In the book Crucial Conversations, the authors cite a study by John Gottman in which a group of married couples were followed for about 10 years. The study revealed that divorce could be predicted within 90% accuracy based upon how the couples talked to each other during the argument, not what the couples fought about. How we talk to each other matters. My objective with this series of articles is to share that how people talked to each other drastically affected everything else during the inclusion process for my church family. Looking back, I feel we were primarily talking about the wrong things, or at least an incomplete list of things. The good news is that making adjustments isn’t difficult; it just takes awareness and persistence.

So far I’ve written two articles from my list of “Things I Didn’t Know” from our gender inclusion process:

1. For Elders Who Are Facilitating Gender Inclusion, Start Here

2. For Elders in Conversation with Upset Families about Gender Inclusion, Read This

While I used to think that inclusion processes depended primarily on scriptural education, I’ve changed my mind. After so many difficult conversations, I began to understand how scared people were, not only of actual harm but also of being uncomfortable on many levels. There is a reason the Hallmark channel is the mac and cheese of television; people want comfort and a happy ending. According to The Washington Post, Hallmark was the only non-news channel in the top 15 to see substantial viewership growth in 2016. I don’t say that to ridicule anyone. People have so much stress and anxiety, they seriously need some comfort; and gender inclusion is decidedly a stressful situation for our churches. I get that. I love a happy ending and unashamedly have watched a Hallmark movie or 20 for the same reasons. On the deepest of levels, our faith is at the very heart of who we are, and any threat to our church family is unwelcome.

From my experience, resistance to gender inclusion was far more about fear, conflict, and change than anything else. Of course, we did have people who objected to gender inclusion based upon Scripture, and I plan to write about that. However, outside the 10:30 a.m. worship hour, women had been teaching adult classes, praying, and reading Scripture in all other assemblies for many years, including small groups, camp, retreats, and Sunday/Wednesday Bible classes. Some feared the slippery slope: if we relax on gender inclusion, what liberal step is next? It never entered my mind that this study of gender would be equated with other issues, largely influenced by the tense political world. I was wrong.

The resistance to dealing with the conflict was probably the biggest barrier. Gender inclusion just didn’t seem necessary. “Don’t we already have enough to worry about? It’s not worth all this fuss.” For many in our church family, gender inclusion was viewed like the use of instrumental music during the 10:30 time slot. “We can, but we don’t. It’s not a sin, but we’d rather not. I’m okay with it, but I don’t want to stir up trouble. I can take that step, but I can never bring my parents to church with me.”

For those who didn’t want to bring in unnecessary conflict, they were just straight-up mad. I get that. If you don’t view gender exclusion as a sin, why would you invite in this “unnecessary” conflict. That doesn’t make sense considering the explosive nature of the issue.

If we aren’t talking about gender inclusion as a justice issue—meaning it’s sinful to continue to exclude people based upon gender—then we are never going to be able to handle the transition in our churches. People must understand that this issue is similar to excluding someone based upon race. While there are numerous significant differences between the two, they are both justice issues, and they both damage those who are excluded.

There is no shortage of things to read about how and why people resist change. We can’t whitewash it. We in the Churches of Christ have been hard wired not to change. We found our story and stuck to it. For many, many people, change feels more progressive, more liberal, and by definition, more dangerous to the gospel. Our religious heritage is so deeply rooted in the idea of going back that, even if we don’t know why, change can just feel wrong.

So my brave church leaders, I encourage you to seriously explore, talk, and teach what Jesus expects of us when it comes to change, conflict, discomfort, and transformation. Do we let Jesus teach us, or do we let Hallmark teach us? We are not called to watch the Hallmark channel 24/7, nor are we promised comfort. We are charged to be the hands and feet of Jesus and that, by definition, is disruptive. Jesus was disruptive. In my personal study, when I identified all the things that women were doing in the New Testament, I was pretty surprised to find a wide variety of activities including preaching, teaching, praying, prophesying and more. Although I did use commentaries and listen to scholars, for this part, I just read Scripture simply to see what the women were already doing. I honestly didn’t know that women in first-century churches were far less restricted than many are today, and this “change” we are struggling with is neither changing to something new nor is it succumbing to popular culture. Rather, it’s a return to something that existed in the first-century church. [1]

If you are a shepherd who is considering what Scripture says about gender inclusion, but feel worried that your church can’t survive the conflict, I get it and have the scars from navigating the change in my own church family. However, the absence of conflict doesn’t create peace; it creates more problems. I encourage you to read my other two short pieces written specifically for elders about effective communication dynamics. My prayers are with you for God to provide wisdom, courage, and more than a little grit as you navigate the days ahead. If I can help you on any level, please reach out.

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[1] For more on this matter, see N. T. Wright’s recent video on “Why women should be church leaders and preachers.”

This article is Part 3 in an ongoing series for elders who are leading their churches through gender inclusion processes. Find the rest of the series here.