Clear the Minefield of Complementarian Churches

A PSA for pastors

Photo by Kristina Paparo on Unsplash

This post is a PSA for all complementarian church leaders: Your position on women’s participation in church life will not match the position of the church down the street. It likely doesn’t look the same as the other church across town in your own denomination. Do your visitors a huge favor by clarifying your position and educating your members on it. Why is that important?

Women visiting a complementarian church often walk into a minefield. One misstep could explode under their feet while, in another church, that step would be perfectly safe. When the rules are so variable between churches, offering clarity is a kindness.

Note: In case the term is unfamiliar, “complementarian” refers to a belief that the Bible restricts women from leadership roles. There’s a lot more to it but that’s the basic idea.

Know Thyself

Pastors, do your leadership team, pastoral staff, and key volunteers know why your church limits certain activities and positions to men alone?

Last year, we said goodbye to our church of 18 years when we moved across the state. Eventually, we begin looking around our new area for a new church home. I found myself asking questions that I had never asked before. Other than Trinitarian theology—you know, your basic sound doctrine—I definitely wanted to know where women fit into the life of each church.

Well, that's easy, you may think. They're either complementarian or egalitarian. They either let women fully participate in the life of the church or they place restrictions on them.

If only it were that simple. We have never been members of an egalitarian church, so I can't speak to the experience of women in those spaces. But some of you can, and I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email if you want to share what egalitarian theology looks like on the ground.

But we have visited or joined a variety of complementarian churches over the years, and each one draws different boundary lines—even when they are members of the same denomination. So how’s a body to know where the line is? How does the church determine where the line is? Do all the leaders know why the lines were placed where they were?

Where Policy Meets Practice

Let's walk through some of the basic, public activities within church life. For each one, can you clarify why, in your church, women are excluded? I’ll work from the top down, so to speak.

Pastoral leadership: preaching, executive functions, presiding over worship services

• This one is usually straightforward. Most complementarians point to 1 Timothy 2:8–15 and 3:2, which discuss church authority in male terms. Usually the explanation sounds like “The Bible teaches that only men can teach…”

• But also be ready to counter questions about God calling Deborah as judge and prophet over Israel, the women prophets in both Old and New Testaments, and Paul’s coworker Priscilla, all of whom taught Scripture authoritatively even to men. Know your convictions as a church so that you can help visitors and members understand why you came to your conclusions.

• If your church includes women on staff in director or “minister” roles (looking at you, SBC), why are they titled as such? Are they truly administrators or do they actually do pastoral work without the title? If the latter, why do you allow them to function as a pastor if your convictions say such activity is supposed to be male-only? If your convictions allow for women doing pastoral work, why do you accept their labor without recognizing their work accurately?

Does your nomenclature match the reality of the job?

Teaching roles: youth, kids, adults, women only, mixed groups

• If a church restricts spiritual authority and teaching the Bibe to men only, many will open that role up to women if they teach a. only other women (Titus 2), b. children, and/or c. youth*.

• *Youth: At what age do teenage boys become “men” and therefore no longer under a female teacher’s authority? On what biblical basis does this policy rest? How do your policies reflect the church’s stated doctrine?

• Mixed groups: Where do you draw the line at authority? Does it reside in the teacher or in the pastor/elder permitting someone to teach? Could a woman teach a mixed group of men and women, or even a group of men, if commissioned to do so by the pastor? If so, why? If not, why not?

Deacons: the church’s servants

St. Phoebe, a mosaic in Guy’s Chapel in south London

• First, are your deacons truly servants, as described in Acts 6? Or do they act more like elders, holding spiritual authority alongside the pastor(s)? Churches differ in how deacons actually work within the leadership structure.

• If your deacon board acts more like elders, complementarians would naturally exclude women. But if they are truly servants, helping care for the widowed, beautifying the church building, for instance—any tangible needs that crop up—on what basis would you exclude women?

• How do you handle 1 Timothy 3, which describes deacons and “the women” in parallel fashion; or Romans 16:1–2, where Phoebe is identified as “a deacon of the church at Cenchreae”?

• Without referring to general tradition or cultural practice, be prepared to explain the biblical basis for your policy. It’s not enough to say “Men are supposed to lead, so only men can be deacons,” or “That’s just how we do it here.”

Baptizing

• Who is authorized to perform baptisms, and why? If your church practices believer’s baptism and does not restrict it to pastoral leadership, on what basis are other lay people allowed to baptize in your church?

• If women do not perform baptisms, on what basis does this policy rest? Is it biblical, traditional, or cultural?

Leading worship music

• In some churches, leading the musical portion of the worship service is considered authoritative teaching, perhaps because the leaders are up on the stage/altar, or because they direct the content of scripturally-based songs, prayers, and worship. What is your church policy for the worship leader, and on what biblical basis does it rest? In what ways are women included, and why?

Serving the Lord’s Supper / Communion

• How does your church traditionally serve the communion elements? Some will have congregants walk to the front, where the pastors will hold baskets with the elements. Some will pass plates down the aisles. Whom do you invite to participate in serving communion? If only men, why, and where do you find support for your policy in Scripture?

Participating in the worship service

• Do you invite women to pray from the stage/altar?

• Do you invite women to read Scripture aloud to the congregation?

• Do women help greet people at the doors? Do they act as ushers during the service?

However you answer these questions, be ready to explain the church’s reasoning behind them. It’s very possible that some of the duties listed in this section have been assigned to deacons, who happen to be men, and that’s why women can’t perform them. It’s also just as likely to be a tradition held over from the past. But are those biblical reasons to withhold such participatory acts from women?

If We’re Basing Church Practice on the Bible…

We aren’t allowed to cherry-pick verses from the Bible that seem to say what we want them to say. Responsible students of God’s Word read it in context, seeking to understand the original author’s intent for his original audience, recognizing that though it was written for us it was not written to or about us. We need discernment in order to interpret stories, commands, and patterns, and to apply the Bible’s principles accurately.

One such pattern emerges from the first two chapters of the entire Bible. Genesis 1 and 2 document the way God created men and women in his image with a joint mandate to subdue and fill the earth (1:26). In Genesis 2, the man was created first but incomplete without the woman, whom God gave as his complement, partner, ally (“ezer”). Only together can they/we accomplish the mission of being God’s image in the world.

We ought to make it our goal, whatever label we give our church, to make it a place where all God’s children are accepted, valued, and respected. If your convictions require you to limit women’s participation, remember that you—just like egalitarians—are following an interpretation of Scripture. Humility and graciousness go a long way when explaining your stance.

Within your leadership team, ask yourselves how far you can go to include women while staying true to your theological boundaries. Which positions and roles are not dictated by Scripture but have been passed down by tradition? What can you do, pastors, to offer your sacred siblings meaningful opportunities to use their spiritual gifts for “the building up of the body” (Eph 4:12)?

Clarity is Kindness

Meaningful participation is an important draw for visitors and new members. Complementarian churches will likely need to be proactive and attentive to young women especially, who have proven less willing to tolerate spaces where they are undervalued or condescended to. Understanding the mindset of visitors will help you evaluate your church’s current attitude toward women and how it is communicated church-wide. No one is asking you to compromise, but you may want to evaluate your messaging.

Visit two complementarian churches, and you’ll find different answers to the questions above. In one, you may find that only the preaching pastor role is limited to men, while any other leadership or service opportunity is open to men and women who are gifted and morally qualified. In the other, you may find women relegated to the children’s and women’s ministry, with only men visible leading in all capacities during worship. Both are complementarian churches, but they present themselves in drastically different ways.

So how’s a visitor to know where she stands in your church?