Milligan women in ministry face American church restrictions
Taylor Ross
Issue date: 4/30/10 Section: Opinion
Is Milligan setting a precedent for women in ministry that the rest of the American church cannot meet?
According to Campus Minister Nathan Flora, 23 out of the past 44 campus ministry positions for students have gone to women: in other words, over 50 percent of student spiritual leaders have been female.
This ratio far exceeds that of the American church at large. In a survey of five churches commonly attended by Milligan students, only 10 of 81 paid staff members are women with positions other than children's ministry or secretarial work. That troubling statistic is nowhere close to 50 percent.
While some people may think that the women-in-ministry debate was a problem of our parent's generation, the argument is very much alive today. Many students at Milligan attend churches in which women, if they are on staff at all, are restricted to secretarial or children's ministry positions.
This issue may be unimportant to some, but to others it is critical: specifically, to those women who would like to be in vocational ministry, but would rather not be delegated to taking messages for their male boss or changing dirty diapers in the church nursery.
The competency of women is not the problem. Women are more than capable of being spiritual leaders, as their involvement on Milligan's campus attests. Unlike many churches in America, Milligan allows women to be in whatever ministry role they wish, whether spiritual formation, worship planning or outreach ministries.
Tyler Ross, a senior history major who has been involved with Vespers, the student-led worship service on campus, spoke about the positive experience he had with Vespers leader Autumn Pruitt.
"Autumn was the Vespers Chair when I was on the Vespers committee my sophomore year," Ross said. "She had great passion for Vespers and worked hard every week to make Sunday's service the best it could be. She was always very thoughtful, and was the type of leader who worked to bring out the best in all the members of our committee. I really appreciate her servant's heart and the role she played in the ministry of Vespers."
According to Campus Minister Nathan Flora, 23 out of the past 44 campus ministry positions for students have gone to women: in other words, over 50 percent of student spiritual leaders have been female.
This ratio far exceeds that of the American church at large. In a survey of five churches commonly attended by Milligan students, only 10 of 81 paid staff members are women with positions other than children's ministry or secretarial work. That troubling statistic is nowhere close to 50 percent.
While some people may think that the women-in-ministry debate was a problem of our parent's generation, the argument is very much alive today. Many students at Milligan attend churches in which women, if they are on staff at all, are restricted to secretarial or children's ministry positions.
This issue may be unimportant to some, but to others it is critical: specifically, to those women who would like to be in vocational ministry, but would rather not be delegated to taking messages for their male boss or changing dirty diapers in the church nursery.
The competency of women is not the problem. Women are more than capable of being spiritual leaders, as their involvement on Milligan's campus attests. Unlike many churches in America, Milligan allows women to be in whatever ministry role they wish, whether spiritual formation, worship planning or outreach ministries.
Tyler Ross, a senior history major who has been involved with Vespers, the student-led worship service on campus, spoke about the positive experience he had with Vespers leader Autumn Pruitt.
"Autumn was the Vespers Chair when I was on the Vespers committee my sophomore year," Ross said. "She had great passion for Vespers and worked hard every week to make Sunday's service the best it could be. She was always very thoughtful, and was the type of leader who worked to bring out the best in all the members of our committee. I really appreciate her servant's heart and the role she played in the ministry of Vespers."
Be the first to comment on this story