Challenges of Women in Ministry

Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915) was an African American former slave turned international evangelist in the late 19^th Century to early 20^th century. As has always been the case there was a lot of opposition especially back then to women ministers in the church. There was like now, a lot of stereotypes, misinterpretation of scriptures to justify subduing of women and their callings.

In the excerpt below she mentions that she felt she had to be married to effectively serve God, because then she would be a minister’s wife which was quite accepted. But that was not God’s will for her, and she was not happy in her second marriage either.

“One reason for my marrying a second time was that I might have a Christian home and serve God more perfectly. I thought to marry a preacher would be the very thing, though notwithstanding, I prayed earnestly for light and guidance from the Lord, and I believe, now, he gave it me, but I did not walk in it. How sorry I have been many times since. I told my husband how, since my conversion, I felt it my duty to be an Evangelist. He quite agreed to it all, and told me he was preparing himself to join the Conference and so go into the itinerant work.” (Source: An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord’s Dealing with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Colored Evangelist (1893) ­)

Marrying her husband turned out to be a mistake which left her unhappy and miserable: “When the first few months after my marriage to James Smith had passed, things began to get very unsatisfactory. My husband had one grown daughter, eighteen years of age, by a former marriage, and I had one daughter, about nine years old, by my first marriage. At times, things in the house were very unpleasant. I was greatly disappointed, perhaps I had expected too much of my husband. He was a local preacher and an ordained deacon in the A. M. E. Church.” (Source: An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord’s Dealing with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Colored Evangelist (1893) ­)

She did, after many mistakes and overcoming her fears, give in to God’s call and proceeded to be a great evangelist.

 

Maria Woodworth Etter (1844-1924) too, one of the greatest women evangelists, whom God used greatly in healings, signs & wonders also face much similar circumstances. She too heard God’s call on her life at a young age but was full of timidity and fear especially due to the fact that women were silenced by both culture and the church in her day. She too thought that marriage would be the way to answer God’s calling in her life.

“I heard the voice of Jesus calling me to go out in the highways and hedges and gather in the lost sheep…I had never heard of women working in public except as missionaries, so I could see no opening-except as I thought, if I ever married, my choice would be an earnest Christian and then we would enter upon the mission field.^” (Maria Woodworth-Etter, Life and Experience of Maria B. Woodworth (Dayton, OH: United Brethren, 1885)

Her marriage did not lead to ministry, but a lot of suffering and pain, and eventually she too did eventually answer God’s call for her life and managed to overcome her fear of man.

In the 21^st century, things may have improved a whole lot for women in ministry, but it still isn’t easy. Women still have to fight many stereotypes and overcome a lot of opposition within the church and even from fellow women, to answer God’s call upon their lives. Some denominations accept and ordain women and this does encourage women a lot, but many denominations especially the charismatic/Pentecostal ones still put up many barriers against women in ministry. Women have to fight harder to answer God’s call upon their live and many give up or don’t respond to their calls at all because of fear and choose to walk in disobedience to God.

 

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if maybe God blessed and did so much good though the Salvation Army church because of the founders (William and Catherine Booth) good faith and openness to use both men and women equally for Gods work and even have a woman General at a time when women were not encouraged much in ministry. At one time William Booth even proclaimed: “My best men are women!”.

I myself have no easy answers to the problems women face, but it will take all of us, both men and women to encourage and also support women as Christ did and not stand in the way of what God plans to do through women in spreading his gospel, by putting up with wrong mentalities, cultures and stereotypes.

In her autobiography, Signs and Wonders God Wrought in the Ministry for Forty Years, Woodworth-Etter explains the reason for her bold obedience to God: “When a woman is called by God, how can she be obedient without answering the call? How can you doubt the call when God himself confirms it with miraculous power?”

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus~ Galatians 3:28

Just as: “We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19); we should not make it difficult for women obeying God.

 

In Christ,

Mwendwa