Conversation on a complex equation

Mentoring, women and the local church

BY TIM ISAACSON

Mentoring women, especially in leadership skills and roles, brings up important, complex issues within the EFCA when the action expands beyond traditional roles of wife and mother. Each of these issues (mentoring, leadership and women in the church) is itself complex. Together, they become even more so.

This became evident in a phone conversation among three women in different parts of the country, from different backgrounds, different professions and different places in life. Two are married and one is single. One has grown children, one is raising an infant and toddler, one has no children. One is African American and two are Caucasian American.

One works primarily in the local church, another is a tenure-track professor at a university, and another serves full-time in urban ministry. Two are in established churches, one is moving into church planting. Each is doing district-level, national and/or international-level work within the EFCA.

What they all have in common are leadership gifts and experiences with mentoring in the EFCA movement. They bring perspectives that are both insightful and uncomfortable, and that will hopefully spark a larger conversation in our churches.

What became absolutely clear as the women interacted was the need for and importance of mentoring in all venues of life. Angel Adams Parham, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of sociology at Loyola University and a member of Castle Rock Community Church in New Orleans, where she serves as coordinator for the Outreach and Mission team—including the church’s development and oversight of its work in Haiti. She is also a board member of Vision of Hope Ministries, part of the EFCA.

Angel describes mentoring as an investment—an investment in an individual to help develop that person with specific skills for specific tasks. In the church, those specific skills can take on the dimension of discipleship, but not necessarily to the exclusion of other areas of life. It’s crucial at the outset to be precise about the focus of any mentoring relationship.

One of the key ingredients to successful mentoring relationships among women in the church is intimacy, says Bette Jo Nienhus, who wears multiple hats, including: registered nurse, EFCA RESOUND mobilizer for the Great Lakes district, seminary teacher for women’s ministries and member of Liberty Bible Church in Chesterton, Ind., where her husband is senior pastor.

“Without this, mentoring doesn’t happen,” Bette Jo says. “It’s just practice, without life change. Intimacy is a commitment to an open, honest relationship.”

Yet intimacy isn’t essential when mentoring is more about professional development or skill acquisition.

“I have to be able to say what is on my mind without being guarded,” agrees Ruth Arnold, “and be willing to be challenged in all parts of my life. This kind of mentoring is deeply spiritual and formative, but not ‘intimate’ in the emotional sense.

“Intimacy is a word with a lot of baggage attached, and it doesn’t really describe what mentoring is about when someone of the opposite sex is doing the mentoring.”

Ruth serves on the executive team of 2nd Mile Ministries in Jacksonville, Fla., and is a member of Eastside Community Church, where she has served on the leadership teams for women’s ministry, high-school ministry and college-age ministry. Ruth has been mentored by her pastor, and she describes the mentor-mentee relationship as personal and professional, but never intimate.

Angel was intrigued, asking Ruth if she preferred being mentored by a man or a woman, and a lengthy conversation followed.

Mentored by a man or a woman?

Ruth: “It’s not about gender first and foremost, but about experience and competency. For me, it is solely based on their qualifications for helping me in my calling.”

Bette Jo: “For your task in leadership, you need someone who will help you in that specific leadership role. But a man can’t speak into being a woman and what it means to balance those responsibilities. Women have unique things to give other women.”

Angel: “I would prefer to have a woman as a mentor, because I am trying to balance a demanding professional career with the value I hold about what it means to be a wife and the mother of young children.”

Ruth: “That is a really good point about how mentoring is linked to your position in life, in the context of marriage and family. For me, I don’t know other women in my same position. I am not married or a mother; and I don’t know any women who are in circumstances like mine—professional women needing high-level leadership skills for use in a ministry context with men working for them.

“Too often, we don’t think of women as having leadership gifts or valuable things to offer. As a result, we are not seeking to identify women, equip women, or employ or engage women in roles of strategic planning, vision planning, shepherding, etc. This is not about being an elder or pastor but about serving in key positions of influence.”

Angel: “My background is with African-American Baptist Churches that are evangelical. They are [theologically] similar to the EFCA when it comes to leadership roles such as senior pastor. However, they seem very different in terms of women working full-time, being professionals, having children and being in ministry.

“What I have gleaned from the EFCA is that there is a home focus, even for those working part-time. In ministry they are in traditional roles such as children’s ministry and women’s ministry. There just don’t seem to be many who are full-time professionals and mothers in the church, whereas it is much more common in the African-American church.

“I have found this a little frustrating. There must be other women like me in the EFCA (I don’t expect my small church to be able to meet every need), but if there were some kind of network across the country to find other women, it would be great.”¹

Bette Jo: “A starting point is being willing to identify women who can be leaders and championing that opportunity—intentionally pursuing and inviting their insight.”

Ruth: “I don’t think there are many women in my church who think they have anything to offer the church, even though they lead their children every day and have skills, insights and abilities that are never engaged. We have to intentionally reach out and invite them in and also develop them.”

Bette Jo: “Young women in our church who did not grow up in Christian homes or have godly role models say they want to live a godly life but don’t have a clue what it looks like. There are a lot of women looking for others to walk through life with them, to help them decipher what life is all about.”

Ruth: “So many young women want to just hang out with older women. Yet younger women are afraid to initiate because of rejection, and many older women don’t appreciate what they have to offer.”

Bette Jo: “We operate more out of fear than the privilege and responsibility we have to pass on what we know.”

Each woman’s circumstance—age, ministry, marital status, age of children, primary workplace—shapes her need for mentoring and being mentored. Yet what’s unequivocal is the importance of taking a personal interest in others and helping them develop in their various callings—as wife, mother, professional and leader.

Any hesitations about how and when to open our lives to others speaks of fear, a fear that too closely echoes the isolation and disconnectedness of the world—one that is all the more alarming given the clear biblical teachings to the contrary.²

May this one conversation trigger many others, as we explore what it means to connect with each other and bring a Christlike influence. ■

¹ If you’d like to connect with other women who are growing as leaders and take part of a continuing conversation on this topic, begin by commenting below.

² John 15:12, Ephesians 5:21, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Hebrews 3:13 and 1 Peter 4:10, among many others.

Tim Isaacson is pastor of Open Table Community EFC in Chamblee, Ga. (opentablecommunity.wordpress.com). His passion for this topic stems from being a pastor of many truly gifted women in his congregation, and his own quest for seeing them fulfill their high and holy callings.