What are your Christmas traditions? Trimming the tree? Baking and decorating cookies? Cooking special dishes reserved for the holiday season? If you’re a parent, surely it includes a family gift exchange.

Growing up, those were all traditions we followed, and when I got married and had kids of my own, it was a no-brainer to bring those same traditions into my newly established family.

However, six years and four kids into my parenting journey, I found myself dreading what was supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Shopping for gifts was taking up all my time post-Thanksgiving, on top of church Christmas play rehearsals, recitals, and countless Christmas gatherings. I was at my wit’s end. I had come to associate the holiday season with utter chaos and overwhelming fatigue.

One December night, frazzled, I asked my husband, Moses, a rhetorical question: “What if we stopped giving Christmas gifts to the kids?”

To my surprise, he didn’t immediately shut down my idea. I guess it wasn’t a rhetorical question after all. By the time the next Christmas rolled around, we had made our decision: gift exchanges would be no more in the Sanchez household. The harder task would be getting our extended family on board. 

Rethinking the Christmas gift exchange

To paint a picture for you, as a first-generation Filipino-American, Christmas is a main event to say the least. There’s an old joke that Filipinos only celebrate Christmas during the months that end in “ber.” If you’ve ever visited the Philippines anytime after September 1, you would see that’s no exaggeration. Not to mention, I have four sisters close in age, and I’m the only one with kids. The tita (aunt) temptation to spoil your nieces and nephews is real, and my parents could hardly help but overindulge their only grandkids.

I’ll never forget the dread I felt as I sent a text to our extended family, politely asking them to skip the gift exchange. I was careful to avoid questioning their motives. Instead, I explained we would reserve birthdays as a time to shower our kids with presents. 

The Christmas season would be our opportunity as a family to emphasize other values: 

1. We want to create memories as a family. In other words, we want to emphasize experiences over things.

My family and I live in New York City, and are fortunate enough to have access to plenty of festive Christmas activities. One experience we’ve experienced together is visiting the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree and the Holiday Train Show at Grand Central Terminal. Another memory we’ve experienced as a family for the past several years has been staying at a friend’s cabin in the Poconos over the days leading up to Christmas and spending quality time there eating junk food, watching our favorite holiday movies, and playing board games. 

2. We want our kids to prioritize serving others.

We’ve given out bags of coffee to strangers we pass by on the street, or gift cards to the workers at the bodegas we frequent (small grocery stores common in NYC; if you know, you know), or baked cookies for our neighbors in our apartment building. 

In the animated short film A Charlie Brown Christmas, the wise sage Charlie Brown bemoans the fact that materialism has upstaged the celebration of Christ’s birth and a spirit of generosity has been nearly forgotten during the holiday season. I couldn’t agree more.

Several questions sparked our decision to redefine Christmas traditions for our family:

• Could there be an alternative to the self-centered, materialistic, American cultural celebration of Christmas?
• We have the responsibility as parents to shape the values of a generation that will outlive us, how will we steward this well?

Replacing the gift exchange with new holiday traditions

We are now six years into our holiday tradition, and as expected, we have tweaked it a bit (although the same values steer any changes we make). We still don’t do traditional gift exchanges, but we do a “Secret Santa” in which each kid is randomly assigned a sibling to shop for at Five Below. 

We’ve been consistent for the past three years to get away to the Poconos, sometimes at our friends’ cabin and sometimes at a Christian camp site. We now have a hot cocoa bar and watch our favorite Christmas movies while chomping on homemade popcorn. One year, my sisters joined us and the plastic wrap game tradition was born, in which small toys and candies are wrapped tightly within a ball of plastic wrap and players take turns unwrapping, keeping any prize that falls out during their turn. For the past five years, we’ve visited Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, known for their lavish Christmas lights displays, and the kids look forward to buying overpriced ice cream from trucks that line each block of the neighborhood. 

I know some of you may be reading this and thinking: “Grinch–ahem. I mean, Marilette, that all sounds noble, but my kids would hate me.” Or maybe, “What would my parents think if I deprived them of the chance to spoil their grandkids?” 

To which I would just offer a couple paradigm shifts that would apply whether or not you decide to buy presents.  

• What if we valued experiences and quality time over more “stuff”? In lieu of toys, you can offer a trip to the ice cream shop, a movie, concert or sporting event, or maybe consider a gift that keeps on giving like a year-long membership to a museum or botanical gardens.
• What if we valued buying educational toys or enhancing a current talent or interest? Instead of buying the latest flashy toy that your kid will lose interest in within a couple of days, what if you bought your musically-inclined child a new keyboard or guitar? Do you have a budding artist in your midst? Try buying them a new art kit, easel, or even art lessons for the year. 

Choose what’s right for your family

I recently asked my family members if they remember their initial reaction to that infamous text. To my surprise, my sisters recall not minding at all. One of them, whose love language is quality time, was excited for the opportunity to redirect her funding toward things she could experience alongside the kids. Two were relieved to at least have the opportunity to spoil the kids on their birthdays with no limits. One of them was excited at the prospect to be innovative and create new traditions. 

My mom recalls her and my dad’s disappointment in not being able to see the excitement on the kids’ faces while opening presents during Christmas. I concede that there are different dynamics at play between being a grandparent versus a parent. All that to say, I have a newfound respect for my parents who respected our boundaries, despite not wholeheartedly agreeing with our family’s decision. 

My intention in sharing our nontraditional family tradition is not to be closed-minded and pushy about all families needing to follow in our footsteps. I simply want to encourage parents not to mindlessly follow the traditions thrust upon us by society at large. Instead, let’s realize the freedom we have to create our own family traditions and values. 

As parents, we get to choose what is best for our family in each season. We have every right to switch up the status quo, and must remind ourselves often that there is always room to tweak and pivot from the “normal” as time goes on. I hope hearing a snippet of my family’s story can be a reminder to others of the freedom we have available to us in Christ in our parenting journey and beyond.

Adapted from “Why I’m Rethinking Gift Exchanges This Christmas,” originally published on Marilette Sanchez.com. Used with permission. Copyright © 2023 by Marilette Sanchez. All rights reserved.

Marilette Sanchez is a New Yorker passionate about finding the connections between God, relationships, and pop culture. She is wife to Moses, a homeschooling mom to five young children, and a full-time missionary with FamilyLife. She believes there is more to the Christian life than hypocrisy and more to pop culture than shallow art. College sweethearts and NYC natives, she and her husband, Moses, are FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember® speakers known for their transparency and their ability to inject their love of hip hop and pop culture into their discussions of love, sex and marriage. She has recently co-founded an online apparel company to raise awareness for mental health issues in the church and communities of color. Follow her parenting and homeschooling journey on Instagram at @bigcitybigfamily and her musings on womanhood and pop culture at marilettesanchez.com. 

The post Rethinking the Gift Exchange for Christmas appeared first on FamilyLife®.

The post Reconciliation Begins With Lament appeared first on FamilyLife®.

The post The Gospel and Race appeared first on FamilyLife®.

The post “How can I continue to live out love in this conversation in new spaces?” appeared first on FamilyLife®.

The post Encouragement and the Fight for Justice appeared first on FamilyLife®.

For the longest time, I wanted to be a movie director—framing breathtaking shots, unfolding the story, drawing out intense emotion, and revealing deeper meaning to art and circumstances. One movie reviewer’s quote revealed a reason we can’t get enough of Hollywood: “Nowadays, I’ll pay anything just to feel something.”

Don’t we all long for genuine emotion and meaning? 

The Christian life isn’t exempt. I remember many evangelistic sermons painting a charmed existence not unlike a cinematic fairy tale, an 80s action thriller, or an amusing rom-com. Faith in Jesus was communicated as a “happily ever after” of desires finally satisfied, exhilarating adventure, and always getting the spouse you’ve been saving yourself for. 

Our spirits long for meaning and adventurous plot. But so often we come to Christ on a spiritual high. We burrow into the Bible and throw ourselves headlong into ministry, all the while asking in the back of our minds, “Is this all there is?” 

Is this all there is?

All of us who know Jesus will consciously, or unconsciously, answer one of three ways: 

1. “Yes. This is all there is.” 

We walk away from Jesus because life isn’t that great. And sometimes, changing diapers in the church nursery just doesn’t feel like adventure or drama on the big screen.

2. “Yes. I probably just need to do more ministry.” 

We search for fulfillment from the spiritual activity we’re accomplishing, distracting ourselves from answering honestly.

3. “No.” 

Something tells us God wants our story to go deeper: more plot, more meaning. 

“Is this all there is?” is a critical question for anyone discipling professing Christians, because God Himself often inlays that craving for more (see Isaiah 55:1-9).

What differentiates answer #3? The Holy Spirit. He takes His seat as the movie’s director. Surrendering to the Holy Spirit allows us to manifest our most purposeful, most alive selves.

Consider asking the person you’re guiding which of these answers is closest to their own.

I’ve helped believers process whether to go to med school, get married to that girl, become a pastor, or move to that town. And I’ve found that instead of conventional wisdom, the Spirit-filled life nudges us to a deep actualization of God’s unique image in each of us, toward understanding our deepest longings for good, overcoming our greatest fears, and experiencing the Bible vibrantly. We begin to sense, “I am where I am supposed to be.” Even when, like Jesus Himself experienced, He leads us into hardship. 

He’s not the holy add-on

It’s easy to treat the Holy Spirit as an add-on to God the Father and Jesus—maybe synonymous with “the Force,” or the ability to fly in “The Matrix.” I once thought of Him as an impersonal “it” rather than a person, someone with whom you’d experience a dynamic relationship. 

Us Westerners love our “freedom.” We don’t answer to anyone! But the Holy Spirit is both out of our control and downright mysterious. Giving Him control makes us feel vulnerable. And He may be downright unwelcome if you’re trying to direct your own movie. 

The Spirit-filled life means surrendering our lifestyle, frame-by-frame, to His authority and direction. Talk about countercultural! Ask the person you’re guiding, “What have you learned about the Holy Spirit?”

In the movie of our lives, the Holy Spirit guides us toward wisdom and truth. It’s completely possible to listen to Him, allow His wisdom to fill us (Ephesians 5:18), manifest His fruit (Galatians 5:22-23), and apply the Word to our lives much like a genius script to a lead actor (John 14:26). That’s how we experience the fullness and purpose the Christian life was meant to offer (Isaiah 61:1). 

Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would be our Great Counselor and live inside of us as believers (John 14:16-17).

We can guide others to surrender the director’s chair and megaphone in four key ways.

4 ways to guide someone toward a Spirit-filled life

1. Stop faking it.

I once discipled a young man who was going through the motions of leading worship every day, but you could tell he wanted to do anything but play guitar. He once told me, “Inauthentic spirituality is just as uncomfortable as a bad movie or an actor who feels disingenuous.” 

Actors embrace their full potential when they allow the director to go to uncomfortable places, trading “performance” for genuine, gripping immersion into a story. And the very life of a Spirit-filled believer becomes riveting as they display the magnificent glory and beauty of Jesus. Others behold His power to change lives, mend the brokenhearted, pursue justice, show mercy, pull beauty from ashes, refine motivations.

Encourage those you’re guiding to intentionally invite and agree with the Holy Spirit as He exposes vulnerabilities and incongruences in us. Be open as He challenges us to allow God into all of our story, private thoughts, motivations, decisions, and even our relationships. 

Romans 12:1 pleads with us to be “living sacrifices” to God, dedicating our whole lives to Him, down to the transformation of our hearts and thoughts. 

Ask the person you’re guiding, “What parts of your story and my story does the Holy Spirit need an all-access pass? In what parts are we faking it?”

2. Embrace the retake. 

The best actors and directors also know, sometimes immediately, when they’ve bungled a scene. A missed line is more than an opportunity for the blooper reel. It’s a window to build a more worthy story, to begin again.

When you came to Jesus, you confessed your sins—admitting your profound need for Him, His forgiveness, His control. A Spirit-filled life is the pursuit of a lifestyle of confession, dependence, and surrender. 

These places to confess become deeper and more vulnerable as we surrender more and more to the Holy Spirit’s powerful, trustworthy directorship. Instead of settling for surface-level confession, the Holy Spirit will challenge us deeper into our stories, shaping beauty from our lifetime of brokenness. He desires to peel back our layers—to guide us toward greater purpose, more than any human director could.

Ask the person you’re guiding, “What could it look like to regularly embrace confession in your life?”

3. Trust the Spirit’s process.

If you wept along with “Schindler’s List” or shared the triumph of “The Avengers,” you felt with me the power of a story to display a genuine experience of humanity, truth, or redemption. The greatest lows or conflict in a movie serve to sweep us to greater awe in a story’s resolution, particularly for the hero after their gut-wrenching sacrifice. (Spoiler: In real life, the hero is not you.) 

Confession can feel shameful or embarrassing. But its greater purpose is to restore wholeness to our relationships with others and God. In any relationship, simply saying “sorry” is never enough. As in the redemption of any fallen person, we must deliberately open our hearts, rebuild trust, commit to change, and pursue healing or reconciliation. 

When God tells us He will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), it’s a familial promise to remain resolutely on our side and create beauty from our personal tragedies, small or large. His Spirit guides us into all truth (John 16:13), and that relationship relentlessly teaches us, encourages us, and redeems us. When we are living Spirit-led lives, we listen to Him and pour out our hearts, sometimes even wrestling with Him on the arc of our redemption story. To the person you guide: “What would you need to let go of to open your heart to the Holy Spirit’s process?”

4. Stay connected.

In John 15:1-15, Jesus casts a vision of God the gardener, Himself the vine and His followers as the branches on the vine—branches that get pruned to bear fruit. What’s amazing about bearing fruit is that all it requires is being a branch connected to nutrients. It’s this constant connection to God that allows us to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s activity in our lives. We immerse ourselves in God’s Word, as well as families and communities who help us follow Jesus. 

Dr. John Townsend writes that relationships actively provide “nutrients” to fuel our lives, loves, and leadership. And a continuous relational attachment with the Holy Spirit fuels us, too, to live the life God shaped us to live (Ephesians 2:10).

Just like no actor can work apart from the director, Jesus warns candidly that “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Consider asking the person you’re guiding, “What might you add to your daily rhythms to stay connected to Jesus as your ‘vine’?”

A Spirit-filled life: the secret of a don’t-miss story

So guide others to lean into—not away from—the question, “Is this all there is?” 

Fed and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live a truly vigorous life. One where we’re constantly changed toward Jesus’ beauty, holistically connected, and soaked in a life-changing gospel. We will be people who walk in humility, naturally care for others, love justice and mercy, deepen our walks with the Lord, and cherish our families wholeheartedly. The Spirit-filled life is a promise of an existence that can only grow deeper, richer, and more meaningful. 

It’s a compelling, life-altering existence to the movie that is life.

Copyright © 2023 by FamilyLife. All rights reserved.

Tony Wee serves as the Executive Director of Field Expansion for FamilyLife. He received a Masters of Divinity from Talbot School of Theology and has been a missionary with Cru for nearly two decades. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Steph, and their three kids.

Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and frequent contributor for FamilyLife, including Art of Parenting®, Art of Marriage®, and regular articles. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International. Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (Harvest House), empowers parents to creatively engage kids in vibrant spirituality. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.

The post A Spirit-Filled Life: 4 Ways To Guide Someone  appeared first on FamilyLife®.

One Thanksgiving day, Bart Campolo, son of well-known evangelical professor and speaker Tony Campolo, told his father he no longer shared his father’s faith.

Shocked, Tony didn’t believe what he was hearing. How could his son, who had served alongside him for over two decades in some of the most economically depressed communities in America, preaching the gospel and serving the marginalized, now no longer identify as a follower of Jesus?

His son losing faith in Christ brought Tony deep hurt. It was like “somebody put a knife in my stomach,” he would later say.

If you’re reading this article, perhaps you’re deeply concerned about someone you love who is struggling to maintain their faith. Or maybe you’re like Tony, trying to understand why it is that the child you raised to love Jesus no longer believes in God. When those we care about are on the verge of losing the faith we hold dear, it can be terrifying and painful.

If that’s you, I would like to offer a few suggestions to help you navigate what can be an emotionally turbulent experience. When someone we love has left the faith, the most important thing we can do is stay in the conversation.

But in order to do that, we’ll need to tread lightly. That might feel counterintuitive; we want to fix this. Resist that (harmful) impulse.

Want to remain a positive influence in their life for Jesus? Consider adopting the following suggestions.

6 steps when someone you love is losing faith

1. Avoid overreacting.

Recently, my 12-year-old daughter said she no longer believed in heaven. Instantaneously,  

I felt sick to my stomach: “Is my daughter deconverting?” Followed by, “I need to I fix this. Now!”  

Thankfully, I resisted that urge. It took everything in me to restrain myself from offering an over-the-top argument for heaven. But that would have been a mistake, causing more damage to her faith than good.

If I had expressed my fears and frustrations at that moment, I would have shut down my daughter from ever opening up and sharing her doubts with me in the future. Open lines of communication are crucial.

And the best way to sever those lines is to overreact when they share doubt and unbelief.

Our kids need to know it’s safe to reveal what they’re really thinking and feeling without being afraid someone they love will fly off the handle. Despite being caught off guard, instincts in this case are not what we should follow.

Think through in advance how you might respond to a child or friend informing you of serious doubts about Christianity. Have a plan for how you will respond. While no two plans will look the same, all need to include these next several features.

2. Listen patiently.

At the conservative evangelical institution where I work, an unofficial campus group has formed, aimed at being a safe environment for those who losing faith. Rather than gathering to study evidence for Christianity or bolster their faith through Christian apologists, this group longs to express doubts and frustrations without judgment or someone attempting to resolve their questions. Those losing faith may not desire an answer—at least initially—as much as a compassionate ear.

If your child or a friend is willing to confide in you something so personal as a faith crisis, the best thing in that moment is to refrain from trying to solve their problem. Instead, listen patiently.  

This means not interrupting. Not asking if they have really thought this through. Not suggesting solutions.

It means trying diligently to hear beneath the surface. Sometimes, stated reasons offered for someone’s doubts might not be the true source. Listening patiently means asking questions—

not so we can craft a response, but rather to both understand and make your friend feel heard.

Consider questions like these:

• When you say _______, can you help me understand what that means?
• How long have you been feeling like this?
• Did something specific bring about your doubts?
• What I hear you saying is_______. Is that right?
• Is your thinking still in process, or have you arrived at a settled position?

But avoid questions like these.

• How can you not believe it’s true?
• Aren’t you just angry at God because of _______?
• Do you know how much this hurts me?
• Is there sin in your life?
• Have you really looked into the evidence for Christianity?

As hard as your friend’s statements may be to hear, it’s important to thank them for doing so. Let them know you appreciate that they cared enough to tell you. Acknowledge that it must have been difficult to bring up the subject.

Doing so will offer proof that you really mean what you say next.

3. Love unconditionally.

Pam’s story was achingly similar to dozens I interviewed. Once Pam shared with her mother she no longer identified as a Christian, Pam’s mother refused to speak to her. Years passed without a word between them. When Pam went to visit her mother on her deathbed, her mother turned away, refusing to acknowledge her presence.

Devastated, Pam’s unbelief calcified into a heart of stone that will take nothing short of a miracle to soften. To Pam and others, rejection confirmed they want nothing to do with Christianity.

Your emotions of betrayal can feel devastating and powerful, fueling a “justified” rejection of those we feel have betrayed not only us, but God.

But more than anything, our children and friends need to know we love and accept them unconditionally. And by unconditionally, I mean with no strings attached. That they will always be welcome in your home. And—if this person is your son or daughter—that they will always be your child. We communicate we love them even if they reject the most important thing to us, our faith.

This allows us to cultivate a relationship where we can stay in the conversation.

But even more, this demonstrates God’s unconditional love for them. Think of the woman at the well. Zacchaeus. The woman caught in adultery. All had rejected him with their lifestyles. But Jesus pursued them, loved them, and kept the conversation going.   

We don’t just stay in the conversation for our agenda, a search-and-rescue mission—but because we are also the rescued. We, too, have been loved unconditionally.  

Consider stating something like this to your child or friend: “You need to know, no matter what you believe, I will always love you. Of course, it’s hard for me to hear this. But my love and acceptance of you aren’t based on you identifying as a Christian. I will always be there for you and support you wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever you believe.”

4. Establish boundaries.

Former Christians commonly complain of conversations with loved ones who constantly try to reconvert them. Eventually, those relationships become strained and lead to resentment or even estrangement.

And yet your friend or child needs to understand this news is something you need to process—an opportunity for further conversations. You can’t force these conversations, but you can increase the odds of a positive response: “You can probably imagine this is hard for me to hear. I need some time to process it. Would you be open to talking about this soon? Maybe we can set aside time next week to chat. We can talk about how to navigate it, so it doesn’t lead to both of us becoming frustrated.”

Then,

• Express your desire to respect them by not raising the issue every time you see them.
• Ask if they would be open to a few follow-up conversations to help you understand better what led them here.
• Allow them to set the terms of these conversations’ frequency, how open your friend is to hearing apologetic responses from you attempting to make the case for Christianity.

If they are afraid every chat will lead to you challenging them, expect fewer visits and phone calls. Specific times to discuss matters of faith will be much less damaging.

5. Play the long game.

When it comes to someone you love losing faith, commit to playing the long game: resisting the urge to pressure them to quickly return to the faith, and instead, developing the kind of relationship that allows you to play a role in their future return.

As hard as it is to do, we need to exercise patience, recognizing decisions made, for example, by our children in their high school and college years aren’t usually the end of the story. Typically, with age comes wisdom and experience; both of which can cause what’s foolish in our 20s to seem reasonable in our 50s.

Like a lot of things in life, seeing faith in a new and positive light may take time. A long time. Keep investing in the kind of relationship that allows you to stay in the conversation.

6. Remember Peter isn’t Judas.

Both Peter and Judas denied Jesus. But Peter repented and returned to serve Jesus even more wholeheartedly. Admittedly, Peter’s return happened shortly after his denial. But that isn’t always the case. I know of many individuals who have deconverted and then, years later, returned to the faith.

Lauren, who led worship and served as a youth leader at a church she planted, became disillusioned after church leadership mistreated her terribly. Eventually, she denied the faith. Lauren went on to make over 200 films in the adult entertainment industry. But porn wasn’t the end of her journey.

God miraculously got ahold of Lauren. Today, she is once again a follower of Jesus.

For intellectual reasons, Darrin left the faith he’d grown up in. He became an online atheist apologist, writing for a popular anti-Christian website and actively seeking to destroy Christians’ faith.

But God opened Darrin’s eyes. After becoming convinced by the evidence for Christ’s resurrection, Darrin recommitted his life to Jesus, and once again calls himself a Christian.

If Lauren and Darrin—about as far morally and intellectually from Christ as a person can get—

can return, there’s hope for your loved one too. God’s heart is for your friend or child.

He really does love them more than we do. We know this because he sacrificed His Son for our children and friends (Romans 8:31-32). We can trust He never stops actively working to draw them back to Himself (John 5:17).

[1] Tony Campolo, Leaving My Father’s Faith, directed by John Wright, aired on February 7, 2018.

Copyright © 2023 by John Marriott. All rights reserved

Dr. John Marriott is the Director of the Biola University Center for Christian Thought. He teaches in the Philosophy department at Biola and also teaches at Talbot School of Theology. John serves as a consulting editor for the theological journal, Sacrum Testamentum, and acts as the Director of Cultural Engagement for the Renaissance Group. Learn more at JohnMarriott.org, and visit LosingMyFaith.org for more resources.

The post When Someone You Love Is Losing Faith appeared first on FamilyLife®.

The post Obstacles to Faith appeared first on FamilyLife®.

The post FAQ: What do Christians believe? appeared first on FamilyLife®.

“Taryn” is a manager in a Christian nonprofit. She pulls long, passionate, thoughtful hours managing others and making critical decisions toward the organization’s mission to represent Jesus around the world. 

But in light of the world identifying Jesus’ disciples by how they love one another, Taryn sometimes finds this harder as a woman in her organization. 

“I’ve seen firsthand that when a man presents the same idea as a woman, the idea and the presenter’s expertise is trusted with far fewer questions, and the idea takes off. So I’ve actually asked male colleagues to present an idea of mine without any attribution. I wish I didn’t need to channel my ideas through a male mouthpiece for them to be taken seriously.”  

By the numbers

Of churchgoing women, Barna reports 27% do not feel they’re making the most of their potential. Their research also indicates:

• Twenty percent feel underutilized.
• Sixteen percent feel opportunities are limited by their gender.
• Thirty-seven percent feel ministry would be more effective if women were given more opportunities to lead.

Barna notes, “Only half of women (47%) say the male leaders in their church are willing to change the rules and structures to give women more leadership opportunities.”

Wheaton professor Dr. Amy Reynolds concludes, “The church and church-based organizations are missing out on a depth and breadth of perspective that is necessary to be the church. Some of this may not be due to principled opposition to women in leadership, but due to a lack of initiative to support and actively encourage women in leadership.” 

What do we stand to lose?

When ministries and churches increase diversity within leadership, science indicates this opens the door for more creativity, better decision-making, and positive financial outcomes. When we welcome all of God’s body to the table, we’re simply better. Business professional Diane Paddison notes, “Like many other working women, I would like to feel that my professional ability—a great gift that God has given me—is welcomed and acknowledged by my church along with my maternal proclivities.”

Even more, to empower women critically displays God’s heart to current and future generations. Some Christian women perceive that in secular employment, their voices are more welcomed and celebrated, pay is greater and more fair, women can advance, and their God-given value is actively sought, even if it’s not celebrated as such. 

This is our opportunity toward renown for both God’s Word and His intentional, image-bearing creation of women. 

Can the gospel, the church, and the Great Commission afford not to develop women to their fullest God-honoring potential? 

7 ways to develop and empower women

Consider ideas like these.

1. Be clear about where you stand. 

One director of diversity at a Christian missions organization suggests clarity in a Christian organization’s communication and pursuit of gender diversity. 

The director offers, 

If you’re providing equal access to both genders to all positions and levels of leadership, do you have a plan to intentionally pursue that diversity—assuming you see the value of diverse opinions on their leadership and decision-making teams? 

If a value is stated but not observed, staff will begin to question leadership’s actual value of equal access. Decision-making teams will also lack representation from the variety of staff that they are representing and miss out on the various gifts, perspectives, and skills brought by both genders and other diversity.

When we “just let things happen naturally” and not intentionally pursue diversity, there are often unrealized factors that prevent us from becoming more diverse—like unconscious bias, workplace culture, and simply tending to prefer people like us.

If, as a workplace, you determine different roles are available differently because of gender, be extremely clear about this—and be open with your staff about the reasoning and implications, she recommends. 

If this is clear, women will hopefully know what they’re signing up for. If not, this can breed resentment and confusion.

2. Invite her in. 

Studies indicate faith-based organizations statistically struggle with females self-monitoring to the point they stifle their own diverse opinions. Harvard Business Review (HBR) calls this the “’modesty mandate’ that can lead [women, those of Asian descent, and first-generation professionals] to hold back their thoughts or speak in a tentative, deferential way.” 

Counter these biases by asking these populations to not hold back, but speak up, and then directly requesting their opinions: “Tamara, you’ve had a lot of experience on this. What’s your take?” Then, acknowledge what they’ve shared. 

Like other less represented groups in a business, whether faith-based or church setting, women may shrink back if there’s a dominant style of conflict or interruption. Stop the interruption or circle back to acknowledge their opinion. This helps chronic interrupters understand the desired communication style, as well, notes Brittany Adams, Human Resources Deputy Director and Diversity Specialist at Engineering Ministries International. 

In the desire to interrupt these biases, HBR also suggests the best managers, in the interview process, “insist on a diverse pool, precommit to objective criteria, limit referral hiring, and structure interviews around skills-based questions. Day to day, they should ensure that high- and low-value work is assigned evenly and run meetings in a way that guarantees all voices are heard.”

Further, research indicates women tend to move more toward leadership when: 1) participating on teams, 2) mentored toward that end, 3) specifically invited into leadership by other leaders, both female and male, and 4) connecting with women outside of their areas of service as a “release valve” for their unique pressures. 

3. Affirm genuinely.

A woman also faces unique challenges, like internalizing the mindset that a woman should not lead, ask questions, or request additional discussion, as well as devaluation of her role in a Christian workplace. Glanz observed the pain of Christian women leaders from others’ assumptions: perhaps that she was a feminist, liberal in her theology and interpretation of Scripture, and angry at men due to the woman’s past experience.     

So restate to a woman that you’d want her on your team. Tell her openly what she brings that’s valuable to the team. And when offering constructive feedback, consider language that calls her forward: “If you did this better, I imagine you’d be even stronger.” 

And then continue to humbly solicit and employ her feedback on your own performance: “Is there a way you see I could grow or better support you?”

4. Check your narrative.

Biola University professor and researcher Leanne Dzubinski notes some organizations may practice “sanctified sexism”: They justify treating a woman differently, perhaps in the name of chivalry or protection. Yet they make decisions for her, like deciding she wouldn’t want a role because she has children to care for.

Adams suggests, “When desiring to ask about personal goals or priorities, consider whether you would ask a male colleague the same questions. If not, ask yourself whether the question is necessary or perhaps whether you would like to start asking male colleagues the same questions—if the goal is really to help them holistically think through their career path.” 

If you’d like to ask about a woman’s home life, ask her for permission first—and make sure you’ve established the relational passport to do so. 

Rather than pigeonhole or form assumptions, use gender norms to build your understanding and feed your questions and curiosity, ask, “Is that what it’s like for you?” 

5. Assume the cost for boundaries deemed necessary.

When a male or organization feels the need to establish boundaries, the organization or person of higher authority absorbs the cost, rather than the woman being held back for lack of opportunities to serve, be involved in conversations, advance, etc. 

Say, for example, a man or organization wants to utilize the “Billy Graham rule,” where a man will not go out to lunch, share an elevator, or travel on a business trip alone. In this case, the organization or leader’s budget should consider allocating extra funds to allow a third person to go on the lunch or business trip—rather than subtracting an opportunity for the woman or person of lower power. Or perhaps they fund installing a window in the office where the man and woman might meet alone.

BiasInterrupters.org suggests holding meetings during business hours (not on the golf course on the weekend), and attempting to not make assumptions about a woman’s competency or commitment if she’s pregnant (or could become that way). 

6. Openly discuss power dynamics in a room. 

If the majority of men in a room possess titles higher than the women, acknowledge how this could affect opinions being shared. 

Researcher Margarita Mayo observes elsewhere in HBR, “In a previous study my colleagues and I found that women tend to rate their abilities accurately, while men tend to be overconfident about theirs. Thus, one argument goes, women are less confident than men, which hurts their chances of promotion.” So be willing to call a woman into a position in order to develop her or challenge her, rather than only utilizing skills she already displays or self-identifies.

7. Exercise care when she needs to grow in an area of gender norms.

Some men feel hesitant at all to lead or manage a woman, wary of missteps … or land mines. 

What about when you suspect she needs to grow—but it’s in an area of gender stereotypes, like being melodramatic or lacking assertiveness?

First, ask God to grant discernment, revealing any log in your own eye. Then, proceed cautiously. Still, don’t shrink back if you’d give the same advice to a man in a similar situation. 

This is a great time to evaluate personal assumptions about gender norms, preferences, and core beliefs. The female director explains, “[If I were a man,] It may be helpful for me to admit that I prefer women who are warm and quiet, but does that mean every woman I work with needs to conform to this norm? Can I differentiate between ‘kind and respectful’ versus ‘deferential and timid’?” 

Mayo’s research for HBR indicates competency for men often requires the perception of confidence. But women must also be perceived as confident and warm. Vice versa, competence breeds the perception of confidence in men. Yet women needed to be competent and warm (even more than men) to be perceived as confident—and consequently, as less influential in the organization. 

Mayo concludes, “To get credit for having confidence and competence, and to have the influence in their organizations that they would like to have, women must go out of their way to be seen as warm.”

To preach a clearer gospel

We must ask: Is this how the church should be? 

Strengthening the powerless threads itself endlessly through Scripture, commanding us against favoritism and stifling the voiceless, while lifting unjust yokes (James 2:1, Proverbs 31:8, Isaiah 58). These values mirror the gospel itself to a watching world—how Jesus grants all people dignity, justice, agency, and equality (Galatians 3:28). 

As Christ followers, we should be among the first—as Jesus was—to cheer on and empower women. Yet that’s not seen or felt by many women in ministry. 

For the benefit of the church and the world, we can expand women’s reach without compromising the Word of God and His flawless authority structure—displaying the Trinity’s own roles and submission in churches and homes. Jesus, too, both submitted to the Father and was sent into the world.  And Paul reminds, “On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor” (1 Corinthians 12:22-23),  an honor women statistically do not sense in key ways. 

How can we maximize the gifts, minds, and hearts of this underrepresented half of His Body, “giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other” (1 Corinthians 12:24-25)?

We empower women for reasons bigger than the world’s reasons

Because in developing and empowering women, we as Christ-followers welcome others as He welcomed us (Romans 15:7). We covenant to ensure the church represents God’s image in its entirety. More than representing democratic ideals, we represent a Savior who sought interactions with the woman at the well, Mary Magdalene, Martha, Simone. Who lifted women from the place the world had assigned them, and into positions of beautiful dignity for His kingdom.

Copyright © 2023 Janel Breitenstein. All rights reserved.

Janel Breitenstein is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and frequent contributor for FamilyLife, including Art of Parenting®, Art of Marriage®, and regular articles. After five and a half years in East Africa, her family of six returned to Colorado, where they continue to work on behalf of the poor with Engineering Ministries International. Her book, Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts (Harvest House), empowers parents to creatively engage kids in vibrant spirituality. You can find her—“The Awkward Mom”—having uncomfortable, important conversations at JanelBreitenstein.com, and on Instagram @janelbreit.

The post How Can I Empower Women Around Me To Lead? appeared first on FamilyLife®.