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How Many--if any--Of Ya Use Womin as Nursery Workers/Ushers/Deacons/Elders?

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/5/17 11:49 pm**

Just kinda curious.

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 14803 **6/6/17 7:21 am**

Our church has women nursery workers. Sometimes married couples will do nursery duty together.
The ushers are all male except on special occasions like Father's Day or something when they let the women take up the offering. I thought they needed to diversify a little on regular Sunday offerings, and Chief Charging Battery was going to allow me to take up the offering in one section on one Sunday he served as head usher. The only problem was the ushers have to mash the button on a little hand held counter to count the number of people in the pews. I wasn't sure I could multitask that way. Chief Charging Battery says he just counts everyone in his section ahead of time.
We don't really have "elders" and "deacons." We have a panel of advisers which may be called the pastor's council or something. Married couples are on this panel, but no single women. (So, there are women, but they, like the men, are probably essentially "yes men.")
We did once have 2 men chosen by the pastor to be elders (and approved by the small number of people attending the church financial meeting), but they both left the church.
We do have females teaching adult Sunday school classes, and the pastor's wife preached the sermon this past Sunday.
Women are welcome to serve in a variety of ways, so long as they know who's boss. Confused

It's funny you asked this today. Just yesterday, I was reading about how the pastor of First Baptist Church in Durham, NC came into a church that believed it was permissible to have women deacons, caused a ruckus, changed the bylaws, and ran off the unrepentant reprobates who didn't see things his way.

I'll bite OT

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/6/17 7:27 am**

My wife is my CO-pastor, I have a woman as my Worship pastor, my Bible College asst Director is a woman pastor, I have had a woman as my head youth pastor but I have a man now. I have 2 children's pastors both are women (we divide nursery / toddler and k-6 as 2 levels as we do in youth with middle school and high xchool), I have had a woman as a Deacon(ess ) but have only men now (that didn't work out too well but not because she was a woman but because she was the wrong woman) have women as greeters bur only male ushers.Only women in nursery but some men in children's ministries (carefully screened).

Re: I'll bite OT

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/6/17 8:08 am**

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/6/17 8:11 am**

Oops, sorry fellers, just so everbody knows, OTCP got no problem with women a God servin in church leadership positions. Lessen its Hillary Clinton.

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/6/17 9:06 am**

Our Bible College is not accredited. It has 2 levels. The first year is a discipleship program with an internationally recognized ministry you might be aware of and then there are two additional years that are added to the first if a young person (male or female) feels called to the ministry. We cannot grant a diploma but we do give a certificate. After the 3 yrs, a student can take a test with the AG and be granted our second level credential, license to preach, which will be recognized and is granted by our Headquarters. Our curriculum is from the AG online university which is accredited Global University. We are officially recognized within the AG as a certified school of higher education. We wouldn't do much for you if you aren't called to the ministry, but we have had many students leave here after 3 years and pursue other career paths and do very well. We prepare them for life as well as ministry. This coming year will begin our 14th year of preparing young people for life and ministry. It is without a doubt the best thing we do. All of our teachers hold at least a BA and many of them have advanced degrees. We could be accredited and may pursue that but for now this works for us.

Re: OT

Acts-pert Poster Posts: 15570 **6/6/17 3:14 pm**

Yeah but

Acts-celerater Posts: 935 **6/6/17 4:34 pm**

it does hurt our recruiting but we are offering a low cost alternative to full bore Bible College/University. We subsidize the cost so that we can offer room, board and full curriculum including much much hands on ministry training and 1 overseas missions trip for a cost of only $5000 per yr. And frankly, my children went to Central Bible College, the AG main seminary in Springfield, MO and they said they would rather have gone to a program like ours instead as they all went into ministry. The cost of one of our AG colleges/Univ per year is now around $20000 and can be much more.How can you expect a young person called to the ministry can afford to spend $80-100,000 for a degree and then become a youth pastor and get paid $25000 yr to start and try to pay off all that student debt. No wonder no one wants to go into the ministry if they have student loans.

It's a problem. But, I will put our education up against ANY that I know of that is preparing young ministers at any college. THe problem is marketing. How do we get the word out? We do ok but could easily double our attendance if we could attract more people. Not sure being accredited would help one way or the other. Many of our students have actually been able to transfer their credits from us to one of our AG universities however.