A Woman's Role in the Church?

In a forum I visit from time to time, a woman asked, "What is a woman's role in the church?" My head spun as I followed the discussion and debate that spun on ad nauseum, remembering being a lot closer to those debates around conference tables and in Sunday school classes. Now that I experience Christ's church as community rather than as Sunday or as a building, I have a much different take, mostly because church for me has been removed from the confines of tradition and institution, making much of what is argued irrelevant. For instance, we will never deliberate over whether a woman can stand in the pulpit or not because: we don't have a pulpit. Here was my reply, slightly updated:

A woman’s role in the church is to walk with God, to receive His intimate counsel, to have fellowship with other believers. She can sit at the table as the meal is shared, and even cook it. She can speak from her heart, truthfully, lovingly, expressing herself in the unique and beautiful way God made her. She can cry. She can express anger and hurt at injustice. She can praise God for how good he has been to her. She can share her struggles and her unfulfilled hopes. She can offer consolation and encouragement. She can sit in the floor and sing with all her heart, hands raised, eyes closed or open, or even dance around the room. She can pick out the songs to sing, burn the CD, or print the lyrics. She can share along with everyone else what she thinks during an interactive Bible study or activity. She is expected to bring something to offer the church—some abundance that is overflowing from her walk with God. She can pray. She can be prayed for. She can change diapers and do the dishes unless someone beats her to it. She can drive the cars and get people where they need to go. She can listen. She can make the lattes. She can lifeguard when the church goes swimming. She can take a group to Starbucks or to the mall or to the bookstore. She can read books and watch movies and recommend them to others. She can make and send cards and other gifts. She can initiate and enjoy meaningful conversation with the other women and men in the group. She can host showers, parties, and get-togethers. She can write. She can invite others into the fellowship, especially the brokenhearted. She can decide with her husband to skip their family vacation this year so they can give the money to another family in the church who needs it more.

Maybe you’re asking about a woman’s role as it differs from a man’s role. As to that, her role is primarily to be beautiful—to bear the image of God as beauty incarnate, giving us a glimpse and a foretaste of the beauty of God—not only physically but also mysteriously as well. Her role is to captivate and to invite the men in her life to be everything God made them to be.

Of course, that’s a role of women in the church that meets at our home. If you are asking this because you want to fit in at a particular church, you should probably ask them.