A STATEMENT FROM THE BELTON CHURCH OF CHRIST ELDERS

August 16, 2020

During the past two years, the shepherds have been discussing the role of women as it pertains to our church family.  This has included times of prayer, study, reading, and discussion.  In addition, Ritchie recently completed his series called “A Woman’s Place.”  We agree with Ritchie’s statement that “healthy churches have healthy conversations,” and as a leadership we have been involved in healthy conversations regarding the role of women.  With the conclusion of Ritchie’s series, the elders wanted to share this statement regarding the role of women as it pertains to the Belton church family.

As the shepherds for the Belton church family, we are grateful for the trust you’ve given us to lead this church. As your leaders, we always try our best to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit. At times we lead by responding to situations that present themselves to us. But at other times, leadership means looking ahead proactively, and asking the question, “Where is God leading us now?

As a church, we have always fully affirmed that women and men possess equal worth in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:28), although we have probably not done a very good job of showing gender equality throughout our history. We are trying to make sense of the tension that has existed for many years regarding the specific roles of women, not only in various ministry roles, but also in worship.

We are of the opinion that the two restrictive texts in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 were originally intended to be specific responses to particular worship situations in Corinth and Ephesus.  They were not intended to be universal declarations regarding worship for all churches for all times. We believe Paul was addressing problems in 1st century churches.

Our understanding of scripture leads us to affirm that the roles of elder and preaching minister will continue to be filled only by men.

Aside from these two roles, various roles of service in our worship gatherings that were previously filled only by men will now be filled at times by men, at times by women, and at times by both men and women together. At times, this will be done through video and recordings.  At times, this will be live during worship.

During the pandemic, we have included both men and women in our online worship, both men and women, as well as couples, reading Scripture.  Our original intent was for you to see faces you have not been seeing, and to hear the voices of our members. You have been supportive of all the content in our online worship.  We want you to know that we appreciate your affirmations regarding what has been happening.  With that in mind, our online worship will continue to include both men and women.

Our onsite worship continues to be a week-to-week decision as we navigate through all the uncertainty of this pandemic. When we do return to the building on a more regular basis, we are considering the various ways we can provide opportunities for both men and women to participate in worship.  This will be coordinated through our Worship Action Team as well as our ministerial staff.  We want to do what is best for the Belton church family as we move forward regarding women’s roles.

We are still prayerfully considering what it will look like to expand the roles of women as they participate in our worship gatherings. Any changes we make will be gradual.  

We know that our worship assembly is the “front door” to invite people to attend, and we want to continue to be creative regarding our worship. Our church needs to look like those we invite to join us. In other words, we not only want to create a welcoming environment, but we want first time visitors to see our church as a place they can find a sense of purpose as well as a sense of belonging.

For some of you today, this announcement brings about feelings of concern and hesitation. For others, it is long overdue. For centuries, faithful Christians have wrestled with this issue, and have felt the same feelings. However you feel, we hope and pray that you will trust that, as your shepherds, we are trying our very best to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit as we lead this church, so that each person may grow in faith. We encourage those of you with questions or concerns to spend time in study and prayer, as we have.  As we strive to be a healthy church that has healthy conversations, we want to encourage you to share any of your questions or concerns with the shepherds as we seek to have a mutual understanding on this matter.

Finally, we pray that as faithful followers of Jesus, we will all show love to one another, that we will honor Christ by the way we speak to and treat each other, and we will all work together to bring others to Jesus.

To contact our shepherds, please email shepherds@beltonchurch.com.

To hear Ritchie’s “A Woman’s Place” series, click here.