FireFall Vol. 2: A Prayer for Clarity
Fresh resources amplifying, connecting, inspiring, and equipping women in ministry and church leadership
Before we explore this week’s resources amplifying women ministering to the church, let me ask - how is it with your soul? It’s easy to feel flattened on Mondays. When you know it’s normal, know it’s coming, it’s easier to anticipate and plan for or around. If your Monday-drained-slump blurs into Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and Thursdays week after week, that’s when to take notice not all is well. Wherever your heart and mind are today, here’s my prayer:
God-Who-Sees:
You see behind the scenes.
You see the confidential prayer requests that pastors and professors carry; the squabbles we witness ten minutes before service starts; the dean’s or treasurer’s worry; the misunderstandings of those who aren’t in leadership, who only see part of the picture; the unwarranted or warranted criticism that hits at a raw moment; the vicarious trauma when pastors bear witness to medical crisis moments, bad news delivery, naked grief.
You don’t just see, You know. You know the cost, the small wins, the weight, the big victories, the strange blurring of joy and sorrow, celebrating one moment, lamenting the next. You know the pressures leaders face.
You also see what we cannot: the grace we’re unaware of, trailing in our wake. You see the invisible: what’s happening in Your kingdom we only glimpse. You see moments, and days, but also five hundred years ago, two thousand years ago, eternity.
You see when our presence preserves someone’s dignity or faith at a fragile moment. You see when a “flop” sermon or class lecture quietly settles in a seemingly distracted mind. You see when patience creates space for welcome and safety. You see when our leadership emboldens people we’re not even aware are watching or caring.
This week, God, prepare the hearts of all who lead, teach, and minister faithfully to Your body. Let them have clarity in uncertain moments. Let them have clarity beyond noise, static, confusion, conflict, exhaustion, clamor, urgency, dispute, and warring priorities.
Create space, activity, and relationships that will ease their journey through uncertainty and into resolution. Let them discern well, anointed by Your Spirit, lightened by Your love, encouraged by the presence of Christ beside them on the road. Protect them from all that wars for their attention. Let them see You, and be still, relaxing in Your goodness. Amen.
Every week - yes, this is just week two - every week as I select an assortment of voices and resources to share, I get excited. But it’s a very specific kind of feeling, and the other day I recognized it.
It’s the Brach’s candy mix excitement.
In my American 80’s childhood, our small town grocery store had Brach’s candy bins, a satisfyingly organized assortment of brightly wrapped and hued candy priced by the pound. Sometimes I was allowed to choose a number of pieces to drop in my bag - hard butterscotch, neapolitan coconut, differently flavored royals, soft caramels, jelly nougat (yes I had to look these up, it’s been a while).
I keep feeling like someone who gets to select an assortment of candy or “potluck” desserts to feature at each table in a fellowship hall: others made it and brought it, I get to show you the tray. My goal each week is that there’s something for you. On busy weeks, take it to-go and enjoy it later; other weeks, sit and savor.
Gathering Opportunity! Take Advantage of Early Bird Registration
Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy is a cross-denominational networking and resourcing community that’s been around for several decades, with leaders from The Salvation Army, The Wesleyan Church, The Church of the Nazarene, Church of God, and The Free Methodist Church USA. Check out this video from Rev. Soo-Ji Alvarez, conference director for WHWC.
The Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy Conference coordinators are reminding pastors to take advantage of early bird registration for the March 2024 gathering at the Hyatt Regency DFW in Grapevine, Texas! (Registrese en Enspañol o más información aquí) If you’re unsure, check out videos of plenary sessions from 2022 here. (First-time attendee and student discounts are available.)
This short summary video from the 2022 gathering brought tears to my eyes: as one participant said: “why? Because you’re not alone…”
If you have questions, check out this informational page or visit the WHWC Facebook page.
Women Leading in the Academy: “Reading Ruth from South Asia”
Dr. Havilah Dharamraj is a biblical scholar who I now really, really want to meet some day.
In this lecture given at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Dr. Havilah Dharamraj opens up a fascinating 45-minute journey through the book of Ruth from a south Asia perspective. Dr. Dharamraj parses the Ruth narrative through cultural dynamics common in India and Hinduism.
You will preach the book of Ruth differently after hearing Dr. Dharamraj’s insights.
(A content note: this lecture touches on themes of widowhood, childlessness and infertility, and loss. There are seasons when you simply can’t engage with certain topics. Dr. Dharamraj engages with these themes sensitively by beautifully reframing them theologically, with cross-cultural resonance. However, if you can’t engage with these themes right now, here’s an alternate resource from Dr. Dharamraj via Mutuality Matters podcast, on translating the Old Testament.)
With a PhD in Old Testament from Durham University, Dr. Dharamraj is Head of the Department of Biblical Studies at South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies. From her bio: “She previously served as Head of the Department of Old Testament and then as Academic Dean. Two of her research interests are Intertextuality and Comparative Literature. Her interest in Biblical narrative has led her to invest in narrative preaching and storytelling workshops, both undertaken with the intent to re-introduce into Christian ministry the Indian cultural heritage of stories as a didactic oral medium.”
After listening, I immediately wanted to listen again: there’s so much depth to unpack and process. If you can, stick around for the Q & A that follows - it’s worth it!
Space for Lament (Don’t Worry: Followed by Space for Gratitude)
Some women ministering in the Free Methodist Church established a website for Advocates for Women in Leadership in the Free Methodist Church USA in response to some of the challenges women in church leadership face. FireFall readers come from a variety of experiences and denominations; not all share the same struggles to the same degree.
I won’t regularly share negative comments women hear. However, for some, it can be helpful to occasionally create space to honor what women endure, lament the cost, and recommit ourselves to prayer for women laboring in church leadership.
If you’ve had a hard time lately, feel free to skip this.
Over at AWLFMC, I bumped into this story and couldn’t shake it: “In college, I stood beside a young man at our church, in line for the Sunday night dinner they served college students. I told him I believed I was called to be a pastor. He replied, ‘It would have been better if you’d never been born than you do that.’” - (Dr. Jill Richardson)
Sisters, we’re all so glad you were born.
God, we take a moment to notice our response to our sister’s experience. We offer You this space; we honor what she has endured; what we have endured. Today, we allow ourselves to grieve those parts of our own stories that are painful, and we grieve with our sisters. Thank You for Dr. Richardson’s life; thank You for the gift she is to Your Church. In mighty ways, anoint and bless her, and let her light shine far and wide. We thank You for giving us life, and giving it abundantly; the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Breathe new life into us today, we pray. Amen.
Space for Gratitude: Thank God for Unembarrassed Men
There’s a book with a title I particularly enjoy, and I’ll tell you why. It’s by Free Methodist Bishop Emeritus Dr. David Kendall, and it’s simply called Follow Her Lead.
Sometimes, resources on women in ministry inadvertently imply that church leadership needs to sigh and scoot down the pew to accommodate the perceived arrival of women, as if somehow we’re new on the scene. (Spoiler alert! We’ve been around a while.) Other times, we speak of empowering women; by and in itself, that’s a good thing.
But while there can be times we as women need to be empowered, sometimes, we simply need men to lead the way in following our lead.
What a sigh of relief. There are times and ways in which the best way to honor a woman’s leadership is by assuming she’s competent and then promptly following.
It’s a gift to celebrate and affirm the work of our brothers who aren’t embarrassed to follow women who are called, anointed, and equipped to lead the way in building God’s Kingdom.
What a great resource for congregations, small group studies, district boards, and others. For those wrestling with this subject, let Bishop Emeritus Kendall lead the way in following women.
Feed Your Soul: Ascending the Mountain, a 30-Day Devotional Challenge
Rev. Dr. Madeline Carrasco Henners is Director of Contextual Ministries and Assistant Professor in the Practice of Contextual Ministries at United Theological Seminary. If you’re not familiar with it, you should be, for several reasons.
It’s a great diverse, multi-denominational academic institution that’s deeply focused on equipping practitioners active in ministry in the local church, with remote students who periodically gather in-person for intensives. (Full disclosure, I had the deep delight of serving as spiritual director for a remote MDiv cohort last year. It was a lovely, humbling, encouraging experience to cheer on pastors discerning, discovering, and developing the shape of their calling.)
(I’m only going to say this once: one of the pastors who earned a DMin degree from United a few years ago has a church member you *might* have heard of, if you like…“lemonade”…and instinctively echo to the left [to the left].)
Back to the matter at hand: Ascending the Mountain: A 30-Day Devotional Challenge grew from Rev. Dr. Henners’ doctoral research; it features spiritual exercises, scriptural readings, space for journaling, and wisdom from classic Christian writers. It’s a great example of a project that takes shape in the context of the academy and then feeds the church. If you need something to feed your soul, check it out!
Because for pastors, November through New Year’s is like that time I was no good at skiing and started going faster and faster out of control at the nighttime ski place under the giant floodlights and I had to make myself crash to stop while shouting for people to get out of the way and almost slid into that fence –
Order something for yourself for Advent now.
(Or ask for it as an early Christmas gift.)
Might I suggest this deliciously exquisite book?
Wait if we wait through Advent with furry, scaly, feathery friends from nature?
Check out All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings by Gayle Boss, enlivened by gorgeous woodcuts. Paraclete Press explains, “Here are twenty-five fresh images of the foundational truth that lies beneath and within the Christ story. In twenty-five portraits depicting how wild animals of the northern hemisphere ingeniously adapt when darkness and cold descend, we see and hear as if for the first time the ancient wisdom of Advent: The dark is not an end but the way a new beginning comes. Short, daily reflections that paint vivid, poetic images of familiar animals, paired with charming original wood-cuts, will engage both children and adults. Anyone who does not want to be caught, again, in the consumer hype of ‘the holiday season’ but rather to be taken up into the eternal truth the natural world reveals will welcome this book.”
(There’s also a delightful childrens’ edition.)
Where have you seen signs of life this week?
Here in the northern hemisphere, I pray as the morning and evening light pull tight like a hood cinched around your face, that you know the illuminating warmth of our loving God. And to our neighbors in the southern hemisphere: enjoy our sunlight, you can use it for now, but we’ll want it back in the spring, please.