussions and debate the elders came to the unanimous decision in early 2021 that we should adopt a mutualist position.
At that time, we were part of the Newfrontiers family of churches, a movement in which appointing women elders is not permitted. When I spoke with leaders in Newfrontiers about the position we have come to, we were encouraged to adopt an arrangement sometimes referred to (rather unflatteringly) as the ‘Newfrontiers fudge’, where churches that hold a mutualist position are advised to establish a leadership team made up of men and women which then submits its decision to an all-male eldership for approval. I know a number of mutualist churches within the movement which, for the sake of unity, have been willing to live with this fudge. However, it felt to us that this would be unjust for the women in our community, as well as meaning that our ecclesiology was out of step with our theology. We therefore decided that we would appoint female elders, at which point we were told that we could no longer be part of Newfrontiers.
Since then, we have appointed a number of women elders (as well as some more men). From my perspective our eldership has been immeasurably enriched, with the benefit of both male and female perspectives complementing one another as we seek to discern God’s will for our community. I have also had the joy of working with and helping a number of other churches which are on similar journeys to ours which has been a great privilege.
Looking back, I remain grateful for the patience with which God led both me and our church. The journey required us to examine deeply held assumptions, listen carefully to Scripture and to one another, and be willing to accept the cost of following our convictions. While not everyone will agree with our conclusions, I have become convinced that enabling women and men to serve together in every area of church life has strengthened both our leadership and our witness.