ALPHARETTA, Ga.?Trustees of the North American Mission Board approved sweeping changes Wednesday, Feb. 9, altering the focus, strategy, leadership and organizational structure of the Southern Baptist entity. The changes come almost five months to the day after trustees voted last Sept. 14 to approve Kevin Ezell as NAMB’s president.

The package of changes approved by trustees involves four primary areas: NAMB’s national strategy; a regional approach to how NAMB will do its work; an organizational restructuring that will align NAMB’s staff chart with its new strategy; and four new vice presidents who will give leadership to key ministry areas.
“This is a massive overhaul,” Ezell said. “We believe it’s going to be an historic overhaul.”

STRATEGY SHIFT: ‘SEND NORTH AMERICA’
NAMB’s national strategy?titled Send North America?will focus on mobilizing missionaries and churches for evangelistic church planting. Once churches or potential missionaries have connected with NAMB, after an assessment, NAMB will provide any needed equipping and training before the missionary or church enters the mission field.
Evangelism and leadership development will be integrated throughout the process.

“Sending” churches that partner with NAMB will have a broad range of participation options, up to and including starting a church themselves. Smaller churches can participate in clusters with other churches. All will be encouraged to send mission teams, volunteers and other resources to directly help and partner with church planters on the mission field.

Both sending churches and new church plants will be expected to contribute to Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program and to minister in a manner consistent with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

“This entire strategy points everything we do toward assisting churches in planting healthy Southern Baptist churches,” Ezell said. “Our desire is to mobilize thousands of Southern Baptists to be engaged in church planting.”

He added, “Right now there are four percent involved, our initial goal is to see 10 percent of churches involved in evangelistic church planting.”

REGIONAL FOCUS
The Send North America strategy will take on a regional focus. NAMB trustees approved a new approach to the board’s work that will divide North America into five regions: Northeast, South, Midwest, West and Canada. Each region will have its own vice president who reports directly to Ezell and will work closely with state Baptist convention leaders in that region.

Ezell said state leaders have been an integral part of shaping the new direction for NAMB, and that he is thankful for the lengths state executives have gone to work with him.

“We relate with 42 state association executives. It’s vital we work together?not because we have to but because we want to. They have been incredible. They, too, have a heart to reach North America and they all have a heart for reaching the underserved areas,” he said.

Ezell noted that 80 percent of NAMB’s funding to states already goes to unreached regions and when money starts shifting from Southern states to unreached areas, that percentage will go even higher.

As NAMB funding to Southern states is reduced, Ezell said state leaders will be able to direct that money to specific unreached regions of their choosing. NAMB activity in the South will continue, Ezell said, noting, “We’d be very remiss if we did not continue to invest in the South and plant churches in those areas.”

Ezell indicated NAMB hopes to have new integrated strategic partnership agreements signed with each state convention by the end of March.

NAMB will prioritize its efforts in 50 population centers throughout North America. The initial 25 cities are New York, Washington/Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the Northeast; in the South, Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans; in the Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, St. Louis, Cleveland and Indianapolis; in the West, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Denver; and in Canada, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

NEW LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Trustees also approved four candidates for vice presidents Ezell presented for a vote: Jeff Christopherson, vice president, Canada region; Steve Davis, vice president, Midwest region; Larry Wynn, vice president, evangelism; and Aaron Coe, vice president, mobilization.

Ezell said he would cover the Northeast and West regions until vice presidents can be found. Richard Harris and Carlisle Driggers will be NAMB’s ambassadors to the South region until a vice president can be named. Harris is a retired NAMB vice president who served as NAMB’s interim president in the year leading up to Ezell’s election. Driggers is the retired executive leader of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

Six work groups?all focused on the overarching goal of evangelistic church planting?will exist at NAMB’s Alpharetta office: evangelism, mobilization, equipping, ministry controls, communications and missions support.

Other NAMB ministries such as Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, mission education and social ministries remain but will be more specifically focused on supporting the evangelistic church planting process.

Ezell said there are “some very positive things already happening,” referring to budget reallocations that will put millions more in funding on the field for missionaries.

“To put $9 million more dollars to missions on the field in just six months, that’s much faster than the SBC directed.”

Wrapping up the trustee meeting, Tim Dowdy, chairman of NAMB’s trustees and pastor of Eagles Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough, Ga., said, “One of the things I really sense from talking to you [trustees] is a lot of excitement about our new direction. It is thrilling to be on the right road headed down the right path?ready to impact America with the gospel. Our president has done a fantastic job of getting us in the right direction.”

“I just always thought God wanted to use me,” Connie Doughty explained in reflecting on 56 years of ministry. As members of Calvary Baptist Church in Longview gathered early this year to pay tribute to the 74-year-old woman, their testimonies described her eagerness to encourage and nurture others in their faith.

As churches across Texas grow beyond being led by a single staff member, more of them are giving consideration to hiring women to serve in roles other than that of pastor.

“I never did think women didn’t have a role to serve God,” Doughty told the TEXAN. “I just thought I was supposed to prepare and obey God’s will for my life,” explained Doughty in describing what led to her church asking her to serve on staff.

She first served in a range of circumstances?leading a chaplaincy program for women while her husband was stationed in England, helping a mission church when they relocated to North Dakota, and finding opportunities to mentor students while working in the president’s office of LeTourneau University.

Within weeks of joining Calvary Baptist 37 years ago, Doughty was asked by her pastor to teach a women’s Sunday School class. She joined the staff in 2000, directing the preschool ministry.

“Then suddenly I had the title of women’s ministry leader. That way I could mentor and teach and train young women. I was in Utopia,” she said. “Children, women, mothers and daddies would come to me because I had their child and they trusted me.”

Along the way the pastor asked her to pick up responsibility for directing adult discipleship as well. Even after health challenges forced her to cut back to volunteering, she recently accepted an assignment to coordinate the church’s prayer ministry,

“As a woman I was never confined, but I did the things that women can and should do. I’ve always been free to serve,” she stated. “God called me, set me aside, and he anointed me.”

“Many women have been properly educated and equipped to add great value to the ministry of the church,” said Debbie Stuart, who serves as a women’s ministry trainer for LifeWay Christian Resources and directs women’s ministry at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

As a confessional fellowship of churches?unusual among state conventions?that have embraced the Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal statement, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention churches aren’t likely to call women as pastors. The BF&M clearly states that Scripture limits that assignment to men. And yet, the experience of women in SBTC churches across Texas reveals that local congregations still recognize the BF&M stance that “both men and women are gifted for service in the church.”

The challenge comes in applying the biblical principles laid out for both genders to the changing structure of the church, according to Randy Stinson, president of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and dean of educational ministries at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

In an article titled “Women in Ministry: Practical Application of Biblical Teaching,” he and co-author Christopher Cowan wrote of the need to relate the unchanging truths of Scripture to contemporary ministry circumstances.

Complementarianism, affirmed by the most recent BF&M revision, is the view that men and women have been created equally in God’s image but have different, complementary roles. Egalitarianism is the view that men and women have been gifted identically so that no role is limited to one sex.

“The first-century church did not have the various ministry positions, both inside and outside the local church, that are present in our Christian communities today,” Stinson said.

Because opportunities for leadership arise organically within a changing church structure, the authors carefully distinguish between leadership positions that provide authority and spiritual direction to other believers and leadership positions that provide administrative or coordinating efforts.

“In this latter case, one need not necessarily exercise authority over individuals in order to be designated the ‘leader’ of a specific ministry,” the authors write, citing the example of a children’s leader in the local church. “This may require her to coordinate the efforts of men who serve as teachers of children. But this appears to be consistent with Scripture, provided that her position does not require her to teach or exercise authority over these men.”

Erin Griffith’s ministry has just begun as the children and student minister at Bridgeway Baptist Church in McKinney. “My position of children’s minister consists of leading, teaching, encouraging, discipling, and setting up events for the kids from ages 5-12,” said Griffith, who is pursuing a master of arts in Christian education at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. “Because it is such a small church I am able to do a lot of one-on-one relationship building with the kids and some of the women in the church.”

But even in her role as children’s minister, Griffith is careful to remain inside the scriptural boundaries for women serving in the church.

“There is a young gentleman of about 19 who helps me with the kids in Sunday School. He loves the kids and loves to help, but ? I wondered, ‘Am I crossing the lines by having him in there with me and learning from me?'” Griffith said. “I consulted Scripture, prayed and asked godly counsel about it. Whenever he has any ideas for the kids, he asks me. I give my thoughts, but I defer to the pastor,” she added. As the pastor hears her thoughts and gives the final decision, she finds they avoid any problem of stepping beyond boundaries of pastoral authority.

Niki Hays serves as minister of education and youth at Monument Baptist Church in Deer Park, having completed her master of arts in Christian education from Southwestern’s Houston campus. Gender has never been an issue or limiting factor in her service, she told the TEXAN. “In fact, I think being a female youth minister has at times put parents more at ease,” she said.

“My only agenda as a female youth minister is the same as that of my male colleagues?to serve the Lord through training and discipling young people,” she added. Currently, her church is in the midst of a study to help parents recognize their responsibility to train and disciple their children.

“Often parents want me, as the youth minister, to be the person responsible for their child’s spiritual development,” Hays said. “That is not how God designed it. Parents are the spiritual leaders for their children and my job is to come alongside parents and teach them how to do it.”

Lezlie Armour serves as minister of missions at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston where she oversees all community andglobal mission efforts.

“I am responsible for getting people involved in missions, whether it be to serve locally or to go on amission trip.” She also directs all of the missions organizations, including ESL ministry to internationals, adult mission groups, Royal Ambassadors, Girls in Action and Mission Friends.

While women have been at the forefront of missions lay leadership in Southern Baptist life, Armour said, “Staff leadership in missions has only had the man’s perspective in nearly all churches. Usually a woman’s discernment on some issues is very different than a man’s. I think it is wonderful when a leadership team can have both male and female views.”

As dean of the women’s programs and associate professor of women’s ministries, Terri Stovall is one of many women who serve as instructors or professors among Southern Baptists’ six seminaries. Teaching courses for women pertaining to discipleship, evangelism and women’s ministry in the local church, Stovall said the women at Southwestern understand and agree tha

The affiliation of three churches during the last week of January increased to more than 2,300 the number of churches joined with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Primera Iglesia Bautista of Alvin, Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church of Dallas and Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin pushed the convention beyond the 2,300 mark.

The pastors of the respective churches offered the following comments.

Johnny Calvin Smith of Mount Moriah: “We are truly grateful to God for such a gracious opportunity to be a part of the SBTC family. In seeking out affiliation, we were encouraged by the doctrinally firm, focused and loving stance threaded throughout all ministries. We look forward to partnering with the SBTC to continue fulfilling our mission to exalt God, edify the body of Christ, equip the saints for service, and evangelize the lost.”

Kie Bowman of Hyde Park: “Hyde Park Baptist Church has aligned with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention as a way of doing ministry with other Southern Baptist churches in Texas. We feel at home with the purposes and calling of the SBTC. We believe our giving through, and cooperation with the SBTC, reflects our commitment to the Lordship of Christ, the inerrancy of the Word of God, and our desire to evangelize lost people everywhere.

“We look forward to serving the Lord with the other churches of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and we are glad to be a part of the family.”

Oscar Toledo of Primera Iglesia Bautista, Alvin: “Our church considered affiliation with the SBTC because of their conservative position towards the Word of God and, furthermore, of the Christian faith. Because of our salvation experience and Christian life we believe and confess the divine inspiration of the Scriptures according to their inerrancy and infallibility. The Word of God is our point of reference in him, his salvation, his church, the human race and all the realities that are connected to the human existence. Negating the Scriptures would be negating God and his revelation.”

The SBTC began in 1998 as a confessional fellowship of approximately 120 churches committed to a minimal set of doctrinal parameters rooted in biblical inerrancy, the Cooperative Program missions funding mechanism, and an emphasis on missions and evangelism with limited bureaucracy.

While the Baptist Faith and Message expressed the convention’s opposition to females serving as pastor, it did little to delineate parameters for other leadership roles within the general ministries of the church.

Susie Hawkins, women’s author and speaker, was one of two women to serve on the committee to revise the confessional statement. Even while SBC messengers overwhelmingly approved the 2000 revision to the BF&M and all six SBC seminaries function in agreement with its position to limit the role of pastor to men, Hawkins noted there is an ongoing discussion about women in ministry, particularly concerning those who teach or serve on church staffs.

“Even within theologically conservative circles, there are differences of interpretation of the ‘women passages,'” said Hawkins, referring to Scripture’s more controversial passages regarding women’s roles in the church and home, such as 1 Timothy 2.

For example, Southern Baptist churches are seeing a trend in women teaching mixed Sunday School classes, particularly with the growth of home-based Bible study or small groups, according to Randy Stinson, president of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He sees Sunday School and Bible studies are the biggest battleground for applying complementarianism in the local church.

“Many of our churches are allowing women to teach Sunday School classes where there are both men and women present,” Stinson told the TEXAN. “The rationale is typically that the BF&M only prohibits women from being the senior pastor. But the BF&M is not exhaustive,” he said.

Rather, Stinson said passages such as 1 Timothy 2:12 do not merely prohibit an office, but also a function.

“Regardless of office, a woman should not be asked to do the things that 1 Timothy 2:12 prohibits, even if she is a Sunday School teacher and not a pastor,” stated Stinson, dean of the church ministries school at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

At Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth, pastor Michael Dean looks to Acts 13:1, 1 Corinthians 12:28-29 and Ephesians 4:11 to conclude “that there are teachers who are called and gifted by God, and who are recognized by the church as having authority in doctrine and biblical interpretation.” However, he sees the Ephesians reference as indicating that the office of the teacher is either closely associated with or entirely synonymous with the office of the pastor. “If that is the case then the position must be held by a male.”

Dean said the New Testament permits and encourages women to teach in other settings, citing Titus 2:3-4 as an example of women teaching women and 2 Timothy 1:5 and 3:15 as examples of them teaching children. “Acts 18:28 states that Priscilla, in tandem with her husband Aquilla, taught Apollos ‘the way of God more adequately,'” he noted.

While he does not find in Scripture the circumstance of a woman teaching a mixed class, Dean said, “In those instances the woman must only teach under the authority of her husband and of the pastoral leadership of the church.”

He reiterated the need for men to serve in the capacities of spiritual leadership in the local church as well as in the homes. At Travis, he said women are encouraged and enlisted to teach in a variety of different settings, but in the case of a mixed gender class, “a woman may teach if she does so in tandem with and under the authority of her husband.”

Acknowledging that women’s roles in the church has historically been “a thorny issue,” Ron Holton, pastor of RockPointe Church in Flower Mound, said, “We allow women to teach as long as they are under the authority of a pastor or elder. We allow them to teach with a man. We allow them to speak on Mother’s Day in the service, to share testimonies as God leads us, to read Scripture, to sing, to teach our children and teenagers, and to be used by God under the authority of leadership.”

However, “women are not permitted to exercise authority over or disciple men,” he added.

Stressing context, Holton said, “Timothy seems to be dealing with specific issues at hand. If Paul’s command is uniformly applied throughout all time and in every situation without regard to context, should we not also apply the same standard to verses 9-10 of 1 Timothy as well as verses 11-12?” Citing 1 Corinthians 11:5, he noted, “Paul seems to indicate in some situations that women pray and prophesy openly in the context of worship.”

“The timeless application in verses 8-9 seems to be the adornment of Christlike modesty combined with good works,” Holton added. “In verses 11-12, using the same principles, the central message seems to be that women are not to exercise final authority in the congregation.”

Holton said ministerial leaders at the church attempt to interpret Scripture as faithfully as possible within that historical context, drawing out the theological meaning before applying it to their church. He believes there is room for differences of interpretation and practice when evaluating the “different representations of women’s roles and contextualized instructions regarding women in specific circumstances.”

DECORUM OR CONVICTION?
Stinson believes many Baptist churches hold to the traditional views of gender roles out of a “sense of decorum” rather than “clear biblical conviction.”

“This means that their level of resolve over this issue may not be as strong and we very well could be more egalitarian in 10 years than we are now.”

Stinson added: “Churches are largely failing to train men to be the leaders of their homes. When this happens, wives and mothers end up having many burdens that should not be theirs. This distorts the Christ/Church picture of the marriage and consequently hinders the furthering of the gospel.”

Terri Stovall, dean of women’s programs and associate professor of women’s ministries at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, added, “The statement that ‘there are no men to step up’ is never a valid excuse to violate the teaching of Scripture. “Rather, maybe we need to emulate the examples we have in Scripture. We need our Deborahs to encourage, challenge and affirm the Baraks. We need our Priscillas to teach and redirect our Apollos. We even need our Eunice and Lois to nurture the next generation of leaders.

“In some cultures, this can prove challenging, but we must trust that what God teaches through his Word can still be applied today in whatever culture we serve.”

Some believe local churches would be better served had the BF&M study committee utilized the exact wording of Scripture instead of interpreting the positions of Scripture.

One such proponent of this view is Southwestern Seminary student Katie McCoy, who charged in a white paper delivered in a symposium on the seminary campus last year that Southern Baptists have inconsistently applied complementarian rhetoric in the local church.

“I hope that my generation will be vigilant and discerning as we test cultural trends and church practices against God’s perfect Word,” McCoy said. “I also hope that our convention will eventually change the Baptist Faith and Message’s wording on women in the church to say what the Bible does in 1 Timothy 2:12, rather than only stating that women should not be pastors. If our standard reflected what the Bible said, we would not have as much room for misinterpretation in applying it.”

Regarding this criticism, Hawkins said the study committee sought to use “contemporary conversational language” in its articles on the church and family.

“Numerous scriptural references are given to support each article,” Hawkins added. “The committee sought to clarify what Southern Baptists believe and practice in our contemporary culture. Our chairman, the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, wisely led us in staying focused on our charge, whic

Two resources produced by theological educators present a framework for successfully navigating the potential minefield of biblically ordered gender roles in the local church.

Southern Baptist seminary professors Jaye Martin and Terri Stovall teamed up to write “Women Leading Women: The Biblical Model for the Church,” a book purposed to “paint a picture of what women’s ministry should look like based on Scripture.” And from the halls of Dallas Theological Seminary comes “Mixed Ministry: Working Together as Brothers and Sisters in an Oversexed Society,” a book compiled by DTS faculty and alum Sue Edwards and Kelley Mathews urging men and women to view each other as siblings in Christ.

Women Leading Women
Written from a clear complementarian stance, “Women Leading Women” encourages women to serve other women in the local church primarily though women’s ministries. The book offers a framework for approaching women’s ministries grounded in a woman’s identity as an equal image-bearer of God found in Genesis 1 and woman’s helping role found in Genesis 2. The authors trace this helping function through Old and New Testament examples of feminine service to God and family. Their model for women’s ministry concludes with the parameters exemplified in the life and ministry of Christ and explicit Pauline instructions for local church ministry.

And while co-authors Martin and Stovall spend much time outlining the biblical foundations and principles for “women-to-women” ministry, they also offer practical tips for both the woman’s minister serving on a church staff and her pastor.

Martin, director of women’s programs at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., authored a chapter on serving with men. Having previously served with the North American Mission Board and as a staff member at Houston’s First Baptist Church, Martin said many of the tips she includes in this chapter have proven helpful in her own ministry.

In an interview with the Southern Baptist TEXAN, Martin echoed some of the book’s more practical admonitions to women ministering alongside men.

• Discuss things with other women before you discuss them with men. This helps to get your points to a minimum.
• Speak in bullet points?not in paragraphs.
• Don’t take things personally.
• If they are paying you, then they are supporting you?don’t expect to be affirmed. Realize that decisions are made at the game or during outings. They are not leaving you out intentionally.
• In working with men, leadership is lonely. Find a network of other women to socialize with and to learn from.
• Get to know the families of the men your work with. They need to trust you.

Martin also noted it was important for women to work within the system rather than going around it. “This is a huge problem with women. We tend to do whatever it takes (go around people) to make things happen,” she said. “Most men work within the team structure.” Martin also reminded women to “work as unto the Lord. It is the Lord you are serving.”

Mixed Ministry
Equally based on Scripture, the book “Mixed Ministry: Working Together as Brothers and Sisters in an Oversexed Society” urges men and women to view one another as brothers and sisters in Christ as a means to successful co-ministry. Written by Sue Edwards, DTS assistant professor of Christian education, and Kelley Mathews, DTS alum and women’s ministry leader, the book also includes various contributors such as Christian author Henry J. Rogers and long-time DTS professor and author Howard Hendricks.

Deliberately choosing not to enter into the debate over women’s roles in the church and home, the authors instead center their framework for mixed-gender ministry on Christological and Pauline examples of ministry found in the Gospels and the epistles.

The authors believe that the example of “brotherly love” toward ministry partners found in the New Testament safeguards against sexual temptation and the segregation of any sex from appropriate ministry roles.

“Fear of mixed-gender friendship is understandable in an over-sexed society like ours,” the authors contend. “Women are not veiled; instead they are publicly undressed?also dehumanizing. It’s no wonder Christian men and women put on blinders in an attempt to honor God with pure hearts and minds. But Jesus did not respond to women in fear. He knew that this wall of fear would exclude women from the public square of faith, and it has.”

As a stop-gap to segregating women from ministry positions, the authors plead with believers to follow the example of Christ and Paul and create a “family ethos” by viewing women as sisters in Christ.

“The Bible uses familial imagery to describe ministry relationships,” the authors write, noting Paul’s frequent descriptions of the church as adelphoi (brothers) and his designation of women co-laborers as sisters. “When Paul describes the ethos he created in the Thessalonian church, he paints a picture of a caring family.”

And while the authors concede that the family ethos model of navigating the pitfalls of gendered ministry is more difficult to maintain, several benefits can be gleaned including: physical and emotional protection, help, insight, conflict management, and unity.

This family ethos, the authors contend, begins with the leader and trickles down to co-laborers. To this end, the authors urge leaders to focus on the “one another” passages in Scripture as a means to fostering healthy sibling relationships among ministry partners:

• Be devoted to one another in brotherly love (Romans 12:10)
• Encourage one another and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
• Greet one another (Romans 16:16)
• Serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13)
• Accept one another in order to bring praise to God (Romans 15:7)
• Bear with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2).

Edwards and Mathews also provide chapters written for each gender in ministry, combining Scripture’s more generic prescriptions for Christian conduct and gender-specific ways to apply these admonitions. Women in ministry are called to pray for their brothers and their families, develop relationships with the families of their brothers in ministry, refrain from bashing their brothers, and encourage them with appropriate words. Likewise, men in ministry are called to drop demeaning language, value their sisters’ contributions by inviting them into the conversation, and even speak up for their sisters.

“Ethos is invisible?but it can make or break a ministry,” Edwards and Mathews write. “When we do [create a family ethos], we will also create a place where men and women love one another and serve together as brothers and sisters?a radical transformation that just might turn the world upside down for Jesus.”

FORT WORTH?Dorothy Patterson couldn’t appear more at home than when she stands before women teaching truths of Scripture. Whether in a classroom at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary preparing women for ministry, traveling to overseas mission fields to encourage former students or speaking to a ladies session of the upcoming Empower Evangelism Conference, she remains focused on helping women discover their God-given roles.

Her own theological training began in a room full of men, the only female in the school of theology at the time when she and her husband Paige were pursuing master of theology degrees at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. At the time of her graduation, the women’s liberation movement was in full swing across America, encouraging women to find fulfillment beyond traditional homemaking.

While her seminary training and additional doctoral studies would serve her well in defending what was later tagged a complementarian view of gender roles, it was in the more practical laboratory of parenting preschoolers that Patterson began to apply her studies.

“My theological training seemed a waste for the task of motherhood before me,” she recounted in the book “Where’s Mom?” “In the midst of this frustrating time, I turned to the Lord.” She began reading through the Bible systematically, determined to find God’s message for her as a woman, wife and mother. That experience became the catalyst for her life and ministry. “My life, goals, and perspective were forever changed.”

When her husband served as president of Criswell Bible Institute (now Criswell College), Dorothy Patterson found new opportunities to encourage women to rediscover “the genuine freedom they enjoyed for centuries to oversee the home, rear the children, and pursue personal creativity.”

Kristi Sberna, a pastor’s wife from Houston, shared that her life was transformed while observing Patterson in relation to her family and ministry. Sberna served as Patterson’s intern while a student at Criswell College, observing, “the focus of her work and passion always seemed to be dedicated to complementing and enhancing the ministry and life of Paige Patterson, her husband, using her energy, time and talents cooperatively with him.”

“It was as if she was a direct extension of him, sharing the same vision and passion in ministry, yet never nullifying her own individuality and personality,” Sberna recalled. “Their marriage and ministry together was appointed with love, respect, excellence, cooperation, friendship and trust.” As a young woman engaged to a ministerial student at the time, Sberna said the Pattersons modeled the kind of marriage and ministry she desired.

It was during those years at Criswell that Dorothy Patterson began fashioning a curriculum of academically challenging studies with a focus on woman-to-woman ministries in keeping with the pattern of Titus 2.

Patterson was swimming against the tide of feminism that had begun to influence some Southern Baptist seminaries where women who professed a call to the pastorate were not only accommodated, but encouraged. In June of 1988 she presented a paper at the request of the Southern Baptist Convention Historical Commission when asked to respond to proponents of women’s ordination. She placed her focus on the lack of scriptural support for women holding teaching/ruling offices within the local church, making the case for ordination of women holding such offices a moot point.

“When a woman ‘feels called’ to do a work that on scriptural grounds is both beyond God’s design in creation and in violation of his written Word, that work must be judged by the church,” she argued.

The egalitarianism of the 1970s and ’80s, which rejected any distinction in gender roles, was rejected by the Conservative Resurgence in the decade that followed. In 1998 Southern Baptists embraced a new article of faith in stating that both men and women have equal worth before God, are created in God’s image with distinct, yet complementary roles.

Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land served with Patterson and five other members on the committee tasked with drafting that statement. Referring to her contribution as “one of the guiding lights,” he said it was a time “to speak to that issue and speak definitively.”

Patterson later shared in an interview with the journal of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: “We were told to set forth in a clear, brief and understandable way what the Bible says about the family and relationships therein. We weren’t trying to adapt our statement to today’s culture. We were simply trying to state clearly what the Bible says about the family.”

That same year she earned her doctorate in theology from the University of South Africa, writing her dissertation on “Aspects of a Biblical Theology of Womanhood.”

“Just because the world determines that women in the home are in confinement does not make it so. A far more important concern for each of us is what the Bible says about one’s respective position and duties,” she wrote in a journal article for Southeastern that outlined the proposed women’s studies track she had developed.

From Titus 2:3-5, Patterson related Paul’s admonition for “the older or spiritually mature women to teach the younger women, those fresh or new in the faith, a specific curriculum that is centered around the home and family, including such assignments as that they are to be ‘lovers of their husbands,’ ‘lovers of their children,’ and ‘homemakers.’ Such explicit language certainly leaves no room for misunderstanding what is important in a woman’s life from God’s view.”

The preparation of women for ministry was embraced early in the history of Southwestern Seminary. The school’s second president related during his inaugural address, “Our purpose is to do for women in their work what we are doing for men in theirs?give them trained workers, thus reaching the fields opening to Christian womanhood for service. Our aim is not to turn out women preachers, but to give the world trained women in all the teaching, missionary, and soul-winning activities of Christ’s coming kingdom.”

Nearly a century after L.R. Scarborough voiced that priority, Southwestern has its most committed advocate for giving women biblically grounded training with the presence of Dorothy Patterson in the school of theology.

As the eighth president, Paige Patterson drew upon his wife’s experience to develop M.Div., D.Min., and Ph.D. degrees in theology with a concentration in women’s studies. Similar to the other Southern Baptist seminaries, the school also continues to offer certificate programs for women and wives of ministers.

Lauren Johnson, a pastor’s wife in Ozona, remembers Patterson using her skills of persuasion to convince her to be fully prepared for ministry by completing the M.Div. in women’s studies. “Her love for the Word of God further encouraged my love for the Bible and showed me that more than anything, women need the truth of the Word of God taught and exemplified.

“Mrs. Patterson helped me to see that being a wife and mother is a noble calling and not one of which to be ashamed or devalued,” added Johnson, noting her gratefulness for Patterson’s example, leadership and sound guidance. “She showed me what it is to live and breathe hospitality.”

In addition to serving as editor of the “Woman’s Study Bible” published by Thomas Nelson, and co-editor of “Women’s Evangelical Commentary,” Patterson addresses the scriptural roles and responsibilities of Christian women in numerous publications, including: “Where’s Mom? The High Calling of Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective,” “A Woman Seeking God,” “A Handbook for Minister’s Wives,” “A Handbook for Parents in the Ministry,” “The Family: Unchanging Principles for Changing Times,