Women’s Ministry in the Local Church: A Covenantal and Complementarian Approach -- By: Susan Hunt

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 11:2 (Fall 2006)
Article: Women’s Ministry in the Local Church: A Covenantal and Complementarian Approach
Author: Susan Hunt


Women’s Ministry in the Local Church:
A Covenantal and Complementarian Approach1

Susan Hunt

Pastor’s Wife, Speaker, Author;
Consultant to Women in the Church Ministry, Presbyterian Church in America
Marietta, Georgia

Mary, a college woman in our church, met with fourth- and fifth-grade girls during the summer, discipling them in principles of biblical womanhood. After their first session, ten-year old Rachel said, “I’ve thought a lot about being a Christian, but I never thought about being a Christian woman.”

Our increasingly pagan culture encourages us not to think about distinctions such as male and female. This is why the women’s ministry in our church extended our reach to fourth- and fifth-grade girls. By partnering with our Youth Ministry, we began discipling teen girls. Then, by partnering with our Children’s Ministry, we are helping Mary disciple pre-teen girls.2 This is as it should be—one generation telling the next generation the glorious deeds of God, including the fact that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27).3

Androgyny was not, is not, and will not be God’s way. An androgynous approach to ministry in the church is not a biblical approach. It was not good for Adam to be alone in the garden, and a genderless approach to ministry in God’s church is not good. God did not give his benediction of “It is very good” until man and woman stood side by side, equal but different.

The crisis of womanhood is too critical for the church to be passive. Scores of evangelical women are functional feminists because the world’s paradigm for womanhood is the only one they have heard. The church should lead the way in equipping God’s people to think biblically about all of life, including a biblical perspective of gender roles and relationships.

The Dangerous Silence of the Church

The church must boldly articulate a robustly positive perspective of womanhood and of woman’s role in the church. The church must also equip godly older women to disciple younger women to think and live according to this perspective.

If a local church remains silent on this issue, women will be unequipped to fulfill their covenantal calling.

It is insufficient for churches that hold to male headship simply to compile a list of things that are permissible for women t...

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