Episode 21: Why are Women Leaving the Church and 7 Biblical Ways to Empower Women in the Church with Dr. Cathie Smith + What is Greater than Serving?!

0:00 Pastors and church leaders, without women flourishing in the church, the church won't flourish. Do pastors realize this dynamic? Are they actively Discipling the ladies of the church? It's easy to underestimate the value of a pastor speaking into a female's life and just saying something that seems so obvious to you or maybe other leadership, but may not be so obvious to the female herself. And along those lines is to exhort God's calling in their lives and give them opportunities to respond to what God is calling them to do. So not just helping them to identify their gifts, but really helping them to know how to respond to that and giving them opportunities to respond to that and encouraging them to do that.

0:58 Find health, encouragement, practical advice, soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship and the broader kingdom of God. Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry and aim for the goal of making every church flourish. And welcome into episode number 21 of the Every Church Flourishing Podcast. We are sponsored by the Great Commission Association of California. And today we have the GCA's own Dr. Kathy Smith here to talk about empowering women in the church and a related discussion on why women are leaving the church in what appears to be unprecedented numbers.

1:47 Maybe there's a connection between those two things. After the interview, we're going to look up one of the greatest women of Scripture, A precious saint that Dr. Smith discusses and brings up, and we're going to find out what made her stand out to Jesus. Okay, we're going to transition into our main interview right now, where Pastor Christopher Cole and I interview Dr. Kathy Smith. And in the spirit of today's podcast, I think it would be wrong to mansplain all about who Dr. Kathy Smith is. So I'm going to ask her to introduce herself. So Dr. Kathy Smith, tell us your background, your experience in ministry and how you landed with the Great Commission Association in California.

2:29 Thank you, Chase. So it's been a journey for sure. But at an early age, I felt that the Lord had called me into missions. And that has definitely been the theme throughout all of the jobs and responsibilities that I've had up to this point. And my current role now is to identify, encourage, and equip women and ministry leaders. And before I had worked with GCA in the past and that was more in a care kind of position with pastor's wives, mainly creating spaces for them. But this role is more of a catalytic role, really trying to encourage and equip women in ministry to be able to, grow in their understanding of their calling and their gifting and to be able to employ that for kingdom purposes, for God's glory and to build up the church.

3:16 So I have three kids and I'm married to Dr. Chris Smith as well. Well, speaking of Dr. Chris Smith, he was on one of our more recent episodes and He told us a little about your time in Spain as missionaries, and he said his favorite food in Spain was paella. Do you concur with this or do you have a different one? Definitely paella is not my favorite food because it usually has seafood, and I'm not a really big seafood person, but there are some seafoods I like, like calamari, which I recognize as seafood, but it's different. It has to be fried. But I really like their french fries because they were cooked in olive oil.

3:58 Nice. Okay. Well, I got the most important question out of the way there. So over to you, Pastor Christopher. Well, right. I mean, I got to follow that up, though, with another question that's not so important before we dive into the in deep. Because, Kathy, on this podcast, we try sodas from around the world. Is there a soda from Spain that we should be trying? Is there something that's unique to Spain as like a Spanish soda? There is a certain version of Fanta, Or Fanta as it's called here. I forgot which one it was. If it's lemon that we don't have here or... Interesting. I think it's lemon and it was very good. But we also lived really close to Portugal. And so we could get different sodas in our grocery store from other countries. And there were a lot of Brazilians in Portugal. And so we had Guaraná.

4:45 Interesting. I just ordered after that interview with Dr. Smith, your husband, I ordered a case of Guadana to review on an upcoming episode. I'm so excited. So excited about that. It's very good. Awesome. Well, and turning to serious things and our discussion for the day, Kathy, we're so excited to have you back with the GCA team. And we're grateful for all the work that you've been doing. So one of the core questions I think you and I have been kicking around and we're having conversations about, and we want to have a... An open conversation today about is to ask ourselves and each other, how can pastors and churches and church leaders empower and encourage women to use their gifts for the kingdom of God? And what are your thoughts?

5:39 That is a really important question. And I think that it involves a lot of pieces and it's something that I'm very passionate about. So I've done a lot of research on that. And I know that a lot of pastors like alliteration and I'm not always that good at it, but I actually do have alliteration for this part. And there's even seven steps. So that happens rarely to me, but it did happen this time. But I think- Alliteration and seven steps. I think we're approaching something here that shall not be named. A plus. Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. The first thing is, it sounds really simple, but it's just engaging them, engaging with them in conversation, engaging them in discipleship, engaging them in conversations, engaging them in opportunities for leadership and opportunities to lead.

6:36 So it sounds really easy because you would think that would be more natural. But I think we We do tend to silo ourselves by sometimes age groups or by gender groups. And there's a lot that we can learn from brothers and sisters together. So the first one is just engaging them. And the second is to encourage their gifting and help them to identify their gifts. And as I was looking into different people, different female leaders, and reading some of their interviews, a couple of things stood out. And one of them was that several times really influential leaders that we would recognize today on national levels that are females mentioned that they didn't realize their gifting until their pastor helped them to identify it.

7:25 And I think that it's easy to underestimate the value of a pastor speaking into a female's life and just saying something that seems so obvious to you or maybe other leadership, but may not be so obvious to the female herself. And along those lines is to exhort God's calling in their lives and give them opportunities to respond what God is calling them to do. So not just like helping them to identify their gifts, but really helping them to know how to respond to that and giving them opportunities to respond to that and encouraging them to do that. Well, hold on, hold on right there, because you just said an amazing three things, right?

8:06 So, so engage them. And then from that engagement, first off, you just have to see women. We have to see them in the church as fully imago Dei. They are in the image of God. They're redeemed. They are gifted. They are called and callable, right? And I think that to do that work first requires us to have spiritual eyes to see, right? Like Jesus sees Mary and Martha, right? And he engages them with deep theological truth in some profound ways, right? And I love where you're going with this, this idea of exhorting women to live up to their calling and their opportunities. But I just would say to maybe Pastor Jason, I could just speak to this for just a second, but I do think both of us with our pastoral experience, it can be a temptation to look past the male leaders in the church or to be uncomfortable as a pastor not knowing how to engage women leaders in the church.

9:15 And so we default to just sort of looking past them, except maybe in some very narrow, defined sort of expectations in traditional gender roles. So excellent stuff. I just I had to jump in there and just say, I think, oh, no, Any time. So. All right. So we have three. What else you got for us? So along with that, then, is equipping women for disciple making. And I think that that is also like that's so vital because we we know that the command to make disciples is is for men and women. It's not just for men. And so women sometimes, though, aren't always in those conversations or maybe they don't understand how disciple making looks for them.

10:01 But that is definitely something that pastors and male leaders can help them for. But even beyond that, I think just allowing women to understand and helping them to understand educational opportunities. I can't tell you how many times I've heard of examples through the research that I've done or heard other people's thinking that seminary wasn't for women, that it was just for men or just for certain kinds of leaders. And so I think just even helping women to be equipped through informal teachings at church, but also allowing them to know about the formal opportunities. And as I was looking at different things of Jesus and women, something stood out to me, and it would be interesting to have y'all's comment on this too, but how.

10:49 Women were often at Jesus's feet listening and he was a rabbi. And traditionally, as from what I understand in that culture, that that would not be normal to be mixed gender. But Jesus affirmed Mary for doing that when Martha, I was going to get them mixed up, but I think I did it right. Martha was the one that was serving and doing more traditional female role things. But Mary was at Jesus speak, learning and listening and learning about him, which was sometimes not a place that women in her culture would have been allowed to be, but Jesus made a space for that. And so I think like that equipping and teaching piece is really important for women.

11:33 You mentioned one of my heroes in scripture. A lot of denominations and branches of the body of Christ make a big deal out of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Totally understand why. There's some reasons to do that. But just in terms of the ministry of Jesus, his relationship with Mary of Bethany is fascinating. And all of the things he says about her and just the very fact that he knows he's going to be crucified and he's literally days away from ending death. His life on earth, at least for a few days.

12:15 He says, I'm going to go see Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. So we don't know a lot about his relationship with that family, but the way Jesus talks about and commends Mary of Bethany, I don't think Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, I don't think we pay enough attention to it, especially Protestants. Just as you say, a magnificent example of the kind of person who understood who Jesus was pre-resurrection and gave her life to listening to him in the most appropriate way possible. I think it's just an amazing example of the first commandment in action and illustration. Yeah.

13:02 And I think to that point, when we talk about these concepts of engaging women, right? I'm still sort of stuck on that first one. Do we see the women and then are we equipping them? You know, one of the things that strikes me is that in the New Testament, Jesus reveals himself in some unique and powerful ways to women. I think of John chapter four, right? Before, you know, at the phase of his ministry early enough in his ministry, where Jesus is not revealing himself fully to his disciples. It's to the woman, the Samaritan woman, by the well, that he has this deep theological, personal conversation.

13:47 And she says, I know, likely in Aramaic, she's saying, I know when Taheb comes, not likely when she's saying Mashiach, the Messiah. But she says, I know when he comes, he will reveal to us all these things. And Jesus says this remarkable thing, I'm he, which is one of the great I am's of scripture, right? And she goes running into the town. You talk about the movement from revelation to equipping to commissioning happening shortly. She goes running into the town and says, could this be the one, Right? Right. Or, of course, we just passed Easter. And who does Jesus reveal himself to choosing to reveal himself to there in the garden and saying, go tell my brothers, go tell my brothers who are not here, by the way, that I'm alive and I'm going to meet up with them.

14:45 And so I think we have powerful scriptural evidence that Jesus is not looking past women. And also, I think I can say this to maybe correct an over-tendency in some cases in our church. He's not speaking to women through men. Jesus is not afraid to speak directly to women and empower them. On the point of equipping, if I could jump back to that just for a second, I think there are some amazing opportunities. For women to be equipped. Outside the church, this will be a plug for Dr. Chris Smith's Great Commission Training Institute, we train men and women equally in those classrooms.

15:28 You know, we give those things. And then, of course, Gateway Seminary, where women are embraced as full students. And I know that's not always true in all seminaries. So we fully believe women can and should be equipped, and we're thankful for those outside the church things. But if we can maybe park for a second on the question of how do we equip women in the church? What are some areas, Kathy, that you think... Male pastors need to invite women into specific areas of equipping? One of the main things I think is leadership formation. And Katie Cole has a lot of, same last name as you, has a lot of really good material in that.

16:15 She talks about like the spiritual formation, but the leadership formation. And sometimes it's more maybe the spiritual formation that women get. Hopefully they get that. But it's also important for women to get leadership training and leadership formation. And sometimes that doesn't happen because they're not in the same room as men when decisions are being made at church. So they're not having the same training opportunities, not having the same opportunities to see what it looks like, to deal with conflict in leadership or who is teaching them how to do these things sometimes is really lacking. And so I think that's why that we see women going outside of the church sometimes to serve in leadership roles because they can They are allowed different roles, but they also get training in different ways.

17:05 And it's kind of in subtle things. But even if you look at some LifeWise statistics that they had recently, it's about 83% of women, I believe, are volunteers. So that means they're probably not coming to staff meetings. They're probably not getting the same information as maybe other leaders, which could also be other female leaders that were paid. but generally it's more males. And so they're missing lots of connection points. And then on top of that. Only 5% of women plan alongside their pastors. So they're kind of creating these silos unintentionally. And so then women groups become more siloed and more separate accidentally because there's not planning that's happening.

17:52 So then there's conflict of vision, but there's not opportunities to meet with the pastor. And it's what one article I read was talking about that it's women are looking for not just permission, but partnership. And there was actually a great article that J.D. Greer did with his discipleship leader, Leslie Hildreth. And they were talking about that. Pastors would be surprised because they think that they're giving their women permission. And they are. They're giving women permission. They're giving them freedom to do ministries, to lead out in their calling in so many ways. But there's not a partnership. It's just kind of like, okay, you do it. You do your own thing. I don't really need to be involved.

18:35 You just move forward. And so there's not a partnership. So there's not like joint planning. There's not brainstorming. There's not leadership development. There's not collaboration. And if you look at a staff meetings, a lot of times that they're primarily male dominated, not always, but primarily. So, and if, if there are more than one female, then what happens? The men go to one side, the women go to another side for lunch or for other things. And obviously we want to be wise to not have one-on-one conversations in places that are not protected. But I think that we sometimes forget that we are brothers and sisters and that we can actually learn from each other and that we can be wise and careful, but it doesn't mean that we can't ever have a conversation, if that makes sense.

19:26 Absolutely. And can I just say, I'll confess here, like in my first pastorate, the first pastorate I had in California as a lead pastor for nine years and having been on staff, I had served alongside and in partnership actually with women leaders at my church in Texas and I But when I got to my first church, I was perfectly willing to let or permit the women to have their Bible studies and so on. But aside from maybe occasionally glancing at the material they were using and trying to say, hey, I'm just not sure that person was very theologically sound, I didn't see it as my responsibility.

20:07 And I was dead wrong, right? how could I be shepherding 60% of my church, and most of our churches are minimally 60% women? How could I do this in a way that doesn't say that's my responsibility? As a shepherd, means that I have to be able to come alongside women leaders and say, how do we equip together? And the truth was that, in part, I didn't want to have to acknowledge I was ignorant. I didn't know how to train mature women leaders in the church. I was a 24-year-old pastor. I was barely figuring out how to lead myself, let alone any other men. And it took me a long time in ministry to come to the realization where this is an important aspect to see the women, engage them, Yes, to exhort them, to call them out, but also to equip them and equip them equally. Yes.

21:03 Equally with resourcing and training and not assuming that the women are to be less substantively equipped. And I think there's a modality that says, well, in some churches, well, we're going to equip the men, and then in theory, these men are going to equip their spouses. Well, one, that assumes way more of the church is married than it actually is. So what happens to single women and the widows? That's a huge question. And then secondly, the truth is I've pastored enough men to know that most men are terrible at equipping their wives. And we haven't actually done a very good job of equipping husbands to equip their spouses with gospel truth.

21:48 So there is both that direct and also that indirect equipping as well. Kathy, what number are you on in your E-series? Four, five? That was four. So we're going into five. Thank you. So I think that's important to like, as Indirectly pointed out, that there is formal and informal equipping. And so that doesn't mean that the only way that you can be equipped is formally through seminary or training class, but it's very much a great way. And I believe in our seminaries and our GCTI classes that equip, but it's not the only way. And so I think that's important that we let women know that there are ways for them to be involved in both formal and informal, and that we provide opportunities to do that, which is really hard.

22:38 And then not just doing that, but then that goes into the fifth E, which is established ministry pathways for women. Because we talk about so much, A, thing that women shouldn't do, but we don't then talk about other pathways. So I think that as church's. We need to create pathways for women to be able to be involved, that they can see clearly where they can lead and where they can use their gifts. And that's going to look differently in each church because every church has its own personality. Even in our denomination, how people use gifts and how that plays out is going to look a little bit differently. But there has to be pathways for both men and women that are clearly developed.

23:22 And I know referencing J.D. Greer again, but their church several years ago went through this massive restructuring and they took out, they looked at all their titles in their church. Obviously, senior pastor was reserved for male that was gender based. But everything else they looked at, can this role be filled by either gender or like what are the qualifications that it can be? Can that be a qualified male or qualified female? And so they changed the wording of the descriptions to be more descriptive of what it really was so that it didn't accidentally imply one gender or the other, because even it can go the other way. There could be some roles that maybe have become female gender roles, but maybe a male is really gifted in hospitality or service.

24:11 So it doesn't mean that they can't serve in that role. So I think it works both ways that we just are careful with our wording of our job descriptions and how it's presented. There are things that need more qualifications than others. Some roles need more spiritual maturity than others. And I think that needs to be stated clearly and not using unnecessarily gender-specific language when it's not needed. Yeah. And to that point, I would just say, I think that requires what you're describing requires an intentionality. For sure. Right? The kind of work you're describing J.D. doing requires an intentionality.

24:51 Hey, we are going to intentionally not accidentally discourage women from leadership roles within the church. We're not going to implicitly assume gender-specific roles where those are not necessarily clear or biblical. And I think it takes an intentionality to make those pathways happen in a way that leads to the flourishing of the church as the whole. And again, maybe I'm just reflecting out of my own weaknesses and failures, particularly in my first pastorate. Even though I had a large number of women leaders in the church and great engagement with them, I think many of them would say that they were given more of a decision-making role in a bigger seat at the table than they had been in other ministry contexts.

25:42 The truth was that I also did not put the same intentionality there. I put intentionality heavily into what it meant to disciple and equip male leaders. And maybe there's a word to us here to say, if we're going to equip and establish those pathways that you're talking about, they're not going to happen accidentally. And I think that actually a failure to do that can provoke some of the conflicts that happen regarding gender-specific or non-gender-specific roles within the church. I think women who are gifted teachers, for example, if you don't give them intentional pathways to develop those gifts and use those gifts, they're not going to necessarily just stay passive.

26:33 And then that causes conflicts that may not need to occur when the truth is the root level issue was we failed to be intentional on engaging and equipping and exhorting and calling out the called and establishing the right pathways here for women leaders. Yeah, that's very true. And there was a podcast recently that I listened to with Carrie Newhoff and Katie Cole, and it was something about seven red flags of why women are leaving the church and what to do. And one of those things is that if women aren't feeling like they can use their gifts or they can serve, then they are going to leave the church because it's sort of like they don't see that there's value for them, even though that's kind of a harsh way to put it.

27:23 But they need to feel like there's a place for them. But also she mentioned that there was just a lack of trust. Katie was talking about how women's ministry in the church overall hasn't changed a great deal in 50 years. Like it's still kind of based on the assumption that the women are the volunteers, that the women serve in serving meals. They do all of these things. But majority of women, or at least a lot, especially in California, are also working full-time jobs and taking care of their kids and trying to do volunteer things. And so they don't have the same capacity as maybe 50 years ago when it was less common for a woman to work outside of the home.

28:08 And so that affects how women find their place in churches. And obviously, we don't go to a church for what it gives us. But if we don't feel like we can use our gifts, then maybe women will go somewhere else. And so I think establishing these pathways can really help to encourage women to know that there is a place for them there and also that they're valued and also that we are really, we really are better as a whole body of Christ together. We can't just have, you know, a male body of Christ and a female body of Christ. That's not biblical at all. We're all in the same body of Christ and we all have to use our gifts together under Christ as the head. And I think that that is sometimes.

28:54 Not how women necessarily feel. And so it can lead to leaving the church. And then that leaves huge gaps. It leaves gaps in volunteer roles, but also leadership roles, mentoring roles, all kinds of other things happen. You know, just to speak to that, and I'm curious what Pastor Chase might reflect on this or you. You know, in the 1970s, China developed a policy, the one-child policy. They were trying to address the overgrowth of their population and their capability economically. And in the development of that one-child-only policy, it came with catastrophic downline consequences, mass abortions of female babies in utero, the exposure of women infants, the abandonment of them.

29:49 And now, several decades into this policy, China has done something that human biology does not do. They have inverted the global demographic, which is that there have always been more women than there are men. But China is facing this massive lack of women, and now they don't know what to do. And that has led to a secondary series of crises where there is now rampant sexual trafficking, And other problems in the country because there are far more men than there are women. So that's sort of a, you know, we could see that, look at that in the world and go, man, that's so evil.

30:29 But the latest data sets are showing something very unusual happening in the church. And that is that the number of millennial and Gen Z women is dramatically dropping off in the church. And that is something that I think every church leader should be profoundly concerned about. Because historically, even in the life and ministry of Jesus, There were all these women. And the church has historically in the United States, the backbone of the church in many ways has been women. I mean, even as much as Southern Baptists focus on certain great male preachers or things like that, we didn't name our offerings after them.

31:15 There's St. Lottie and St. Annie, these great women who exemplify the backbone of missionality and mission support within the Southern Baptist Convention, right? So what happens 10 years, 15 years, 20 years down the line within SBC churches if these trends continue unabated? And what happens when the women are no longer there? And if we don't start asking the questions about why they're not there, and is it because they don't feel like the church is a safe space? Is it because they don't feel like their gifts are appreciated? Is it because they're what you said, hey, the world's complicated, it's full of activity, and if I'm going to get treated badly at church or not recognized or looked past, what's going to happen in this dialogue here, right?

32:07 Chase, thoughts about that just sort of as a segue before we get back to... Well, we got a comment on our way of showing that we value this list of E's is commenting on it. So I hope it doesn't interrupt it too much. Theologically, I am a convinced complementarian. That said, I cannot imagine our church, Valley Baptist Church in Salinas, without the Valley Baptist ladies, and then this is important, In key non-nursery churches. Non-normally female positions of primary ministry. If you come to our church, you're going to see ladies playing starting positions on our basketball team, metaphorically speaking, because I'm convinced that 30 years in ministry, the church cannot flourish without women playing key ministry positions.

33:06 And I think if this dynamic of women leaving the church holds, and you and I both follow Dr. Ryan Burge and Barna and other people who keep up with these things, The fact of the matter is in every realm of life, you lose what you don't value. And if the church isn't rightly valuing ladies or any group, you lose what you don't value. We're losing senior citizens right now. Also, it's because the church doesn't value them. We sideline people. And sidelining people in a high-stakes, eternal game, and I guess because I'm from the South, I always think of things as sports metaphors, but sidelining people in high-stakes, eternal games that are just supremely important is the dumbest thing any coach can do.

34:00 So along those lines, and I know we got to get back to Kathy's list, but this is obviously a controversial topic. Just the whole women in ministry just in and of itself is a controversial topic. But off microphone, we had some great conversations about this and how we're going to do the episode and the right way to navigate it. And one of the things we talked about was in our question that you just asked Dr. Smith, Chris, the The question was originally written, and I think I wrote it. I'm not sure. I'm going to take responsibility for it because ultimately I didn't like the wording.

34:42 How can pastors, churches, and leaders help women leverage their gifts in the kingdom? And as of this morning, when I reread it, getting ready for today's discussion, it struck Takmi is very manipulative, is very leaders using women to build their kingdom. So pastors aren't like Jerry Jones or Mark Cuban. We don't own the team. Those are the Cowboys owner, the former Mavericks, Dallas Mavericks owner. We don't own the team. We don't own the church. Whenever I hear a pastor say, my church, blah, blah, blah, I'm like, I hope you don't mean it's your church, possessive speaking, but you mean you go to the church because we don't own the church. just Christ's church.

35:28 We are under shepherds at best. And so we're not owners of the church who utilize players to put trophies in our cabinet. And I'm afraid pastors too often think like that. And that's just dumb, unbiblical thinking. Okay, rant over for me. Well, let me just jump in on that really quick. And I'd say, I think we can go worse than that, chase, we can end up especially using the weak or the less powerful or the less influential, and we can create actually systems and dynamics that are designed to exclude, not to empower or encourage.

36:13 But we can create systems and dynamics. At some point, looking past the women becomes intentional. Looking past certain people becomes, or if we're looking at them and the goal is to get them to do something that we think is fulfilling our agenda or that we think is beneath Men, right? The Puritans said there were two consequences to the fall, not just sin, but misery. And misery included the systems of oppression, the systems of disengagement. And we see God constantly upending those systems. So the kingdoms of the world prioritize the wealthy, the powerful, the influential, the people of right birth.

36:57 But look at the Old Testament, God's looking at the orphan and the widow over and over again, right? The disempowered, the dismissed, the diminished. And I think we can unintentionally create those systems and then we can intentionally do it. So that what we want using your sports analogy is, yes, we want the women to come in and dust the trophy case. We don't even want the women on the team. We've got our star players out there. We want the women in there. Can you go make that clean and fix us a good potluck so the team can have a nice meal? And I think that I've seen that dynamic at play in so many churches. And to whatever degree I've been complicit in that, I wholeheartedly repent.

37:42 Because I think that that dynamic can be very real. But that's why I'm speaking to the issue of that intentionality to say, what are you doing to intentionally engage women? Well, I think ending part one of this interview on Pastor Christopher's question there is a good strategy. What are we doing to intentionally engage the women of our church? If you are a church pastor or church leader, in light of the current statistics, Chris's question has always been an important question to ask yourself and ask the leadership of the church now more so than ever. What statistics? Well, great question. It seems Generation Z women are disaffiliating from organized religion and leaving churches at unprecedented rates, outpacing their male peers for the first time in modern history.

38:32 Research indicates that nearly 4 in 10 young women now identify as religiously unaffiliated. Data from the Survey Center on American Life shows that women make up the majority, like 54% of Gen Z individuals who disaffiliate from religion, completely reversing the gender gap that we used to see in older generations prior to that. And recent studies from the Barnard Group, Lifeway, and other places like that highlight that young adult women now report the lowest rates of Bible reading, prayer, and church attendance among their generation. Earlier, Dr. Smith mentioned Mary of Bethany, a woman from Scripture who is one of my heroes, primarily because, honestly, she challenges me to live a life in a way that is Jesus-honoring and Jesus-pleasing, But kind of goes against my instincts, generally goes against what my flesh desires and what my brain thinks is a better use of my time.

39:32 Mary of Bethany calls us to something better than serving, and when I say that, it should make you pause or jolt and question, What could be better than serving? After all, didn't Jesus himself say that the key to greatness is serving? And of course he did. Matthew 20, 26, on the contrary, said Jesus, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. So serving is the key to greatness. And how could anything be better than that? Well, we find out the answer to that question in this amazing picture. Just a regular kind of household meeting with Jesus and a few friends in Luke chapter 10.

40:16 I'm going to begin in verse 38. While the disciples were traveling, He, Jesus, entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary who also sat at the Lord's feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand. The Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you're worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice and it will not be taken from her.

41:00 And I think we see really three things that's important to everybody in ministry that Mary of Bethany teaches us. Number one, she was sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him. Mary was listening, but Martha was distracted by her many tasks. And the Greek word there for distracted, it means being drawn around or dragged around. It's like a figure of speech, meaning you're pulled one way and then another and then another. It's very distracting to flit around doing one task after another after another. And Martha was being dragged around and distracted by serving.

41:45 Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened and, And Jesus commended Mary for that. Second thing we see is the thing that's better than serving. Martha has the boldness to sort of correct Jesus. Don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? You know, it's like she thinks he is not seeing what's going on. And of course, serving is important. Martha knows this. They have known Jesus for a while. They've probably been taught by him. And Jesus has taught his disciples that the greatest among them will be a servant. And Martha is modeling this. And you'd think that Jesus would really quickly tell Mary to join with her.

42:27 But Jesus blows up our expectations here in Martha's too. Martha expects Mary to be scolded. But instead, Jesus gently instructs Martha and gives her a different perspective. You know, Martha, Martha, you're worried, you're upset about many things. That's important. Keep it in the back of your mind. Martha's doing a good thing, not just a good thing. Martha is doing a great thing, but it's not the greatest thing in that current situation. There was an even better choice to be made. Martha is worried and upset and distracted by many things, but Mary, on the other hand, is doing that one thing.

43:10 She's made a right choice. What choice did she make? Again, she's sitting at the Lord's feet and she's listening to what he said. Mary sat and Mary listened to Jesus. So the third thing is the one thing. Hear those words of Jesus. One thing is necessary. And Mary was doing that one thing. Let that sentence wash over you, remembering who said it. Jesus, only one thing is necessary? What do you mean? We're supposed to love each other, right? We're supposed to pray, right? We're supposed to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of the poor, evangelize, do the Great Commission, serve each other, wash each other's feet, all those things, right?

43:56 Of course we are. But Jesus is telling Martha here and us, before anything else, one thing is a priority. One thing is necessary. And you and I need to assess our lives today in light of those words of Jesus. I'm much more naturally like Martha. I'm much more distracted by the things of ministry because that's what that word there means, serving ministry. It's the same word, diakonos in the Greek. I'm much more distracted by the things of ministry than I am motivated to slow down, stop, and sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him.

44:40 So do we live our lives in light of that one thing, that one necessary thing? And of course, serving is not wrong. It's the opposite of wrong. We need people to serve. The church runs on those who serve and there's not enough of those kind of people. And Jesus, of course, loved Martha. And Martha loved Jesus. And Martha was doing a great thing. But what was the problem? Martha had put a good thing, a great thing, ahead of an ultimate thing. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. We learned from Jesus himself in John 15. And Mary is giving us this beautiful picture of those words for us. Abiding comes first.

45:25 Sitting and listening to Jesus comes first. Then serving and ministry. If you learn that order, you will know more about ministry than 98 or 99% of the seminary grads out there. And that seems like a good statement to end on. Next week, we're going to have Dr. Kathy Smith back for another deep discussion as we continue down her list of how to empower and release women for abiding, serving, and ministering in the church. Thanks for listening. Well, wait, before I go, let me point you to a couple of Great Commission Association resources that you can find on our website, everychurchflourishing.com, Linked in the show notes for episode 21.

46:13 The first thing is an article that our own pastor, Christopher Cole, has written about church renewal called The God of Renewal. And you're going to want to read it. and it is linked on the GCASBC.org website. But like I said, you can also find it on our website, everychurchflourishing.com. Also, our GCA Resource of the Month is related to church renewal and is written by future podcast guests Mark Halleck and Jeremy Conrad and is a great encouragement for churches to work together for the gospel. All around us, pastors are discouraged. Churches are competing instead of cooperating, and the witness of the gospel can feel fractured.

46:57 But what if the solution isn't working harder? It's working together. In Radical Collaboration, Mark Halligan and Jeremy Conrad call us, God's people, back to his John 17 design for unity, offering a practical vision for how churches can partner, Multiply, and strengthen one another for the sake of the gospel. You can find that book on Amazon. It's called Radical Collaboration, and it's by Mark Halleck, H-A-L-L-O-C-K, and Jeremy Conrad, and you're going to want to check it out. Well, that's all for this week. We will be back next week. Lord willing, same bat time, same bat channel.

47:40 Share the show with a friend and check out our website. between now and then. Everychurchflourishing.com. Good day to you and Godspeed.