Earlier this week, my friend, Steve Knight, shared a link on Facebook to a blog post by Ed Cyzewski. (Good grief, that’s a tortured sentence. Such is the destructive power of social media.) Ed writes:

We still haven’t sought the guidance of female leaders as if the integrity of our witness and the reflection of God’s character depended on it. [Read more]

How do we know we haven’t done this? From the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Ugh. Maybe it’s true there at Willow Creek. For sure it’s true in far too many places.

(Don’t get me wrong: Ed asks good questions, posits true statements, and is on the right side of this.)

But my experience has been quite different. From September 1995 through June 2010, I worked with female senior pastors at Woodridge United Methodist Church. Our district also had three superintendents during that time – all of them women.

It is unconscionable that this “debate” continues in so many churches.

I can’t believe this even needs saying…Of course women can and should lead churches! As pastors, teachers, superintendents, bishops, executive ministers…whatever positions exist, women can, should and must hold them.

Isn’t this beyond obvious? Why are we still allowing arguments about this? The matter is settled: women are people too.

To paraphrase one of the greatest, most powerful episodes of the greatest TV show of all time:

Think about your mother, your daughter, your grandmother, your sister, your aunt, your granddaughter, your cousin, your teacher, your friend, your wife…think about any and all women who’ve ever cared for you or about you. Think about any and all women you’ve ever cared for or about…

If you can look any or all of them in the eye and say to them, “Due to your genitalia, you’re not a full human being.”…then hell, I don’t even want to know you.