Half the Vineyard Unharvested: How the Church Withers When Women’s Gifts Are Silenced
Ten of the twenty-six names are women.
In Romans 16, the closing chapter of his theological masterpiece, Paul commends Phoebe, Priscilla, Mary, Junia, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Persis, the mother of Rufus, Julia, and the sister of Nereus. As Nijay Gupta notes in Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church, “This is nothing short of astounding… none of Paul’s comments are focused on their domestic duties but on their ‘hard work’ on behalf of the Lord.” [1]
I grew up assuming that was normal. In my suburban Presbyterian church, women served as associate pastors, elders, and choir director. At my women’s college, our motto was “the challenge to excel.” Only decades later – in my 50s – did I realize that many congregations still restrict women from preaching, teaching, or leading. The discovery left me stunned—and grieved.
Why would the church exclude half its members from full participation in God’s mission?
I asked that question years ago, and I can’t believe I’m still having to ask it. When the church limits women’s leadership, it stifles not only their flourishing but the flourishing of the whole body.
Biblical and Theological Foundations for Flourishing
Scripture offers a continuous pattern of God calling and empowering women despite patriarchal norms. Deborah judged Israel, Huldah prophesied to kings, Mary of Bethany learned at Jesus’ feet, and Mary Magdalene proclaimed the Resurrection. Paul’s own ministry thrived through partnership with women like Priscilla and Junia.
Dallas Willard insisted that “there is no suggestion whatsoever in Scripture that the gifts of the Spirit are distributed along gender lines.” [2] To exclude women, he wrote, inflicts an “incalculable loss” on the church. [3] Leadership is not about rights but about obedience to divine gifting.
From Genesis to Paul, flourishing leadership arises when all God’s image-bearers live out their callings. When we silence the voices God has empowered, we do more than ignore Scripture; we impoverish the body of Christ.
Human Flourishing and the Cost of Exclusion
Recent data from the Global Flourishing Study—a collaboration between Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, Baylor University, and Gallup—confirms what theology has long proclaimed: flourishing cannot happen in isolation or at the expense of others. The study identifies six domains of human flourishing—happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial stability—and finds that the deepest well-being is driven by meaning, purpose, community, and faith, not wealth or achievement. [4]
Matthew Lee, one of the project’s researchers, explains, “It’s possible for me to have well-being at the expense of you, but I don’t think it’s possible for me to flourish at the expense of you.” [5] The church, then, cannot claim to flourish when it limits women’s full participation in ministry.
If flourishing requires mutuality, shared purpose, and belonging, then excluding women from leadership violates both empirical evidence and the gospel itself.
In addition, the Human Flourishing Program’s research shows that regular participation in religious community—including leadership engagement—is strongly associated with greater life satisfaction, purpose, and longevity. [6] When women are confined to passive or supportive roles, both their personal meaning and the community’s collective well-being diminish.
A church that silences half its voices deprives itself of joy, creativity, and relational strength. Flourishing, as both research and Scripture agree, depends on the full engagement of every member in God’s work of renewal.
Formation and Flourishing: Morgan’s Model
Anna R. Morgan’s Growing Women in Ministry offers a practical vision for how the church can nurture flourishing for women—and through them, for the whole community. Her model identifies seven interconnected aspects of leadership development: three internal (spiritual calling, leadership cognition, emotional intelligence) and four external (home support, ministry environment, leadership relationships, and communication). [7]
Each domain reflects one of the Human Flourishing Program’s indicators—meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships in particular—showing how personal formation and communal flourishing are intertwined.
Morgan emphasizes that developing women leaders is not a matter of political equity but of spiritual vitality. When women discern and live out their callings, they embody meaning and purpose; when they are mentored and supported within healthy ministry environments, they foster belonging and resilience; when their voices are heard, their communities grow in empathy and moral strength.
As Dallas Willard wrote, spiritual gifts create obligations—responsibilities derived from divine design. [8] To ignore those gifts is to defy the Spirit’s intent. Supporting women’s leadership, therefore, is a formation practice: it aligns human potential with divine purpose.
When the church invests in women’s development—through mentoring networks, inclusive leadership teams, and environments of trust—it fulfills both theological and psychological criteria for flourishing. Morgan’s model, Willard’s theology, Gupta’s examples, and the Harvard research converge on a single truth: flourishing multiplies when every believer’s gifts are honored and exercised.
The Church That Flourishes Together
True flourishing cannot be one-sided. As the Global Flourishing Study reminds us, well-being that comes at another’s expense is not flourishing at all. When the church limits women’s leadership, it diminishes its own spiritual vitality and silences part of the image of God meant to be expressed through His people.
Anna Morgan’s model, Nijay Gupta’s recovery of the women who “worked hard in the Lord,” and Dallas Willard’s conviction that gifts are given without regard to gender all reveal a consistent truth: the Spirit distributes calling for the good of the whole body, not for the protection of tradition or ego.
A flourishing church is one in which every believer’s purpose and voice contribute to the life of the community. When women are free to lead, teach, and serve as God calls, the entire body of Christ becomes more whole, more loving, and more alive—a living testimony to the God who delights in mutual flourishing and in whose image we are all created.
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- Nijay K. Gupta, Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023), 4.
- Dallas Willard, “The Roles of Women in Ministry Leadership,” in How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership, ed. James Beck and Stanley J. Grenz (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 422.
- Willard, 423.
- “The Global Flourishing Study,” Harvard Human Flourishing Program, 2025, https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/measuring-flourishing.
- Bella DePaulo, “Human Flourishing in Unprecedented Times,” Psychology Today, March 8, 2023, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-effect/202303/human-flourishing-in-unprecedented-times#:~:text=Human%20flourishing%20can%20be%20defined,individuals%20as%20well%20as%20communities.
- Tyler J. VanderWeele, “Religious Communities and Human Flourishing,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 26, no. 5 (2017): 476–81, https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417721526.
- Anna R. Morgan, Growing Women in Ministry: Seven Aspects of Leadership Development (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2024), 31.
- Willard, “The Roles of Women in Ministry Leadership,” 422.
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On a personal note, we have three young adult children, plus a daughter-in-law, who are all looking for churches that promote anyone into leadership who is called to it. Unfortunately, too often, the churches that exclude women from leadership are the kind they are otherwise looking for: larger, more active churches with many young people and families.
We have all been scratching our heads: Why do these young adults in their 20s and 30s join churches where the women can’t participate fully, while the mainline churches, where women are welcome to leadership, are struggling to stay afloat with aging congregations? At least, that’s the way it is in New England. Our children all want to grow in discipleship and in knowing and loving God, but in the churches of exclusion, our daughter and daughter-in-law do not feel welcome, and our son doesn’t want his daughters to be stifled. (Our other son is in Seattle, attending a welcoming Episcopal church.)
I pray for the day when ALL are truly welcome to explore their callings and giftings, for their own well-being and for the flourishing of the body of Christ and our communities.
About the Author
Debbie Owen
Deborah C. Owen is an experienced spiritual director, Neuro-based Enneagram executive and life coach, disciple maker, professional writer, senior librarian, and long-time church Music Director and lay leader. She has earned the award of National Board Certification for teaching excellence, and a podcasting award, and is pursuing a Doctor of Leadership degree through Portland Seminary at George Fox University. She lives in the backwoods of Maine with her husband and flat-coated retriever. She spends as much time as she can with their 3 grown children, daughter-in-law, and 2 small grandchildren. Find her online at InsideOutMinistries.info.3 responses to “Half the Vineyard Unharvested: How the Church Withers When Women’s Gifts Are Silenced”
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Thank you Debbie. Amazing as ever. You mentioned your grief at realising many churches still restrict women. What has helped you sustain hope and faith through that tension?
Thank you for your post Debbie,
How can churches practically assess whether their ministry environments are truly fostering the kind of flourishing Anna Morgan describes, especially in terms of emotional intelligence and leadership relationships?
Debbie, great blog. I can only imagine how grieved you were when you found out that women in many churches don’t have the opportunity to lead. From your experience, what practices help us discern and celebrate the Spirit’s call in one another, regardless of gender?”