Saddle Up for another round

It was just a matter of time before Junia came out of the closet again, asking for her rightful place around the proverbial "women in ministry" table. Tim Challies, who always seems to stir the pot (but takes his hands off the spoon I might add, after the sizzling begins) was the culprit this time around and his blog tips on scripture reading. The complementarians and egalitarians saddled up again and took fire at one another on his blog.

One of my favorite cowboys, Scott McKnight joined in lassoed a post in response, the new it girl for all things ladies, Rachel Held Evans chimed in and called us ladies to pick up the task of prophets. My favorite Canadian Mummy said she is too pooped to fight anymore, and gave up her seat at the table.

Seems everyone saddled up for this one. Even Kinnon and Jared Wilson took a few pokes on Twitter.

I'm late to the game, as this blog has been for the past few years. My apologies.

But though I agree with the sentiments of my fellow ladies, to live out our callings anyways, in our quest for liberation and freedom from having to prove our place at the table...I worry for us.

I worry that in our zeal and poetic language, in our fervor and passion, we will miss that perhaps some still need to wrestle and "come to dinner" if you will, with the predominately white, evangelical men that rule the web, the publishing world, and the podcasts of Christendom.

I worry that while dancing with the outcasts, and prophesying with the radicals, that we will miss the call to still poke and prod at the tattered theology keeping women out of "the game".

We women can live out our callings, without the permission of those who would rather see us silent but still miss the mark on this subject.

What if God, in all His women loving wisdom, is asking some of us ladies to still knock at the door of the dinner party, and remind our fellow brothers that we are still outside, and we aren't leaving. Not only are we not leaving, we are armed with some scriptures, some stories, and some scars they need to see and hear.

Ladies, I feel you.

Trust me I do.

I penned a contribution to a conference two years ago that addressed this very issue, but my submission was ignored. More than my disappointment that I couldn't share on this topic was the disappointment that no one at that significant conference addressed the issue of women in leadership.

In the defense of the conferences planners, whom I love, respect and admire, they likely thought the issue had been flogged to death.

And they are right.

It is has.

But we are still crying out.

We are still crying out in the dessert.

Even in the emerging/emergent/emerged/reformed/affirming/catholic/mainline/charismatic/you name it...we are still crying out.

And there is a good chance, that we will be crying for years to come.

But ladies, don't give up the good fight to dance outside in the rain. Some of you have voices that need to be heard. Some of you have theological dissertations that need to be shared. Some of you have words that need to be penned.

And for some of us, we need you to keep battling so that we can find our voice, gain our strength, and take over in the years to come.

We may not get the invitation to dine with the men's club just yet, but some of us still need to stand on stools outside and pelt the windows with pebbles.

Just reminding them, we might be out of sight, but we aren't out of mind.

TEDxWaterloo and The Disconnect

I have the incredible privilege of being apart of the Marcomm (Marketing and Communications) team for TEDxWaterloo. If you are not familiar with the TED format, you are missing out. Thousands of TED talks await you here. The TEDx’s are locally-grown editions of the famed TED conference. TEDxWaterloo is a wonderful edition to the TED family, and it has been a pleasure working with them for the 2012 edition.

I had the honor of writing a piece for the website, and it posted last week on the site. Here are a few thoughts on this years theme, on "Disconnected". Though I had no hand in picking the theme, the idea of "Disconnected" has been near and dear to my heart this past year and writing about it was effortless.

The Disconnect

Can you remember the first time that someone hung up on you?

I mean really hung up on you.

The phone slamming, angry adverbs, mid-sentence cut off, came out of left field kind of hang up?

I can remember my first experience with an angry hang up like it was yesterday. NKOTB and their classic hit “Please Don’t Go Girl” was blaring through my tape deck, as my 12 year old eyes cried a million tears over a boy who shouted into his rotary phone “We are over” and followed his decree with a resounding slam. It was the first time my teenage self had discovered the sense of powerlessness you experience when you are disconnected from so abruptly. It was the first time that I learned the power you wield when you break communication with another and disconnect without an explanation. In a world so full of opportunities to communicate it is a shame that so many of us communicate so poorly, and take the easy road of the disconnect from people and situations when they become difficult.

As I have grown older and have more tools at my disposal then ever to connect and communicate, I sometimes feel more lost than ever before. I have often wondered then if poor communication doesn’t disconnect souls, but rather it’s the disconnected souls who poorly communicate. If that statement could have a nugget of truth, then where does that leave us, as we find the promise and power of connection and our contributions to the communities that we find ourselves in? Where does it leave us when communication has never been so important, yet has never been more misunderstood and misused?

I am not sure what the answers are, and maybe for now, I don’t to figure it all out. Perhaps the answer is fluid and malleable as we constantly recalibrate in an ever changing world. Maybe the most important thing is that we are searching for an answer, together and connected, through an outlet like TEDxWaterloo, wresting through these inevitable tensions.

Seth Godin once said “Connect the disconnected to each other and you create value” I am sure in his marketing guru genius he was talking about connecting products to people, but I can’t help but wonder if that same statement applies person to person. When we connect with one another, in new and meaningful ways, when we choose connectedness over the disconnect, we then create value because of what we create together.

We have all heard the line “two heads are better than one” and “we are stronger together then we are divided”. Maybe sometimes clichés are clichés because they are true. Maybe finding our connectedness and looking for the answers of how each of us, in our own context, can hang up once and for all on our disconnectedness, is the most powerful force on earth for change. Maybe there is hope beyond the disconnect and maybe for now, that hope is enough.