Christian Women – Page 31 – Michelle Lesley

Carol’s Story

My name is Carol and this is a story of how God can and does work for those who love him and seek after him. Our journey in various churches is a reflection on how immature and ignorant of God’s word my husband, Bill and I have been. We would join a church on nothing more than a feeling, then eventually would see false teachings or unfruitful behaviors, then confront the leaders, then get abused by them, then leave. This became a pattern for us. Each time thinking, “This is the right one,” then each time the same pattern as mentioned above emerged.

Each time thinking, “This is the right one,”…

As a talented guitar player, Bill would always join the worship teams. At one point we actually did find a decent church based on our feelings. However now looking back I can see a whole bunch of lukewarm error, not exactly deceptive, yet they allowed some questionable popular Bible studies in, and the teaching was more experiential than exegesis. It was a nondenominational church as were all the previous churches we had belonged to. The worship leader became a good friend and we were pretty happily going along until he and his wife decided to become missionaries in Romania.

Before they departed, Bill made them a promise that if or when they came back, he would help with the music wherever they landed. Once again, making decisions based on our feelings of devotion to a person and not on biblical foundations. So as promised when they arrived back we left our lukewarm church to help him start a worship team. It was a Baptist church much further away for us to travel to. But we made a promise and we were excited to embark on this new journey with our good friends.

After five years, we began questioning whether we should be playing Bethel music as worship. Our friend’s reply was that as long as the lyrics were okay, it was okay to play it. Then one day I heard a podcast in which a young lady had gone to Bethel and through SOZO counseling became convinced that she suffered abuse from her parents. Bethel leaders denied her parents visitations or any kind of communication with her. I was so moved by this that I asked my husband to help me do some research into Bethel and their musicians. I also wrote to Jan Markel asking her views on playing their music in church. Her response was “No church should ever allow their music”. Thus began many email exchanges between us.

The more research we did, the more convicted and convinced we became and while we kept mentioning our research to others in the church, it was always shrugged off as nothing important at all. Eventually we put all of our research into a paper entitled “Why Our Church Should Not Play Bethel Music as Worship” and we presented it to our dear friend, the worship leader. We presented facts, Scripture, resources from various pastors including John MacArthur, Justin Peters, Todd Friel, Jan Markel, and I had just discovered Michelle Lesley as well. We provided links to sermons and videos, etc…. It was all impersonal facts, and we prayed fervently over it as we wrote it, then again as we delivered it.

We prayed fervently…

Several weeks later we received an email from the pastor. He implied that we may have committed blasphemy, then told us we were very weak in our commitment to the church and that we were church hoppers looking for the perfect church, which doesn’t exist. This from a pastor who was there as long as we had been and whose church history is fairly similar to ours. I won’t even go into the ridiculous threat of committing blasphemy as there are plenty of good solid studies on it which refute his use of it. As far as our commitment, I will say that at one time during those five years, our twelve year old grand daughter’s bone cancer returned and we focused our attention on her and getting her through the painful surgeries. We still served the church to the best of our abilities during that time and after her recovery. So his response was a severe gut punch for those reasons as well as the fact that he revealed so much about himself that we had not seen before. Oh, our dear worship leader friend? We asked if he agreed with the pastor and it has been crickets from him ever since.

Heartbroken is a complete understatement, yet I think the Holy Spirit finally got through to our thick skulls. We finally came to the conclusion that we would never attend another church without a thorough vetting. So we sent an email out to multiple area churches with one question as the entry question. It was “How do you handle Bethel music as worship in your church?”

I think the Holy Spirit finally got through…

None replied. However in God’s sovereign grace he arranged for us to serve in a disaster relief program for some flood victims in a different church. During our service we met the Pastor who was new to this church. At one point during our conversations he asked if we had sent him an email about Bethel music. He had not replied to our email as it hit his inbox at a time when the flood had hit and he himself was busy with disaster relief. But he had intended on getting back to us eventually. He said he had not considered anything at all about Bethel, until that email which got him into doing some research and he became convicted by the extent of their heresies. He then asked us to help him put together a sermon about Bethel in which he would be denouncing their teachings and their music and making it very clear why it would not be played in his church anymore.

I will never forget the day he preached that sermon. In all the years and all the churches we had been in, we had never heard one like it. He mentioned the random email he had received and how it got him to question why someone would ask it? I still fight back tears when I recall how blessed we have been to finally be in a place where God’s word is revered above all else. No, there are no perfect churches, but some are grounded in the word of God and some are not. Some are willing to protect the flock from wolves in sheep’s clothing and some are the wolves. We finally found a true shepherd! We are now members of this church serving on the worship team, the media team, the youth group and eventually will be hosting a home group focused on discernment.

I still fight back tears when I recall how blessed we have been…

I wanted to share this testimony because we have gone through some very dark and depressing times, but God has been there in those times and has guided us toward him and his glory. If you are going through something similar, as long as you are on the solid rock of his word, nothing and no one can prevail against you. Keep standing on the rock of his word. He will be honored and glorified no matter how much it hurts in those dark times.

God Bless!

(P.S. – Since then, we have been on Jan Markell’s podcast Understanding the Times, in a two part show entitled “Worship Wars”, she also played a clip of our new pastor’s sermon. I have started my own blog as an outreach to the lost and to those lost in deception. It’s called Berean Real.)

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His Word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Contact me, or comment below. Your testimony can be as brief as a few sentences or as long as 1500 words. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!

Christian women, Church, Complementarianism, Rock Your Role

Sisters Are Part of the Family of God, Too!

March 5, 2021March 4, 2021 Michelle Lesley

I’ve got some wonderful, godly male friends and acquaintances on social media. I’ve learned from their wisdom, referred people to their churches, and had a great time joking around with them.

But every now and then there are men who stumble across my social media accounts or blog or podcast, seemingly drunk with biblical ignorance, who clearly don’t think women should have any sort of a voice when men are around – or at all, I guess. In my mind I call them the “Shut up and go sit in the corner” guys, because that’s what it feels like they’re saying to me, and to women everywhere.

One of the errors of the Pharisees’ legalism was that they stretched the boundaries of God’s laws farther than God intended them to go. This is why, when we see Jesus and the disciples walking through the fields and picking kernels of grain to eat in Matthew 12, the Pharisees accused them of “doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath”. Because this was, ostensibly, “harvesting” and “threshing” – working on the Sabbath.

But as Jesus went on to explain to them, this kind of unbiblical overreach of the fourth Commandment was never God’s intent. The Sabbath was a gift of rest meant to benefit God’s people, not to oppress and enslave them to nitpicking, nor to keep them from enjoying God’s blessings.

Today, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and antinomianism, rather than legalism, is the false teaching du jour. Antinomianism stretches the boundaries of God’s grace farther than God intends it to go. That’s why we have to spend so much time teaching and explaining that the Bible prohibits women from being pastors and elders, and from preaching, instructing men in the Scriptures, and holding authority over men inside the biblical boundaries of the formal gathering of the church body. Because, for the antinomian, practically anything, anywhere, goes.

But the “Shut up and go sit in the corner” guys help us to see that the same type of legalism the Pharisees practiced – though not as prolific – is still alive and well today. They stretch the boundaries of God’s command for the role of women in the church gathering to all other venues in which women might have a voice – to anyone, about anything. Some even say women aren’t permitted to teach other women and children, which is clearly at odds with Scripture.

The God who consistently values women holistically – their skills and talents, their intelligence, their contributions and hard work – throughout Scripture never intended this kind of unbiblical overreach of His commandment regarding the role of women in the church. This command was a gift meant to benefit God’s people, not to oppress and enslave women nor to keep us – or our brothers – from enjoying God’s blessings, especially the blessing of each other.

God consistently values women holistically – their skills and talents, their intelligence, their contributions and hard work – throughout Scripture.
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Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that there’s a difference between the “set apartness” and formal structure and hierarchy of God’s house for worship and instruction, and the informal, unstructured “family time” around the table, around the living room, around the Twitter machine. And we forget that these two different environments serve two different purposes.

Worship and instruction are vital and primary. But we are the family of God. Brothers and sisters. Siblings. We need each other. The give and take. The back and forth. The jokes and laughter. The sharing, advice, support, encouragement, and yes, even the occasional, biblically appropriate brotherly or sisterly reproof. We’re to relate to each other as family – especially during “family time,” which is different and discrete from worship and instruction time.

We are the family of God. Brothers and sisters. Siblings. We need each other.
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How dysfunctional would a family be if, during informal times of fellowship all of the sisters were prohibited from taking part in the discussion, sharing thoughts, offering insight, setting an example, and even proffering loving words of correction?

Normal, healthy, natural families don’t operate that way. And God uses the natural family as the metaphor for the way He relates to us: Father to child, the way we relate to Him: child to Father, and the way we relate to each other: brothers and sisters.

We’re to love one another and draw strength and help from one another, not amputate half of us from fellowship. When legalistic men unbiblically silence women…

…they’re out of alignment with the God who values women.

God showed us that women are valuable by purposefully and intentionally taking the time and effort to craft a woman in the first place. He could have stopped with Adam, but when He finished forming man, for the first time in Creation, He said, “It is not good…”. And the crowning glory, the final masterpiece of His world, was woman.

Throughout Scripture, from Sarah, Hannah, Esther, and Deborah, to Mary, Anna, Priscilla, Phoebe, and so many more, we see God using women to glorify Him and further His Kingdom.

Jesus and the epistles instruct men to love and protect women, to respect women, and to treat them with honor and dignity.

The God who sees women as a valuable part of His creation, who requires the respect of their worth, would never shut them out of family life, treating them as though they don’t matter.

…they are rebelling against God’s complementary Creative design.

Why did God say at Creation that it wasn’t good for man to be alone? Because he needed a helper “fit for him,” or “corresponding to him”.

Yes, God was speaking of that particular man, Adam. Yes, God was speaking of all husbands yet to come. But there’s a very real sense in which God was also saying, “It is not good for male humanity to be alone on planet Earth. Therefore, I’m going to make women as well.”.

Mankind needs the complementarity of womankind. He’ll be strong where she’s weak and she’ll be strong where he’s weak. He will fill out Creation with masculine beauty that she can’t contribute and she will fill out Creation with feminine beauty that he can’t contribute. He’ll see things from one perspective, and she, from another. It’s like two gears in a machine that fit together perfectly and work together perfectly, yet each doing its own distinct part.

God wasn’t finished with Creation when He created man. Something was still missing that God wanted to supply, and He filled in that hole in Creation with woman.

God wasn’t finished with Creation when He created man. Something was still missing that God wanted to supply, and He filled in that hole in Creation with women.
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And when you basically tell women, across the board, to sit down and shut up, you’re denying and suppressing God’s Creative design for women… and men.

…they are crippling the church’s ability to carry out the “one anothers” in a healthy way.

Love one another. Comfort one another. Forgive one another. Serve one another. Bear one another’s burdens. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.

Because men and women complement one another in our strengths and weaknesses, we need both men and women to minister the one anothers to each other in the church. Otherwise, the balance is completely thrown off. Without the compassion and nurturing God has uniquely wired into women, a man’s “Comfort one another,” could turn into, “Suck it up and rub some dirt on it. You’re fine.” “Forgive one another,” might become, “I’ll forgive you….but first I’m going to punch you in the mouth.” Without the dispassionate objectivity and firmness more common to men, women’s comfort might turn into enabling, and forgiveness into being a doormat. And how can a woman properly bear the burden of a man who’s struggling with lust, or a man the burden of a woman facing infertility?

We minister to one another together. We need both halves of the church for it to be healthy and whole.

We’re family, folks. We sisters need you brothers, and, yes, you brothers really do need us sisters – even you “Shut up and go sit in the corner” guys. That’s not feminism, it’s not rebellion, it’s not sin…it’s family. When we understand and embrace this, we’ll discover what a precious gift God has blessed us with.

The gift of each other.

Additional Resources:

Rock Your Role series

Rock Your Role FAQs

Christian women

Throwback Thursday ~ Evangelical Misogyny and the Spiritual Oppression of Christian Women

February 25, 2021February 26, 2021 Michelle Lesley

Originally published September 16, 2016

Weak women- always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Captives to false teachers. Led astray by their feelings. There is hardly a better way to describe a significant portion – dare I say, the majority – of evangelical women today.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Satan dresses himself up like a Christian and deceives as many as he can. Women (and men, too) give in to the temptation to seek out false teachers who will tell them what they want to hear. Pastors fail to fight off, and in many cases, welcome with open arms, the false doctrine and false teachers creeping into their churches. And the false teachers themselves are out to make a fast buck on false doctrine.

And the result of it all is a generation of evangelical women held prisoner by Satan in the gilded cage of biblical illiteracy and feel-good “Christianity.” And most of them don’t even know they’re inmates.

It’s bad enough that evangelical women are largely feeding their souls on the anti-biblical poison churned out by the smorgasbord of divangelistas lining the shelves of most “Christian” bookstores- poison that, at worst, will leave them doomed to an eternity in hell, and, at best, will stunt their growth in Christ. But there’s another insidious aspect of this issue: theololgical misogyny against evangelical women.

The Bible knows nothing of women as second class citizens. Throughout recorded history, God, and his obedient children, have been the ones to regard women as precious and valuable people with a crucial role to play in the Kingdom, the family, and society. God elevates women while the world degrades us.

Perhaps one of the best examples of this is in an often overlooked phrase in 1 Timothy 2:11: “Let a woman learn.” The pastors and elders of the first century church – in the midst of a culture that devalued and disregarded women – were to proactively make sure women learned the gospel and sound doctrine. The Holy Spirit goes on in that passage to explain how first century, as well as twenty-first century, women should conduct themselves in a godly way while we’re learning, but there’s no watered down, Barbie doll, “pink is for girls” version of theology that women are to be taught while the real thing – serious Bible study and theology – is reserved for men.

Yet that’s exactly what modern day evangelicalism and Christian retailing are doing. They’re establishing a subtle theological segregation in the name of marketing and meeting felt needs. How? Here’s just one example:

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This post, from a major Christian retailer, appeared in my Facebook feed recently. They’re holding “Bible art journaling” workshops to teach women how to color in their Bibles- something we usually teach three year olds not to do.

When was the last time you heard of a Christian retailer or an average evangelical church holding a workshop – aimed at women – on biblical hermeneutics, Christology, pneumatology, church history, discernment, evangelism, or any other serious biblical topic?

Never mind how to properly handle and study God’s word, ladies, here’s a coloring book¹! It’s insulting to the intelligence, capabilities, and quest for spiritual maturity of Christian women. And it’s sexist, too. Don’t believe me? Think about it:

How many Christian men do you see taking Bible art journaling classes or sharing about it on social media?

Have you ever seen a men’s ministry share a picture like this in order to reassure men of how special and wonderful they are?

Over the summer, the hot fad aimed at women was using henna to tell Bible stories. How many men do you think participated in that?

Contemporary Christian radio intentionally markets to a specific female demographic, resulting in a playlist that’s overwhelmingly comprised of ooey-gooey, salve my feelings, emasculated songs. That’s their perspective of us. That’s what they think we want and can handle.

And it doesn’t stop there. Walk into your local Christian retailer and compare the fluff and false doctrine in the women’s ~~ghetto~~ department to what’s offered in the general (or men’s) area of the store. Christian retailing has been so successful with their marketing plans that they have fairly brainwashed evangelical women into thinking that:

only what’s in the women’s section of the store is for them
serious theology isn’t for them (because it’s nowhere to be found in the women’s department)
women can’t just pick up the Bible and study it for themselves – they have to buy a “canned” study written by someone else
that “someone else” has to be a woman (nearly always a woman who teaches false doctrine)

Take all of that, throw it into your gumbo pot, stir it around a little, and what do you get?

Well…you get weak women who are captivated by false teachers and false doctrine, led astray from the truth of God’s word by their passions and emotions, flitting from study to study and event to event, always “learning” but ever biblically ignorant. And you get a church that not only views Christian women this way, but perpetuates this sexist spiritual oppression.

Christian women, you are better, more valuable, and more capable than that. God has more for you and expects more from you than sitting in a corner coloring in your Bible and playing with a theological Barbie Dream House. Like your first century sisters, He wants you to learn.

Strive for more than evangelicalism expects from you and thinks you’re capable of, ladies. Be a strong, healthy student of God’s Word. There are women out there who desperately need you: lost women who need to hear the gospel properly presented so they might know Christ, saved women who need someone to teach them the truth of God’s Word, women who need biblical hope, comfort, and answers about the trials they’re going through.

Buck the system. Challenge the assumptions. Cast off the shackles, and refuse to be that weak woman any more. Be the full grown, spiritually mature woman God has always wanted you to be.

¹Some women are artistically talented and enjoy Bible art journaling as a hobby in their spare time. If that’s you, and you’re already a serious student of God’s word, knock yourself out. But if the majority of your Bible “study” time is spent painting or coloring in your Bible, then this might be a tight, uncomfortable shoe, but the shoe fits.

Speaking Engagements

Y’all Come! – Speaking Engagements and Event-Hosting Tips

February 23, 2021February 18, 2021 Michelle Lesley

Need an opportunity to get together with other godly women for fellowship and good teaching? I’d love for you to come to one of my conferences!

If you haven’t checked out the calendar of events on my Speaking Engagements page (in the blue menu bar at the top of this page), here’s an update. I hope you’ll be able to attend one of these – I’d love to see you! I’ll be posting more about each of these as the dates get nearer, and I hope to add several more!

2021 Calendar:

June 4-5- Cruciform Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana. Breakout sessions for women. This one is co–ed (except for my breakout sessions), so bring your husbands, ladies!

July 12-17- Reverence in Radical Times women’s conference, online. (This is the 2021 iteration of the 2020 OHCW online conference.) Join me, Martha Peace, Susan Heck, Shelbi and Kimberly from the Women’s Hope podcast, Marci from Thankful Homemaker, and more, as we examine Titus 2:3-5. (More details to come.)

Wait….only two more speaking engagements scheduled this year? Well, I do have a couple more in the works that haven’t been finalized yet, but I want to come fellowship with more of you! Let’s add some events to my calendar…

If you’re unable to attend one of the events above, host your own! I’d love to come speak to the ladies of your church or Christian organization. (I’d especially love to hear from churches within easy driving distance of Baton Rouge: Louisiana, central and eastern Texas, southern and central Arkansas, Missisippi, etc.) Now is the time to start planning for summer and fall conferences for 2021 or even 2022 conference dates.

Need a little help with the details? Check out the rest of the information on my Speaking Engagements page, including my article, Women’s Events on a Shoestring Budget (Plus- Tips for Hosting an Event!).

I also have a speaking engagement option that makes hosting an event easier and less expensive: speaking engagement packages. Choose from my most popular biblical topics and the most common conference formats, and we’ll send you the set speaking fee for that conference. (Of course, if you have another topic you’d like me to speak on or a format that’s unique to your event, that option is still available.)

I hope to see you soon at an event near you!

Christian women

Throwback Thursday ~ 6 Reasons Godly Women are Stronger Than Feminazis

February 18, 2021February 9, 2021 Michelle Lesley

Originally published June 12, 2015

Gloria Steinem. Bra burning. The ERA. “I Am Woman Hear Me Roar.” Maybe you remember them, or have at least heard of them. That was the heyday of feminism. It was going to be a new era of strong, powerful women. And they’re still fighting the battle today. Never let a man get the upper hand. Sacrifice whatever you have to for a successful career. And Christian women who submit to their husbands or choose to stay home with their children are sneered at or dismissed as weak, barefoot and pregnant ignoramuses.

But as any woman brave enough to follow in the footsteps of Christ can tell you, it ain’t necessarily so. Secular feminists will never understand the kind of strength it takes to strive towards godly womanhood.¹

1. Only the strongest of women can voluntarily relinquish the right to be in control.

It’s easy (at least for decisive, type A control-freaks like me) to walk into a room assess a situation, lay down the law, and expect your instructions to be carried out. It’s much harder to step back and hand off the decision-making to your husband, or to offer your input and stand aside and watch when he decides not to follow it. But God expects us to follow in the footsteps of our Savior, who voluntarily surrendered control of His very life to the men who took it from Him.

2. It takes a strong woman to trust God enough to put her life and her children’s lives into her husband’s hands.

Let’s just get real here for a minute. It can be hard to trust God sometimes. Even though we know He is perfect and has our best interests at heart, we can’t see Him or touch Him. We can’t ask Him a question and get an audible yes or no answer.

It can be even harder to trust our husbands. Even though we can see, hear, touch, and talk to them, we know all too well that they’re fallible. Sometimes they have their own interests at heart. Sometimes they mean well and still make the wrong decisions.

But God tells us to trust Him. Even when it’s hard. Even when we don’t understand what’s going on. Even when we think we could lead better than our husbands. We trust God enough to obey His word even when.

3. It takes tremendous strength to control our mouths.

James tells us “no human being can tame the tongue,” and all who have tried know how true that statement is. Still, God expects godly women to control our speech. We’re not to nag and be quarrelsome. We’re to speak wisely and kindly. Sometimes, we’re not to speak at all, but let our actions do the talking. The strength to bite your tongue or think before you speak? It’s a daily trial by fire for Christian women.

4. Godly women have to be incredibly strong to deal with the heartaches that come our way.

John once said, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 4). While he was talking about his spiritual “children,” godly wives and mothers have that same joy when our husbands, children and loved ones are walking in the truth of the gospel. And unspeakable agony when they are not. We not only have to cope with the regular griefs of life that everyone experiences, we also must deal with the pain of those closest to us who rebel against Christ and His word, all the while trusting God and walking in His ways.

5. We must develop the godly strength it takes to stand against the culture.

It’s easy to do the godly thing when everybody’s rooting for you, but in a society that is openly hostile to biblical womanhood, we often (sadly, even in the church) find ourselves fighting our way upstream like so many spawning salmon. Many times, we are seen as – and called – doormats, uneducated, gullible, traitors to the cause of women’s rights. We must rely on the strength God has promised us to stand for godliness in the face of opposition.

6. Only strong, godly women can joyfully deny self and serve rather than being served.

In a “because you’re worth it” world, putting our own desires aside to serve our husbands, children, and others is utterly incomprehensible to many, and, often, even to ourselves. The flesh rears its ugly head again and again, demanding to have its every wish fulfilled by the very people God put us here to serve. It takes a mighty woman of God to do battle with that enemy, send it packing, humble herself, and tend to the needs of others. But we have been bought by the blood of a Savior who declared that He “came not to be served but to serve,” and we conform to His wishes, not our own.

They can push and nag and argue and boss and control. They can be soldiers, construction workers, CEOs, and President. They can wear the pants in their families and have cowed husbands. But the shrillest of feminazis will never know the strength it takes to be a godly woman, because what they’re attempting is miniscule compared to the high standard God calls His daughters to. And any fleshly strength they can conjure up couldn’t in a million eternities touch the supernatural, mighty, rushing force that is the power of the Holy Spirit which God promises to His own, enabling us to say, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

God doesn’t call us to have dominance over men, He calls us to become like a man, the God-man, Jesus Christ. And in our feebleness and brokenness, He gives us the power to attempt that feat of greatness for His glory. That, my sisters, is where real strength lies.

¹As always in my articles which mention biblical submission in marriage, my standard caveat: Please understand that this article applies to the vast majority of reasonably healthy marriages. Biblical submission has nothing to do with allowing yourself to be abused. If you are being abused please get yourself and your children somewhere safe immediately and call your pastor, the police, and/or anyone else who can help.