On June 11-12, 2024 the Southern Baptist Convention will hold its Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana and will vote on the second reading of a constitutional amendment stating that churches which affirm, appoint, or employ women as pastors of any kind are not in friendly cooperation with the convention and should be disfellowshipped. Last summer, the first reading of the amendment passed by a wide margin. Therefore, we anticipate that the second reading will pass as well.
We have a three-fold strategy to make the message known on a national level including
(1) releasing Midwives of a Movement for free streaming on YouTube on June 10, 2024,
(2) hosting our Annual Gathering as an online Prayer Vigil on June 10, 2024, and
(3) publishing an Open Prayer of Solidarity and Affirmation for Baptist Women which our staff will read outside the Indianapolis Convention Center while the SBC Annual Meeting business is taking place.
We hope you will engage in these efforts of the movement with us.
But even if the amendment does not pass, when the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. takes actions like these, millions of women are going to hear a message that they do not have equal value to God.
Baptist Women in Ministry’s advocacy goal in response is to counter the SBC’s denigration of women by amplifying the positive message that women are fully valued by God. We want to ensure women know there are no limits to how they can follow Christ and join in God’s work.
But we need your help to ensure that our shared commitment in affirmation of women is amplified, and also heard on the local level in the days that follow the SBC’s Annual Meeting.
This toolkit provides ideas for how you can respond to the SBC’s actions and demonstrate affirmation of women in ministry individually, as well as how churches can also take action to show that there are Baptists who fully value women’s gifts and callings.
In the days that follow the SBC’s Annual Meeting there will be a spotlight on women in ministry among Baptists. The ideas in this toolkit are opportunities for you to direct the spotlight toward equality and affirmation.
INDIVIDUAL ADVOCACY ACTIONS FOR SOLIDARITY
1. Write personalized, handwritten notes and mail them to the women pastors in your regional and/or state association.
Handwritten notes carry a unique, personal touch that can profoundly impact the woman who reads them. In an age dominated by digital communication, taking the time to write a personalized letter signifies a deep level of care and commitment. These notes affirm women pastors’ calling and dedication, reminding them that their work is valued and their leadership is crucial. By expressing appreciation and encouragement, you directly counter the negative messages and isolation that they may feel from the broader Baptist narrative.
Receiving a handwritten note can uplift and empower women pastors, reinforcing their sense of purpose and belonging. These notes foster a sense of community and solidarity, creating a supportive network among Baptist women in ministry. When women pastors know they have allies standing with them, it strengthens their resolve and inspires them to continue their vital work. This personal affirmation helps build a more inclusive and affirming Baptist community.
Hi Pastor [Name],
I hope you’re doing well! I just wanted to send a quick note to say how much I appreciate all you do for our community. Your leadership and dedication mean so much to all of us.
I know these times can be tough, especially with some of the negative messages out there, but please remember that there are so many of us who support you and believe in your calling. Your work is incredibly valuable, and we’re grateful for everything you do.
Thank you for being such an inspiring and uplifting presence. Keep
shining!
Best, [Your Name]
2. Write letters to the editor.
Letters to the editor are a powerful tool for public advocacy, allowing individuals to reach a broad audience with their message. By writing to local newspapers and news outlets, you can challenge prevailing narratives and introduce positive perspectives on women in ministry. These letters can spark public dialogue, raise awareness, and influence community opinions. It’s a way to ensure that the voices advocating for equality and affirmation are heard alongside the more traditional views.
Publishing letters in local newspapers helps normalize the idea of women in ministry and leadership roles. It challenges readers to reconsider their assumptions and opens the door for more inclusive conversations within the community. By publicly supporting women pastors, we create a ripple effect that can lead to broader acceptance and policy changes within churches and beyond. This advocacy action brings visibility to the issue
To learn how to submit a letter to the editor to your local newspaper, simply google “letter to the editor” “submission” and “name of your newspaper.”
3. Buy and wear t-shirts that promote women’s equality.
Wearing a "Limiting Women Limits God" tee shirt is a bold statement of support for women in ministry. This visible show of solidarity not only boosts the morale of women pastors but also publicly declares that limiting women's roles in the church is contrary to the fullness of God’s vision. Clothing can be a powerful form of advocacy, communicating our values and beliefs to everyone we encounter.
By wearing these tee shirts, you help normalize the presence and leadership of women in ministry. It serves as a conversation starter, providing opportunities to discuss the importance of gender equality in the church. Moreover, it creates a sense of unity among those who support this cause, making the movement more visible and cohesive. Every person who sees the shirt is reminded of the ongoing struggle for equality and the commitment of many to ensure that all are valued equally in the eyes of God.
ORDER HERE
Multiple Colors Available
4. Engage in Social Media Advocacy
Social media is an incredibly powerful platform for advocacy due to its broad reach and ability to engage people in real-time. By sharing posts and graphics that affirm women in ministry, you can influence public opinion, raise awareness, and galvanize support for the cause. Social media allows us to connect with a global audience, providing an avenue to share stories, encourage others, and challenge harmful narratives.
Engaging in social media advocacy amplifies our message, making it more likely to reach those who need to hear it. By consistently sharing positive content, we can create a counter-narrative to the exclusionary messages being propagated by other groups. Social media advocacy helps build a virtual community of supporters who can provide mutual encouragement and resources. It also serves to educate those who might be unaware of the challenges faced by women in ministry, potentially converting them into allies.
Sample Posts:
1. Every time we limit women, we limit the power of God's message. Let's lift up our Baptist sisters in ministry!
#BaptistWomeninMinistry
#BWIM
#LimitingWomenLimitsGod #Unlimited
2. Celebrating the strength, wisdom, and leadership of Baptist women pastors everywhere. Together, we call for equality!
#LimitingWomenLimitsGod
#BWIM
#BaptistWomeninMinistry
#Unlimited
3. God calls whom God calls, and that includes women! Proud to support Baptist women in ministry. #BWIM
#BaptistWomeninMinistry
#LimitingWomenLimitsGod
#SupportWomenPastors
#AffirmationForAll
#Unlimited
You can download all of these social media graphics here.
ADVOCACY ACTIONS FOR CHURCHES
1. Signs & Sidewalk Chalk
What appears on the outside of your church building communicates who you are to the surrounding community. Here are some ideas of ways you can convey your support of women in ministry to your local community.
If your church has a sign on which wording can be changed, consider a message such as:
● This Baptist church affirms women in ministry.
● A Baptist church for gender equality
● When women’s roles are limited, God’s work in the world is limited.
● Women are welcome in all areas of leadership here.
Using sidewalk chalk to write messages is another way to communicate your support of women in ministry. Consider providing chalk and asking Sunday school classes, including children’s classes, to go outside and write messages of support or prayers of affirmation for women in ministry or specifically for women who minister, pastor, or lead in your congregation.
You can also get yard signs or banners printed by a local printing company. Consider using messages like those above.
GENDER equality
CHURCHBAPTISTFOR
2. Address the SBC’s actions and include affirmation of women in ministry in your worship service on Sunday, June 16, 2024.
Whether or not your church is a SBC-partnering congregation, the actions of the SBC have an effect on all those who share the Baptist name. Congregants do not often know the details of their local Baptist church’s denominational connections, so addressing the SBC’s actions in worship can provide clarity about the church’s position on women in ministry.
Additionally, the weight of negative actions taken in other Baptist denominational groups on women in ministry and leadership cannot be underestimated. Even if women have been a part of churches which are affirming of women’s equality their entire lives, hearing messages that declare their service to God an aberrance has a spiritual, emotional, and physical effect. Negative words have an exponential impact on people. While it might be easy to simply say, “Well, we’re not that kind of Baptist,” women need to hear clearly and directly, in both words and actions, that they are valued, affirmed, and supported.
Suggestions and Examples to Use in Your Worship Service
A. Prayer of Confession and Lament
Consider including a prayer that acknowledges the ways in which women have been treated unequally throughout the history of the church, specifically among Baptists or even within your congregation. The prayer can also express lament for women who lived their lives without being able to follow God’s call fully, and also the loss that the church has experienced by not fully empowering women to use their gifts in service to Christ. Confess that even though your church is seeking to be affirming of women in ministry, you know that sometimes you do not do enough to overcome thousands of years of bias against women.
B. Litany of Affirmation
Consider including a responsive reading or litany that boldly affirms women in ministry in your congregation. Giving people an opportunity to speak words of affirmation may ingrain resolve to live out their words. The litany can include scriptural examples of affirmation for women in ministry, point to women who have led throughout Christian history, or highlight women who have been pioneering leaders among Baptists or in your congregation.
Example:
Leader: Just as God called Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah to lead the Israelites in following God more closely,
People: Women also help us to follow God’s leading.
Leader: Just as Jesus called women to follow him and pointed to women as examples of discipleship,
People: Women also teach us to be disciples of Christ.
Leader: Just as Jesus entrusted the women present at the tomb to be the first to preach the gospel of his resurrection,
People: Women also preach the good news in our midst.
Leader: Just as Paul sent greetings to Phoebe, Priscilla, Mary, Junia, and other women in Romans 16, naming them as deacons, apostles, and his co-workers in Christ,
People: Women also serve as deacons, teachers, and leaders among us.
Leader: And just as the Spirit empowered Phillip’s four daughters to prophesy,
People: Women also mediate the Spirit’s presence among us.
Leader: Believing that God worked through women to lead Israel, and that Jesus and the New Testament demonstrate there are no limits to how women can serve the church and join in God’s work in the world,
People: We, the congregation of [insert the name of your church], affirm that women can fulfill any leadership or pastoral role in this church.
Leader: And being a people who put their beliefs into action,
People: We pledge to support, uplift, and advocate so that women will know their value to God, find freedom in Christ, and have unlimited opportunities to follow God’s calling on their lives.
Leader: May the God of all people awaken our consciousness to see injustice for women, disrupt our complacency and desire to keep the status quo, and embolden our congregation to become agents of change for women’s equality.
People: Lord, hear our prayer.
C. Sermon Ideas on Lectionary Texts for June 16, 2024
● 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
○ As the text portrays God’s regret over naming Saul king (15:35), Samuel is sent to the house of Jesse to anoint the new king. When the first of Jesse’s sons goes before Samuel, God says, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart (16:7).
○ A sermon may choose to emphasize God’s perspective on leaders as not being about the classic characteristics of leaders, which tends to include being male and having characteristics typically associated with men. Instead, God focuses on a person’s heart and anoints whomever God chooses.
● Psalm 20
○ Read Psalm 20 from the perspective of a woman called by God to ministry.
○ The psalm is a prayer that the Lord would help her, the desires of her heart might be fulfilled, and her petitions to have opportunities to fulfill her calling granted.
○ The psalm also shows how when some take pride in their own wealth and power, true pride that will rise and stand is only in God alone. This can be connected to those who protect male “power” in Christian leadership, rather than opening their hearts to see that God might also speak to and call people other than those who look like them.
● Ezekiel 17:22-24
○ Like the sprig and the dried up tree, the prophecy demonstrates how God favors those who are “low,” or marginalized, such as women in the church, and will bring fruit from them making them flourish.
● 2 Corinthians 5:6-17
○ Christ’s salvation and freedom is for all – no disclaimers or conditions on who is included in all. Since no one should be seen from a human point of view, everyone in Christ is a new creation, and the old has passed away (5:17), so too must the old ways which deny that all people can serve God equally pass away.
3. Ask your church to pass a formal resolution supporting women in ministry.
Resolutions are an expression of consensus belief in the community and resolve to take action on that belief. Unlike motions, resolutions are non-binding on the entity, but demonstrate solidarity in a moment when it is needed.
At the end of your worship service on Sunday, the congregation could be moved into a church conference. After presenting an account of the SBC’s actions on women in ministry from the previous week, the congregation could be asked to consider passing a resolution which will formally express the congregation’s affirmation of women in ministry and its resolve to take action on that belief.
Here is an example of such a resolution passed by Ridgewood Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky on March 24, 2024. [pictured above, text of resolution to the right]
Resolution
Whereas Ridgewood Baptist Church has a history of ordaining women to the Diaconate, calling women to all offices of leadership and ministerial positions within the church, including Pastor, and listening to women preach the good news;
Whereas Jesus worked with, empowered, and entrusted women with the care of God’s people, and called on women to be the first preachers of the Resurrection;
We therefore proclaim emphatically as a congregation that we support, affirm, encourage, and advocate for and on behalf of women serving in all forms of leadership and authority roles in ministry.
We believe God calls women to all places of leadership and service to Christ’s holy church.
Songs Which Intentionally Affirm Women
A few examples of hymns or songs that affirm women in ministry or women’s equality are:
● For Everyone Born
● God of the Women (sung to the tune of Be Thou My Vision)
● Praise the Source of All Creation and other hymns by Jann AldredgeClanton
● Sing a New Church
● Today We Sing With Thankfulness (a hymn written in 2007 in honor of the 50th anniversary of full rights for clergy women in the United Methodist Churches)
4. Host a screening of Midwives of a Movement.
From January-May 2024, churches, seminaries, universities and other organizations hosted 30 screenings of Midwives of a Movement, a documentary which chronicles the stories of BWIM’s beginnings within the Southern Baptist Convention. Learning the story of how BWIM’s foremothers began a women’s movement within the SBC will powerfully demonstrate that no matter what challenges we face, women are called by God and the Spirit empowers us to rise up when we encounter opposition. Just as our foremothers rose up 40+ years ago, now is the time when Baptists of all kinds can find inspiration to rise up again as we are reminded that full equality for women in ministry among Baptists has not yet been reached.
Hosting a screening is simple. On June 10, 2024, Midwives of Movement will be available for free streaming anytime on YouTube so there are no limits to when you can hold your screening after that date. All you need is a way to connect a TV or screen to YouTube in order to watch. If you want to promote your screening via social media or the church newsletter, website, or email, you can find graphics to use HERE. Then set up chairs or seating and
Available June 10
put out some movie snacks and enjoy watching the 1 hour and 18 minute film together.
Once the movie is over, you might also facilitate dialogue among those present. Discussion could take place in a large group, or you might consider breaking into small groups. Here are some suggestions for questions to discuss.
● How do the events described in the film mirror what is happening for women in ministry among Baptists today in the SBC and in other Baptist denominations as well?
● How does the personal opposition women in the film describe resemble what women in ministry face on a day-to-day basis today? Perhaps ask women in ministry present at the screening to share the kinds of opposition that they have faced in seeking to follow their God-given callings.
● The women in the film talk about the importance of support, mentors, advocates, and knowing that they were in the fight together. How can we be a part of helping women have those kinds of support systems now?
● At the end of the film, Lynda Weaver Williams says that words of encouragement to women in ministry can be the means by which the glass ceiling is broken. How can we be an encouragement to female ministers among and around us to help make those cracks even larger?
● Nancy Hastings Sehested states that the suffering she knew as a woman in ministry, which was small compared to most suffering she’d seen in the world, “can be an avenue through which she can join the other suffering ones and go together toward a new vision of what it means to be human together.” What does that new vision of being human together look like to you?
As BWIM continues to share the message broadly, we want to know about your screening. You can let us know about it before or after the event by filling out the form found here Additionally, making a documentary like Midwives of a Movement is not inexpensive, so we would also be grateful if you might invite those present to make a donation to BWIM in support of the film, but also in support of all of our work–not unlike buying movie tickets.
While church members might be hesitant to come to a workshop or lecture, everyone enjoys watching a movie with friends and snacks! So hosting a screening of Midwives of a Movement is a great way to get congregants and the broader community involved in thinking about how to be better advocates for women in ministry among Baptists.
Thank you for your commitment to advocating for women in ministry and leadership among Baptists. As we navigate the challenging days following the SBC’s Annual Meeting, it is crucial that we, as a community, stand united in our affirmation of women's full value and calling. Your actions, whether through personalized notes, public advocacy, visible solidarity, or social media engagement, help to create a powerful counter-narrative to the exclusionary messages being propagated. By participating in these advocacy efforts, you are not only supporting individual women in ministry but also fostering a more inclusive and affirming Baptist community. Together, we can ensure that the message of equality and affirmation resonates loudly and clearly, echoing the truth that all people are equally valued and called by God. Let us continue to champion this cause with unwavering resolve and compassionate action.
Please consider supporting BWIM's work to create a gender inclusive Baptist world. Scan the QR code to donate or visit www.bwim.info/give.
