... my good friends around me know that since my Leadership and Family Ministry class this last semester, I've been obsessed with finding out a godly, productive way to involve single, passionate women in complementarian ministry situations. At the outset of any of these rants, I always want people to know that I support (highly support!) men taking leadership in churches and in ministry and in homes.... but with this leadership in view, the focus often leaves women as wives and helpers and mothers.
You do know me. There is almost nothing I want more than to be those three things... but God in His ultimate sovereignty and goodness has not brought me there yet. So it has been so frustrating trying to find a way for me verbalize and mentalize and actualize through what my position in a church actually looks like as a passionate, yet single, girl!
How can I not be that one sitting on the fringes of a strong, Gospel-centered, complementarian-minded, and family equipping church ministry?
Thank God (truly!) for Carolyn McCulley. I discovered her while wading my way through the required reading of yet another book that assumed, because I was reading a book on leadership and family ministry that I was a guy and wanted to be a family pastor. She did not assume that! Instead, she cut to the chase and explained a brief history of feminism, and how it affected the culture we live in and the churches we serve in. She has a godly perspective, focuses on the Word, and yet SPEAKS to my single heart. She is real about the blessings. And open about the pain. And intelligent in searching the Word for God's plan and communicating what she has found. And passionate about serving God through the local body of believers.
I was hooked. So I bought her two books immediately. And tore through "Did I kiss Marriage Goodbye?" It resonated so deeply with my emotions, yet also appealed to my brain. It was unlike any other book I had read through before, because it wasn't a chit-chatty, girl-to-girl book like most other books for single Christian girls. (much as I enjoy a good chit-chat, when I'm looking for answers I don't need to be your buddy-buddy) She wasn't giving me hints on 'how to hook a guy' ... and she wasn't telling me about how to enjoy my 'gift of singleness.'
And it started me down a path of reading.... and now several of my good girl friends here (both married and single) have seriously-jokingly told me I should make a class about this subject! It's certainly an area that has been neglected here at Southern (I mean, come on... there are preaching classes that are only for guys... and then there's "Seminary Wives Institute"... yet NOTHING for single girls. It may seem like small beans if you are an aspiring pastor- or a professor who has made their research and focus some ultra-spiritual area of hermeneutical debate. But oh. There is so much hurt and ache and hope and desire that must be rerouted before it becomes bitterness and stale stagnation of the older, still-single woman in your church!)
So here's a class booklist-- in descending order of importance--
Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? Trusting God with a hope deferred - Carolyn McCulley
Who has your Heart? - Emily E. Ryan
Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World- Carolyn McCulley
Get Married: What women can do to help it happen- Candice Watters
* God's Good Design- Claire Smith
Reckless Faith: Let Go and Be Led - Beth Guckenberger
Feminine Appeal- Carolyn Mahaney
The Path of Loneliness: Finding your way through the Wilderness to God- Elizabeth Elliot
* They Were Single Too- David M. Hoffeditz
* Loves me. Loves me not- The ethics of Unrequited Love - Lara A. Smit
Secrets of an Irresistible Woman: Smart Rules for Capturing His Heart - Michelle McKinney Hammond
*I'm still working my way through these three.
My absolute favorites are still McCulley's works... when I finish with the three starred works, I will be going back and re-reading her books! McCulley also has suggestions of other resources to read (at the end of every chapter in the first book) that I am planning on looking into as well.
The next favorite, as you can see, is by Emily E. Ryan. The best part about opening up her book was her first chapter where she says,
"...for some unexplainable reason (probably the bitterness again), once I learned that the sources of these scripturally based opinions were married, I would immediately disregard all of their pearls of wisdom. Of course they believe all that, I thought. They get to greet their husbands every night after work with a hot homemade dinner and an even hotter welcome-home kiss. It's always easy to trust God in hindsight. For a note about my own personally marital status, please don't throw this book down...! "
But Ryan also takes a close look at an obscure woman of the bible who... ta-ta-ta-da! .... was not married! And Ryan has SUCH good advice, and words, and examples... SO GOOD. Because the focus is not on my being single. It's the attitude of my heart that needs to be realigned.
Candice Watters' book is very unfortunately titled. She has a much godlier perspective on singleness and marriage than the title implies. A few months ago I would not have been caught dead reading it, yet because I have read her articles on a website called Boundless, I was pretty sure she would not lead me astray. She didn't. It was a worthwhile book... that kept moving up the list in importance the more I read. She does speak to the conundrum of waiting that a single girl invariable feels so stuck in. The best part, though, is she helps verbalize that I'm not waiting for just a warm, male body. Watters' really gave words to qualities that I'm working on in me, and qualities that I'm looking for in a spouse.
There's more where this is coming from... but that's enough for one blog!
