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“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
