Women leading worship

I am writting this on the fly, so I haven’t slept on the issue here; please forgive me if I don’t sound too coherent.

I have never seriously took a position on this issue of women leading worship in my church, but after reading Bob Kauflin’s humble response to this issue, I am now feeling compelled to. His post brought to mind a very important questions about the role of men and women in church ministry: is my church egalitarian or complementarian?

For a while now, I believe my church is egalitarian–for we have elected a woman into the Elders Board before, and we still have in our bylaws a clause that states that the Eldership is open to both women or men to be elected to office.

However, about women leading worship for Sunday Services, I have not objected to this in the past. Actually, out of the 3 worship teams and worship leaders that “lead” our English congregation in musical worship every week–2 out of 3 are women. So it seems that my church is egalitarian in its stance about the roles of men and women in ministry for allowing women to be in the lead worshipper role. Thus, girls or women leading worship at my church is something that is not ever questioned because of the chosen understanding of the roles of men and women; it is entirely understandable that women are permitted to lead worship considering the position taken.

EDIT: I humbly withdraw my comment about a certain para-church organization being egalitarian. I was thinking about this in the shower, and I realized that para-church organizations are non-/trans-denominational and thus have no need to take such doctrinal positions on secondary issues. It is not a church in and of itself and such ecclesiastical concerns do not apply directly. As long as those serving/participating in its activities are united in the primary doctrinal issues, then all is well for the group to pursue its mission fervently.

Kauflin rightly notes that aside from Miriam leading the women in worship (Exodus 15:20), there aren’t many other examples of women leading worship at all. “It seems the Levites who led the singing at the Temple were men (1 Chron. 25).”

What more is that Kauflin brought up the question about how my church the nature of the worship leader’s role. This is something I am currently scratching my head about. No, seriously–I am literally scratching my head! There is no clear-cut role that has been set by the Elder Board or the Pastoral staff about what the role of the worship leader should be. Are they simply purposed to provide musical leadership in terms of tempo, timing, melody? Or are they supposed to be guiding the people of God into rightfully proclaiming the truth about God and cherishing what Christ has done? Who has decided upon this role for them? And why was such a role given to them? (in other words, what Scriptural foundations are there for the role that’s been set?)

Other than for the past Winter Retreat, I have not lead worship at church for over 6months–but when I did lead worship for Service regularly, I respectfully considered my role very seriously as one engaging in more of a biblical exhortation and doctrinal commentator. Whether or not this is the case for the other current worship leaders, I do not know and can only imagine–for I have not asked, they have not divulged, nor has such reverent, pastoral approach seems to have been taken. Of course, I could very well be misinterpreting the later.

Kauflin quotes Randy Stinson in his post:

It would depend on how that particular church understands the degree of authority that she holds over the assembled congregation and the extent to which she provides instruction. Is her position understood as one of authority over the congregation similar to a pastor/elder? Does she provide doctrinal commentary between songs or other doctrinal instruction to the choir or congregation? Does her “leading” involve the exercising of authority over others or, rather, the providing of leadership regarding timing, tempo, music, etc.? Does she direct the church to a particular song in a hymnal and invite those assembled to praise the Lord, or does she engage in more biblical exhortation like a pastor?

Since there is no specific role defined for the worship team or the worship leaders, I think it is an apt time to do so. Now. I have sought to have a meeting with worship teams and worship deacon and Pastor–but last I was informed, we don’t have a deacon. If I’m not mistaken, we haven’t had a meeting since the days of our previous English Ministry elder–and that was about 3years+ ago I think. Since I first asked my pastor for setting up a meeting in December and again in January, I no longer have a zeal to pursue a meeting. My feelings about where we are going in the ministry and how we are going to get there is quite simply, blah. We can go forward aimlessly, without a specific theme or purpose, and I don’t mind… as long as we seemingly are walking towards fullfilling our vision. I just do what I am told, and do my best at it–and pray that God would be pleased with my faithfulness to His church.

I wonder, however, why aren’t such issues ever discussed or debated, formally in a meeting or informally with other worship team members or friends at church. Does it not matter to us personally, spiritually? Do we care about the reasons why we do things a certain way or how we do church? I am sure this stuff matters to us and that we do care–I know this from just serving alongside my brothers and sisters. I think there is simply a difference in our views and our interpretation of Scripture–this issue that has come to light tells me that my church and I are practically, doctrinally incompatible. Even though I disagree with our position on the matter in title, and hold to a complimentarian view as Kauflin does, and to that extent, also to the Regulative Principle… I love my church deeply. This is a negotiable issue that isn’t that serious to leave the church over.

However, I just wonder… how many negotiable issues can we disagree on until it is too much for me to consider acceptable?