{"id":42465,"date":"2025-10-31T06:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T13:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=42465"},"modified":"2025-10-31T06:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T13:38:11","slug":"42465-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/42465-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Moore Egalitarian than Complementarian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I have shared a few times, I began my faith journey in the Roman Catholic Church, where the first women I saw in leadership were the Sisters. Though their influence was profound, their roles were often positioned within the margins of ecclesial authority, while priests and brothers occupied the visible and celebrated centers of leadership. The Sisters taught, served, and nurtured communities, modeling compassion and discipline, yet their leadership was framed as support rather than governance.<\/p>\n<p>When I later entered Protestantism, my understanding of leadership broadened. For the first time, I encountered women preaching, pastoring, and shaping the spiritual direction of congregations. This transition expanded my theological imagination and deepened my awareness of how context determines opportunity. The same dynamic exists in the corporate and secular world, where women often begin in supportive roles but must navigate systemic barriers to reach executive leadership. Just as churches wrestle with theology and tradition, organizations wrestle with culture and structure. In both spaces, equitable leadership requires more than talent; it demands intentional systems that recognize competence, while promoting access, and the dismantling of the visible and invisible ceilings that still define who gets the opportunity to lead.<\/p>\n<p>Reading Anna Morgan\u2019s\u00a0<em>Growing Women in Ministry: Seven Aspects of Leadership Development<\/em> was quite interesting and insightful. Morgan proposes seven aspects of leadership development (three internal and four external), bringing together how women grow into authority and influence: [1]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>spiritual calling<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>giftedness<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>emotional intelligence<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>home-life supports<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>ministry leadership contexts<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>leadership relationships<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>communication<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These seven facets promote Egalitarianism, the belief that all people are inherently equal in worth, potential, and the right to lead regardless of gender, race, or social status. In the church, it critically challenges patriarchal structures that have historically restricted women\u2019s roles in leadership, asserting instead that spiritual gifts and callings are distributed without gender bias. Morgan\u2019s seven aspects framework affirming women\u2019s full participation in ministry as a divine right.<\/p>\n<p>Doctrinal gatekeeping has plagued women in ministry since its inception, with many using scripture and doctrine to hinder the advancement of women in leadership in both the church and the corporate sector. <span style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">When the walls have been breached and women find themselves in the driver\u2019s seat, Moore makes an interesting observation:\u00a0<em>when women in hindering environments do get challenging opportunities, those opportunities can be impossibly difficult, leading to failure, burnout, and stress.<\/em><\/span><em>\u00a0<\/em>[2]<\/p>\n<p>As it relates to the church, women\u2019s ordination and pastoral authority were part of a contentious debate at the Southern Baptist Convention in limiting the office of pastor and leadership to men only. The structural barriers are in full force in many areas, arguing to define the role and scope of women. As these barriers are both substantial and intentional, many perceive women in ministry through a complementarian lens and would disagree with much of Morgan\u2019s synopsis on policy and polity grounds.<\/p>\n<p>In our context, I am reminded of the Rev. Gina Stewart, who just last year became the first woman to preach the keynote sermon at the Joint National Baptist Convention. Her theologically impactful sermon and thoughts were later removed from the convention\u2019s Facebook page. This ignited a huge public debate concerning systemic gender bias in denominational churches that still lingers.<\/p>\n<p>If I had more time, I would love to explore women in leadership versus the rise of men in the church. Post-pandemic multiple analyses in 2025 report that men are now outpacing women when it comes to self-reported regular church attendance in the United States. This is the first time in decades. Notwithstanding the trend, I believe that, where women in church leadership do exist, given both the aging clergy and near-record numbers of retirements, there is a need for their leadership formation. In our very own context that affirms women in leadership, I am a personal witness to the fact that we have our starters on the front lines but no strong bench to support when succession is called.<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite books that I read early in my pastoral ministry was Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Cloud says, <em>Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.<\/em> [3] An area that resonated with me was Moore&#8217;s perspective on the boundaries many women face in leadership. <em>These women want to maintain their freedom and flexibility above all else, and if accumulating more power means they have to lose their freedom, they are far less interested in a promotion. <\/em>[4]<\/p>\n<p>As Moore touts the lifelong process of Leadership development, she also has a vision for women leaders as full ministry partners in the church.\u00a0<span style=\"margin: 0px;padding: 0px\">She doubles down on this idea, saying,\u00a0<em>The church loses its strength and reach when women leaders who can&#8217;t flourish in the church focus their gifts instead on business, academia, non-profits, or para church ministry.<\/em><\/span> [5]\u00a0 When I shared with a friend what I was writing about, they mentioned how the debate over women in ministry will forever be a lifelong issue, equating it to a wicked problem. The question I pose is what points can an egalitarian see and agree upon from a complementarian perspective, and what points can a complementarian see and agree upon from an egalitarian perspective?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>[1]Anna R. Morgan, <em>Growing Women in Ministry: Seven Aspects of Leadership Development,<\/em>\u00a0(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2024).<\/p>\n<p>[2] Morgan, 105.<\/p>\n<p>[3] Cloud, Henry, and John Townsend. Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. 25th Anniversary ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017)<\/p>\n<p>[4] Morgan, 117.<\/p>\n<p>[5] Morgan 181.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I have shared a few times, I began my faith journey in the Roman Catholic Church, where the first women I saw in leadership were the Sisters. Though their influence was profound, their roles were often positioned within the margins of ecclesial authority, while priests and brothers occupied the visible and celebrated centers of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3499],"class_list":["post-42465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03-morgan","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42465"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42468,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42465\/revisions\/42468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}