Women in Ministry Series Home Page
This is the home page for the Women in Ministry Series, which is a series of guest posts at inamirrordimly.com that encourage women to pursue their God-given callings.
About the Blog Series
Every Friday in 2012 I will be sharing guest posts by women that tell stories about women in ministry: serving, planning, leading, or teaching. It could be your story. It could be a story you tell about someone you know.
We need to tell stories about women in ministry because God is calling women to productive ministry, but there are a lot of negative voices calling them into question. In some quarters we’ve prevented over half of our churches from potentially embracing their calling.
Do you want to contribute? Here are two things you can do:
- Sign up for our weekly e-mail updates.
- Submit your own story as a woman in ministry or of a woman who ministered to you. Here’s how it works…
Share Your Story (The Submission Policy)
Contact me at edcyzewski (at) gmail (dot) com if you’re interested in sharing a story. Please send a 3-4 sentence description of what you plan to write before composing the entire post just so I can make sure it has some continuity with the rest of the project.
I’m looking for something in the 400-800 word range that tells the story of a woman who effectively ministered in your life or how God has called you into ministry. The goal is to encourage women to follow God’s calling into ministry and to demonstrate that women can effectively teach, serve, and lead in any ministry.
You can also help promote the series by linking to this page with the 200×200 pixel badge in my sidebar. If you need a different size, just let me know.
Encourage Others (The Comment Policy)
I hope that you’ll share a bit of your own story in the comments and affirm the women who share as part of this series. This is a place for encouraging women in ministry, not to question their callings. There are plenty of other places on the internet to discuss women in ministry, even other posts on this blog where I welcome the discussion. This series however is not the place for that.
Any comments that question whether a woman should be in ministry in the first place will be removed. Repeat offenders will be blacklisted from the site–I don’t have all day here. That isn’t to say you can’t disagree with the content of the post. Disagreement about the post’s content is welcome. However, while everyone interested is invited to this conversation, my prerequisite for comments in this series is a desire to encourage women in ministry–wherever and whatever that may be.
If you don’t like someone telling you that you can’t chime in and speak your mind on this topic, congratulations. You now understand how women in the church have felt for centuries.
This comment policy is entirely my idea and I bear the responsibility for its flaws and imperfections that may arise as I strive to create a safe place for an encouraging discussion.
But Should Women Serve in Ministry? (The Disagreement Policy)
If you have any concerns about whether women should serve in ministry, I suggest you read the excellent writings of evangelical Bible scholar NT Wright on that topic. In fact, if you’re worried about a small time author like me, deal with a big fish like Wright first. His writings are far more influential than anything I can cobble together. I also encourage you to check out Christians for Biblical Equality for more stories.
You can also read my books Coffeehouse Theology and The Contemporary Issues Study Guide for a pretty thorough treatment of how theology and culture applies to women in ministry. Yes, I am trying to sell my books to you, but I see that as a tax of sorts for disagreeing with me… 
I will link up to the posts in the series below as they appear each week, and I’ll share at the top a few blog posts that sparked my thinking about starting this series:
More posts are coming soon. For now, click on “Browse by Topic” on the navigation bar and click on “Women in Ministry” for all posts in the series.
Alise Wright: The “Lesser” Minister
Jamie Wright (the Very Worst Missionary): From Woman in Ministry to Woman Who Ministers
Sarah Styles Bessey: In Which There Are More of Us Than You Might Think
