Dr. Jackie Roese
In this final episode of BOW’s three-part series on relationships between men and women as the church, guest Dr. Jackie Roese describes living out that calling as God’s dream team. Instead of seeing danger involving women, what if we saw one another as brothers and sisters in Christ?
You won’t want to miss this final episode that provides a glimpse of what a thriving partnership between the sexes would look like, God’s dream team, and how that would affect the purpose of the church.
Kay Daigle
ResourcesIf you missed them, go back and to the previous episodes in the RelationSHIFT series: 1. It’s More Than Being Biblical and 2. It’s More Than a Sex Narrative. All episodes are available on video only with others that deal with the issues of men and women.
Timestamps:00:21 Introduction to the series & Jackie
02:08 What does God’s intention for men & women working together look like?
04:34 Understand our time & get educated.
06:42 Find a male advocate.
08:52 Jackie’s example of a conversation with both men & women where women share their church experiences
10:47 Contacts & resources
TranscriptKay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. I’d like to welcome you to the third video in our series on It’s Time for a RelationshipSHIFT. And we’re talking about men and women working together as Christians. And I’m with Dr. Jackie Roese, who has a book, RelationSHIFT, as well as some other books. You can read about Jackie, and her material will be on our website as well. You can link to her ministry, The Marcella Project, as well as her material, because probably by now, if you’ve watched the first two, you want to hear more from Jackie. So we’re about to do that.
Now we’re going to talk about God’s dream team. We’ve talked about some of the problems with men and women in the church and some of the teaching that’s behind some of that, some of the misconceptions that’s behind that. And now we want to talk about what it would really look like. And I know as a woman who has volunteered in churches as well as been on staff, that sometimes you’re quite aware that you have no voice in anything and you’d really like to change that.
So how can we as women, affect some change in the church?
Jackie >> Great. And that is the big million dollar question, isn’t it? I would say first and foremost, we need brothers and sisters bringing change to the church, not just women. And we’ll get to that.
First and foremost, I think women need to get informed about God’s bigger vision, about what did God intend for men and women to serve together collectively in the home, in the church, community, workplace.
And I think probably one of the best descriptions out there right now is Carolyn Custis James’ description of male and female called The Blessed Alliance. And I’m going to summarize it really quick. But basically, she says in Genesis 1 and 2, God formed the foundation of creation based on two load bearing walls. The first being humanity’s relationship with God. And the second load bearing wall in which the world was supposed to operate was male and female relationships. Not just in marriage, which we tend to read only the Genesis passage in a marriage paradigm, but it’s actually also talking about community brother, sister. And there’s lots that I’ve written on that and so if that sounds different.
But these two load-bearing walls is what the world was supposed to operate on. And together these two are given a mandate. They are to rule, subdue and fill the earth, which fill the earth does include procreation. But really beyond that, what it means is to create civilization. God throws raw material at them and says, have at it.
Create societies, create cultures. And so that is the job of male and female and they do it together. So we need to see first and foremost that that is God’s desire. We have done a great job of helping humanity reconnect with God. We have not done a very good job of putting together the second load bearing wall, which is what does it look like for men and women to serve together?
I served on a pastoral staff for almost a decade, and during that time had to deal with a lot of these things. And my husband and I, my husband was also on that staff as the executive pastor. And so he and I have traveled around the United States and talked to church leadership about how do you help hear the voice of women, how do we start serving together?
When I share my insight, it’s one first and foremost women need to familiarize themselves with the biblical text because they will be asked. You will have to say what you think about certain things. So you’ve got to do some work. You can’t be lazy, right?
So you’ve got to familiarize yourself. You don’t need to be a seminary student to understand, just to understand a little bit of what’s going on. And you’ve got to deal with the Bible. Because your church pastor is going to be bringing the Bible to you. So you’ve got to know what you’re talking about.
When you approach the male leadership of your church, attitude really matters. So I tell younger women in particular who’ve been told they can do anything they want in the workforce, and then they get in the church and they’re like, “Hear me roar,” you know?
Well, first of all, we don’t do that. Not because we’re trying to manipulate or placate, but because Jesus doesn’t do that. Right? I tell women that they need to think about 1 Chronicles 12:32, which says, “And the children of Issachar who had understanding of their times to know what Israel ought to do.” And so I try to tell women, “Understand your time. Understand the time frame of history in which you find yourself as a woman in the conservative evangelical church.”
Movements change likes big, huge shifts like what we’re looking for from men and women to like move away from danger narrative to brother-sister takes hundreds of years. And you may not want to hear that, but that’s the truth. Understanding where you sit in the middle of that movement, like maybe we’ve still got 100 years to go, you’re not going to be as flustered.
And then once you understand where you are in the time, then you will know what you need to do for that time period. 400 years is the average it takes for a movement to move through. We saw this Protestant Reformation. We saw it during the suffrage movement, civil rights movement. It’s going to take time.
So I think for women, it’s also learning to take on an attitude of Christ and to be wise about her time frame. I would say that it’s important for her to support and get educated by progressive organizations that have these kinds of conversations that expand her thinking about gender constructs, about what’s happening in power, what’s going on in danger.
She has to be aware of those things to even be able to articulate them to her staff. Right?
So when I did the research on brother and sister and realized I started bringing it up to the men on the staff. “Hey, I want to tell you today, this is like an example I do. I want to tell you that I really like your shirt, Jason. But when I do, I don’t want you to think I want to have sex with you. I’m just telling you, as my brother in Christ, that’s a good looking shirt on you.” It sounds funny, but slow but surely we started identifying to each other, “I’m your sister. And this thing that I’m doing right now is my being a sister for you, you know?”
And before you knew it, we started operating more and more like brothers and sisters. So we were able to talk about those things, like, you’ve got to know about them.
I think it’s really important that you find the male in your congregation that is really for women. And allow him to also be your voice. And they are there.
And there are a lot of men who love women and know that women have much to bring to the table. Make them your advocate, don’t use them. We don’t use people. That’s not what I’m talking about. But there are men there that God has lifted up. And so find them and build a relationship with them.
Now, what my husband would say to the men on staff is he would say, “You can’t catch trout in a bass pond.”
So in other words, men, whenever they tend to want to find a new hire, well we’ve lost the youth minister. They start asking their male circle of leadership. Right? Who do you know that’s a good pastor, and that’s how they get the references. But none of those men ever hang out with women leaders, so her name never gets thrown in the pond, so to speak.
So men need to work hard at actually building relationships with women leaders or knowing who the women leaders are so that they can bring them into the circle.
The other thing that my husband would say is men need to understand that women at this time in history in America have particular cultural constraints that impact how they can serve on a church. So it’s helpful for men to understand that if you have a meeting, you might want to have the meeting before children get out of school. Right? If you want to have a meeting, it might be helpful to not have it at a cigar shop or to talk about hunting all the time and fishing that you make these meetings accessible to a woman’s particular cultural constraints.
Because we know right now most women take care of the home, even if they’re working full time out of the home.
He would say, “Be prepared for pushback.” And I would say that for both men and women.
As a man, we want to have our men learn to ask the question, “How do I share power? How can I be less so she can be more?” Men have to be even stronger advocates for women than they would have to be for another man, because there’s so much there. And my husband would tell men that they need to deal with their bias in themselves and in the church staff toward women and that you have to get informed with that.
One of the things we did at Irving Bible Church to help shift and bring women into the fold, and my husband and I just led a church through that in New York, was we actually just invited influencers from both women and men in the church to come and have a conversation, just talk.
Nobody was like trying to get anybody anywhere. Just let’s talk about our experiences. When my husband orchestrated that for our church, we had all the elders there. We had a bunch of women leaders from around the Dallas Metroplex. And one by one, the women shared their experiences and some of the men cried. They had no idea.
And they were just totally upset that this is what was happening to the women. They loved women. And here they were doing they didn’t know. They couldn’t see. Right? And let me tell you, that started shifting things.
Same thing with this church we were in New York. We had women leaders. We had the elders. And this is what women can do. And, well, let’s just share your experiences. And I watched those men become warriors for those women because they had no idea. And they didn’t want that to be their experience. So we got to have some mutual conversations together just over dinner. You know, not trying to be defensive to one another, but just, hey, are you willing to hear and are you willing to say it?
And our brothers rise up. They do. They love us.
Kay >> Right. And I’ve had some wonderful support. My husband has always been my greatest cheerleader and my greatest support.
Jackie >> Absolutely.
Kay >> Because women cannot, well they can’t reach out in any area without the support of their husbands. But I’ve also worked with some wonderful men who were the kind of warriors and the kind of voices that you’re talking about. And I’m very grateful. I’m very grateful for them.
So thank you so much, Jackie. This is just been very helpful. And if you have any questions for Jackie or for me, just contact us through Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Go to our website, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and contact me. And I’ll ask Jackie if we need to talk to Jackie.
Or you can also find her at The Marcella Project online, and she will be happy to do that as well.