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Can you be more specific? DO you mean women pastors and men pastors? Who are some of the leading men and women in the church?

I am the original poster.
What I am asking, in the process of leading people in a local church, whether the leader is a man or a woman, are there differences in how you lead women as opposed to how you lead men, ie. do men and women have different requirements that need to be met in order to follow the leading of someone else? I recognize that each individual responds uniquely, however, do you thing that there are any general statements that can be made as to each gender?

Cliff,

I don't recall seeing your worthy topic on the blog before. Your question reminds me of a discussion that I had with a long-time female friend some years ago. She was a member of a prosperous congregation in the Northeastern part of the United States.

She was commenting, rightly or wrongly, on one of her pastor's pet sermons, i.e., "Wives Obey Your Husbands". She felt that her pastor was out-of-touch with the needs of the large single-female portion of this churches membership, and in danger of lossing them.

With the exception of the Pastor and a few other couples in the congregation, the make-up of this congregation was mostly single females.

Given the strict teachings of this Pentecostal church, most of the single women of this congregation felt that they had little hope of ever finding a mate.

The women in this church felt that too many times their needs were simply not being ministered to. They preferred to hear a sermon topic like, 'How To Live Single in Chirst'. These women were realistic, she said, knowing that marriage might not ever be an option for them.

There simply were not any eligible single men coming into the church.

Having said that, and in response to your question, men and women are wired differently. Although both sexes have some needs in common, at the same time the needs of both sexes diverge. Many women have suffered in the pews for years, as they listened to male influenced/oriented/gender-based teachings.

I heard a woman say something interesting one time, i.e., wouldn't it be interesting if we could hear from Mrs. Adam, Mrs. Moses, Mrs, Abraham, Mrs. Job, et al...

I suspect that the reason that we are seeing so much backlash and the rise of women entering theological schools and the ministry, is because the needs of women have suffered for so many years. And not only women, many women recognize that men are in need of holistic sermons and teachings that take into account all realities. Most of us have been taught from the perspective of male conjecture and bias, ignoring the the uniqueness of the female spirit and its intuitiveness. I often wonder how much we have really missed out on.

I don't begrudge females for what they feel, given their realities and what they have experienced in the male-minority-dominated church. Women realize that many men are not whole, because they have been spoon-fed a one-sided gospel for centuries.

The very canon is written from a male perspective. Consider Acts 2;27, "...men and brethren what shall we do"? And there are many other scriptures and texts written that do not even consider women, in spite of their contributions, and we teach from that cultural perspective today.

Many women in the church feel that they have been and are still being treated like second-class citizens in the church, i.e, listen and serve and shut-up. And we all know that many times women make up the majority of the congregations and do most of the real work. Frankly, women are the backbone of the church, in my opinion, although men hold the positions of leadership.

In fact I heard a minister say one, that if all of the women left the church that he was preaching one last sermon, borrowing from the Apostle Paul, i.e., "Finally My Brethren, Farewell".

I read a tremendous book some time ago, entitled, 'The Fear of Women'. The author, Wolfgang Lederer, MD'. I do not recommend this book for everyone, particularly the weak of heart. Lederer provides an excellent historical analysis of men, women and religion. He examines sexism along with origins and history of spirituality and religion.

You may not agree with everything he says in the book, if you read it, however, his conclusions are thought-provoking. We males have attempted to dominate women, historically, in every way, and out of fear or cultural bias. Even when we are being kind to women, we are treating women as the lessor. Some of that confusion comes from being shaped by our culture, and some from our interpretation of the word, i.e., to treat women as the weaker vessel. What does that really mean?

Can you imagine with that kind of unconcious or concious bias in mind, how we minister to women. Women's topics and needs can be much different from our own, even though at times both of our needs coalesce.

Betty Friedan passed away about a week ago. I read her infamous book a couple of decades ago, however, about 10 years ago I went to hear her speak at Stanford University. She faced a partially hostile crowd of females, no less. These same female students rejected the use of the term 'feminist, because the term suggested that women need to be feminine, something that they feel that men forced upon them. The new term that these women coined was, 'womanist', I am a woman and I don't have to be feminine.

What also upset these women was when Betty Friedan offered that men are doing better than they were doing when the Feminist movement began, i.e., with respect to household chores, helping with the kids et al. But what really set the students off was when Betty said, when we started the movement we were not saying that, "we didn't want men in our lives". In fact Betty said, we always wanted men, however, we simply did not want to be treated like mindless second-class citizens.

I am concerned that women and men have spent thousands of years without having their needs ministered about or to from a truly spiritual perspective. So whether male or female, one must truly approach the spirit in-depth, with regard to ministering to the needs of people, particularly in a country like America where the majority of the population is female.

I heard a female psychologist teach the same thing, i.e., men created psychology as we know it and they render/apply it from a male perspective and a male's understanding. Male therapists, or as I noted some years ago (the -rapists), have applied their understanding of human psychology to females for years, without understanding how the female mind and spirit actually work; and without considering any serious female input. As a result we see the recent rejection of almost anything that is male by some females.

If we truly believe what Paul wrote that, in Christ there are "...neither male nor female...", we will humble ourselves and ask God to teach us what Paul meant, and how to minister to the needs and the hearts of all people and then to specific gender needs!

Secondly, I submit that if we are truly being led by the Spirit, and preaching, teaching and setting up our educational programs by the unction and guidance of the Spirit, every need in the church will be met or spoken to, regardless of sexual orientation.

As usual I am verbose, however, this is my opinion.

Peace & Grace,