Women Ministry Protestant Church

Introduction

People are always inquiring why this change has arrive about so quickly. Why do women choose ministry? Why would a woman today seek out a career so conspicuously overridden by men? Yet it makes sense. As women have moved out-of-doors the home to seek employment, the place of worship has offered large appeal. Many women have obtained very good educations. In the economy of American Protestant standards, when one has a talent or a resource, it is wasteful not to use it. Women are searching significant ways to use the advantages of education. Women are freshly cognizant of their talents. Furthermore, the inflationary spiral has forced numerous women into the marketplace to supplement shrinking family incomes.

Analysis

Historically, women have been the backbone of American places of worship; their volunteer efforts have kept numerous mainline churches going. Consequently, when women start looking round the humanity for employment outside the dwelling, the place of worship is very appealing. Women know the church. They know that they can convey on its ministries effectively, because they have been assisting the place of worship as volunteers for years. And when the church preaches a theology that celebrates the presents of all people, regardless of rush and sex, women feel snug in an open way searching more direct leadership. Women who have never claimed their sense of calling are coming forward to do what they have thought about for years (Lester, pp. 63-70).

Although women are challenging the sexist patterns of the past, most women who choose to prepare for ministry are not on a crusade. They are responding to a authentic call to service. While they are hurt and angry that the church has limited the exercise of women's talents in the past, they are hopeful that a new era for women's ministries is emerging. Women in seminaries today and women going out to serve in localized places of worship in increasing numbers have shared some unique know-hows. In talks with such women, three common concerns emerge: credibility, rivalry and calling (Scalise, pp. 7-13).

Women desire to be acknowledged and productive -- and women ministers, like women in many predominantly male professions, do not have the self-acting acceptance and unthinking support which their male colleagues enjoy. Consequently they should spend substantial power establishing and maintaining their credibility as ministers. It begins with externals.

Because women are often rapidly judged in our humanity by “appearances,” anxieties about what to wear and how one's voice carries will not be ignored. Women clergy work very attentively on the interrelationship between their personal lives and their functions as ministers. How to nourish significant relationships with the converse sex? What to inquire of their husbands? Whether to have children? How to balance dwelling responsibilities with the job? These are widespread anxieties for all professional women. In the Protestant ministry, however, these questions have special implications for a woman pastor (Hunter, pp. 35-49).

Throughout the history of the American place of worship, the minister's wife has contributed to her husband's ...