Listen to Empowering Christian Women Beyond Leadership Limits

00:04 

Hey there and welcome. Are you a woman who is unapologetically ambitious, but you're also deeply focused on honoring God, loving your family well and pursuing meaningful work? Well, you've come to the right place. My name is Dana Byers and you and I are going to be fast friends. Let's get started. Before we get started today, I wanna take just a moment to share with you a testimonial from one of my clients. She says, Dana's coaching has been very impactful on my professional and personal life. I have been able to complete tasks that have been on my to-do list for over two years. Leslie, thank you for sharing all about your progress. You did it and it was so much fun to walk through that journey with you. If you'd like to learn about what it looks like to work with me, go to dana byers coaching.com/get coached.  

 

01:04 

Well, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode. This is Dana Byers. If you are listening to this in real time, as in your listening to this, the first week of August when it's released, then I am in Kenya and I would love it if you would pray for our team this week. We are partnering with a number of women who lead in Kenya and we're providing some training on spiritual transformation and leadership. Would you pray that we would be healthy? Would you pray for our safety? But also, especially just for our connections with the women, I know we're gonna make some great friendships, but I also want to just be a great encouragement and I also just want my eyes and my heart to be open to all the things that God's gonna teach me so that when I've been there and learned that I can come back to the podcast and to my clients and share with you all that God has shown me.  

 

02:01 

So I thought it would be fun this week in the episode to share with you a little bit of the training that we'll be providing the women in Kenya this week. So imagine that you are with us on this trip to some degree, and I wanna talk to you about Jesus and women. This is very specific training that we're actually providing this week. It was written by Rise Up Woman International and my friends there, I partner with them. This is an organization that if you hire me to be your coach, at least 10% of what you pay for my services goes directly to empowering women in Africa, not just in Kenya, but in a few different countries to help them with spiritual formation, with leadership development, with starting businesses and finding opportunities to improve their lives in their personal lives with their families and also in their communities and in their churches.  

 

02:59 

So RiseUP Women International gave me permission to share some of this training with you today, and I think it's very important, and here's why I've lost count, but a number of women have reached out to me over the last three years, actually before I started Dana Buyers Coaching, but especially since I started my coaching business. And they have asked me to coach them, not not directly to convince them, but to really help them come to terms with whether or not they should be in church leadership. Now, if you've listened to other episodes of this podcast, you know that I have been a pastor and a few different churches I have led at churches in significant roles. It's been an incredible blessing to me. But getting to the point of being open to doing that really took me on a big spiritual journey. And so when women ask me, Hey, can you tell me what it was that convinced you to be a woman in ministry?  

 

03:55 

I will kindly say no, and here's why. That's for you to decide. I don't think it is a sational issue. That means that if you are a woman who's in ministry, I personally don't think you lose your salvation for that. I don't think you go to hell for that. But if you are against women in leadership in the church, I will just lovingly agree to disagree with you about that. It doesn't mean we can't be friends, it doesn't mean we can't partner together. But when women ask me to help them kind of cross that belief line, I realize that that's actually the job of the Holy Spirit. So what I will say is we can have conversations around this. I can ask you questions around this, but I don't believe it would be appropriate for me to try to convince you. So in that light, what I'm going to share with you right now isn't necessarily, you know, a mindset of convincing everyone that women should be in church leadership.  

 

04:52 

In fact, I really just wanna talk about Jesus, his relationship with women. And I wanna talk about it specifically for the very stories that we see in scripture that we use to guide us to see how radical Jesus' approach to inviting women and involving them in his day-to-day life and in his ministry that was very radical in the culture at the time that he walked the earth being fully God and fully man at the same time. So I wanna talk about that because regardless of whether or not you believe women should be in church leadership, you're probably a woman listening to this and you probably lead somewhere. So the things I'm gonna share with you here with specific scriptural references, I'll give you the references. I'm not gonna read through all of them, but I want you to let this be kind of a quick study.  

 

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But you can take note of the scriptures I share with you and go look at them yourself. Allow them to give you insight into maybe the ways that Jesus is inviting you into bringing leadership to the places that he has plugged you into, whether or not it's your church, but certainly in your family, in your home and in the workplace. So when we think about Jesus and women, I really want us to recognize that Jesus valued women. He invited women to become his followers. Women played a significant role in his ministry, and in the beginnings of the early church, you see, Jesus, he showed concern for a wide spectrum of women that we read about in the Bible. And I wanna point out, these were women who had no standing whatsoever in the community. Here's a few examples. He healed the woman with 12 years of bleeding.  

 

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You can read about that in Matthew, mark, and Luke. Jesus raised a widow's only son from the dead. In Luke's seven, he healed a crippled woman on the Sabbath that was scandalous to do that on the Sabbath and to heal a crippled woman that's in Luke 13. Jesus was anointed by a woman with oil and Bethany, and you can read about that also in Matthew, mark, and John. It's really believed by most theologians that in the Matthew, mark and John translations in, in those stories that the woman who anointed Jesus with oil and Bethany was actually Mary, Mary, the sister of Lazareth and Martha Lazarus and Martha. But then we also read another account where he received, he allowed a prostitute to pour perfume on his feet and he offered her redemption. That is in Luke seven. And it's believed that is a different woman than the Mary that we read about in Matthew, mark, and John.  

 

07:42 

So Jesus also gave high honor to women as faith models. You know, there are four women that are listed in Jesus genealogy. If you look at that, at Matthew one, Mary was admired for her willingness to be used by God. And that was in Luke 1 26 to 38. The first Samaritan convert was the woman at the well. That's in John chapter four. The first Gentile convert was the woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon who debated with Jesus. That's in two gospels in Matthew 15 and in Mark vi. And then finally, another place that Jesus gave high honor to women as a faith model was that the first witnesses to the resurrection were women. That's in all four gospels in the book of Matthew, mark, Luke, and John Jesus. Also, he told stories or parables with women as the primary characters. He really let their lives be an example.  

 

08:43 

One place he did that was about the woman and the lost coin. In Luke 15, he also shared a parable about the persistent widow in Luke chapter 18. And there was the widow who gave her last coin. That account is in Luke 21 and in Mark 12. And then finally, Jesus offered opportunities to women to participate in his ministry and to be part of his spiritual family. You can read about that in Matthew 12, verses 46 to 50. Jesus refers to his followers as his family. So he's, he's saying that, you know, they traveled and served alongside him and the 12 disciples. So this would've been especially scandalous in his day for Jesus to speak, of having followers who were sisters, who that would've been particularly unusual to use that language. You know, that there were young women who were, they were barred from participation in all aspects of religious life in that day and age in the culture.  

 

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Yet Jesus came and he says that through obedience to his commands, women can be become his true sisters. And then we think about how Jesus gave spiritual gifts to the church, both male and female, to do his work and to build up the church. You can read about that in Ephesians four, in Romans 12, and in one Corinthians 12, one to 30. And then think about how women were inspired by the Holy Spirit to lead, to teach and to share the good news. For example, we read about Lydia in Acts 16, Priscilla and Aquila in Romans 18. And then there were the women of course, in Titus two. And then of course, you're very familiar with Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Martha and Mary Lazarus's sisters and Jua, who was likely, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but many theologians believe that Jua was likely a female apostle.  

 

10:42 

You can read about her in Romans 16. So I just want you to think about, as you consider all of these references directly from the Bible, that God desires to use men and women to advance the kingdom. My intent here is never to create division among the genders. My intent here is to support women who struggle with their self-worth, and who struggle to agree with Jesus about the value that they bring. So my hope would be that as you take these scripture references, that you would open up your Bible, that you would look at them and recognize that as a woman, you have great value to Jesus. And our task, really our focus as the church, is to heal the broken places that resulted from the fall to show the world God's intentions. And one of these broken places, frankly, is the valuing of men and women.  

 

11:38 

Equally, depending upon where a woman lives, she might have significantly lost rights that I believe Jesus would want her to have. That's my opinion, but I'm injecting that in there because you know, it's, it's really important for us to, to be able to have everything that we need. And I believe God has given us everything we need spiritually to follow him and to lead to be servant leaders. But it's so important for us to, as women, as men, unite, to make sure that women have opportunities to lead. God made no mistake in giving you spiritual gifts. And for my part, you know, if I get to heaven and find out that I made a mistake that I was incorrect about women in leadership, I am willing to take responsibility for that. Personally, I have decided that I've taken every opportunity God's given me to lead, not only in the workplace and in my family, but also in the church, because I would really be heartbroken to see 50% of the population, meaning women not being able to fully express the leadership gifts and skills that God has given them.  

 

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So our task is to be the best of citizens. Whether or not you agree with women being in leadership in the church, we can be the best of citizens, not only in the church, but everywhere we live. We can serve faithfully, we can serve with respect in the place that God has entrusted us to care and to bring leadership. So I want you to think about these scriptures encouraging you to lead well where you are. And remember, we are commanded to live and lead with love and unity, and I believe that God has given you everything you need to utilize those spiritual gifts that he intentionally gave to you, so that you can lead and serve those in your sphere of influence at work and at home with excellence. All right, friends, thanks for joining me on this episode. I'll see you really soon. Are you a Christian working woman who is looking to boost your confidence and transform your life? Well, I have got just the thing for you, my online course. The 10 hour confidence transformation is available now. This course is designed to fit into your busy schedule and provide you with actionable strategies to increase your confidence. Plus, with your purchase, you will get access to a private monthly group coaching call where we can connect and grow together. Get all the details right now@danabycoaching.com.