Why You Need Feedback (And How to Get It)

[00:00:00] If you were to engage a core group of women and men for that matter in listening and providing feedback,

[00:00:08] you would teach them to think more critically, listen more attentively and discuss more thoughtfully.

[00:00:14] Instead of listening passively knowing that well, you're not going to have an exam at the end of the sermon.

[00:00:18] You know like, not that you're testing these women but when I know that I have to give feedback,

[00:00:23] I'm on the edge of my seat and I think that that could probably produce a greater participation in the act of worship

[00:00:30] if people are knowing that their pastor depends on them to help him make progress in his word work.

[00:00:39] Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective Podcast Episode 315.

[00:00:43] I'm your host Mike Neglia and our guest this week is Angie Velasquez Thornton.

[00:00:50] She was on the show a few years ago and I was delighted to be able to speak with her again about the topic of feedback.

[00:00:59] Why you need it, how to get it and also how to give it?

[00:01:03] You see there's a lot of solvitary work in the work of studying and teaching the Bible but it also can and should be a community project as well because we're learning from others

[00:01:19] and also we want to communicate well so that others can understand, apply and obey what we're teaching from God's word.

[00:01:28] So Angie has some real unique insights into why and how and towards the end of the conversation we do speak about why it's important for men to be learning from women.

[00:01:41] Why men should be seeking out feedback and input from the females in their realm and their spheres of influence.

[00:01:53] Particularly for those of us that hold complementary in positions, since God made men and women differently, it's important that we try to understand the unique inputs and experiences of the other gender.

[00:02:10] So I believe that if you listen to this all the way through, you're going to be challenged and also invited to expand your circle of those that we are learning from.

[00:02:22] Speaking of learning from, we exist as a podcast but more than that we are an in-person training ministry of Calvary Global Network.

[00:02:34] Our next in-person training event is going to be at Valley Community Church in Livermore which is in the East Bay area of San Francisco, California.

[00:02:47] Heath Hardesty is pastoring that church. He's been on this show before and he is excited to extend an invitation for us to come to his neck of the woods.

[00:03:00] So more details will be announced in the coming days, weeks. Make sure that you are signed up for our mailing list or that you follow us on social media to get pre-registration details as we get closer to the date.

[00:03:16] The date is May 24th and 25th. It's a beautiful time of the year to be in the East Bay of San Francisco, California.

[00:03:28] So be sure to check out our social media presence on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter or our website expositors.co

[00:03:39] And you can learn about pre-registration details and some of the lineup of preachers and coaches that we can learn from on May 24th and 25th at Valley Community Church in Livermore, California.

[00:03:54] Here's my conversation with Angie Velasquez Thornton.

[00:04:04] All right, Angie Thornton, welcome back to the expositors collective podcast.

[00:04:08] Thanks for having me on again.

[00:04:10] There's a growing list of the two-time guests and if you do good enough on the first time then you get invited back for a second.

[00:04:18] Yay!

[00:04:20] So, we're recording this in December. This will be your lease maybe February March. What's your Christmas in Canada looking like?

[00:04:32] Well, we're already buried in snow and I'm so thankful that my husband bought a snowblower so that we don't have to wait for the snow removal trucks.

[00:04:38] They come, didn't do all our neighbors driveways because if they got to get to work, they basically have to do it themselves.

[00:04:44] And then wait for the guys to finish what they didn't do but Dan just blew off the snow and we both work from home anyway.

[00:04:50] So if all of us fails, he can walk our daughter to school because it's a kilometer and a half away but it's kind of cold and yucky so he drives.

[00:04:58] Yeah, well this might be yeah, a springtime release and we can just remember back. We could spare a thought for your cold December.

[00:05:06] Do you guys have snow?

[00:05:08] Every couple of years for like one or two days we have it was just lashing rain this morning and that's just how it is over here in Ireland.

[00:05:16] All right, opening banter check.

[00:05:20] Hey, so I want to talk to you about like and maybe we could talk about the vocabulary or narrowing down what you think is the best way to talk about this but the process of collaborative certain preparation or even preaching.

[00:05:37] Preaching preparation that involves other voices or the feedback of people either within the congregation or in the broader community.

[00:05:45] That's something that I know is important to you and I wanted to invite you back on and talk more about this aspect of of sermon prep process or Bible teaching preparation that involves not just you but others as well so yeah why is that important to you?

[00:06:02] I think because as a Bible teacher, I know that I will only grow as I get feedback and when I speak at a women's conference or at a women's breakfast or event it's often hard to find women who can give me critical feedback because they're not trained in Bible teaching or in constructive feedback so it's common for me to get encouragement from women who say oh that was so good.

[00:06:26] I know that I don't know how much and then I learned even on your show, I you had a guest.

[00:06:31] I don't remember who said listen to so many of your episodes but who said that they always follow up that kind word of encouragement with what specifically a minister to you?

[00:06:40] And so I've been doing that and it's been surprising to hear some of the things that people say meant something to them and like I remember that episode or two where this came up.

[00:06:48] They don't even remember having said what the person heard but administered to them so it's important for us to know what speaks to people and how to reach the audience that is in front of us in meaningful ways.

[00:07:01] So as a speaker, I want to do that and then also as a hero and as a trained, a humble addition, I find that there's so many times where oh this would be such a great point to include in that message but you know I'm not I'm not going to offer unsolicited advice.

[00:07:17] I'm not going to offer unsolicited advice all the time when I'm at a conference or wherever but there's such benefit in hearing other voices speak into our teaching.

[00:07:27] Yeah well, I'd love to come back in it in a few moments time about yeah even even ways to give unsolicited advice or ways to keep it to yourself and yeah and I'm willing to bet I think that was the one of the pilgrim Benham interviews that has been done and so I'll link that he has actually kind of a feedback grid.

[00:07:46] That he talks about that I think will be useful to the listeners if they want to do a deep dive but before we talk about like Bible teaching as a collaborative event I think like first and foremost it's it's a solitary venture like what are you what's your understanding of like the individuals responsibility in preparing to teach any passage of the Bible.

[00:08:10] Yeah, I think that in one sense it's definitely solitary because I will give an account for my teaching James three once says not many of you should become teachers my fellow believers because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

[00:08:25] So that's still bringing I need to remember that because my husband's not going to be held accountable for how I teach my pastor isn't it's me and I also think of the parable the talents in Matthew 25 and how when Jesus speaks of my life.

[00:08:39] And I think that's the way I think of those who were interested with these talents.

[00:08:44] Each individual was held responsible for what he had how he had administered what had been entrusted to him and so that's very much an individual thing and I also think for my brothers who are pastors I am clearly not.

[00:08:58] My brothers who are pastors in particular can be very lonely and my husband's an elder at our church so even though he's a full time missionaries he's also an elder and I know that so few can be open and transparent about what they struggle with.

[00:09:12] And they often have to find that outside their church perhaps and I've heard you talk about the Anglican brother who's a pastor at a church in cork that you talk with.

[00:09:21] Yes, so it's such a blessing to have that but often pastors feel somewhat isolated in their churches especially small churches and often there's a lot of assumptions and misunderstandings about pastors so I don't know what is the case for all of our here's but I know that in the French speaking world.

[00:09:40] The perception is wait a second you work one day a week and you get paid for a full week of work.

[00:09:47] What are you doing the rest of the time how long does it take you to prepare some little you know little message that you share but most people have no idea how long it takes to prepare a thorough faithful expository message it's hard work.

[00:10:03] And as a side note I've heard it said some people say that sermon preparation is like giving birth and as a woman I've done both and I assure you there's no comparison.

[00:10:14] But yes, it's hard work as my wife yeah yeah I've heard that sermon preparation is like giving birth I've heard it a few times but I've never repeated it I've never said it it seemed like that's pretty a pretty bold claim.

[00:10:29] Which is harder yeah giving birth but then I have an epidural three.

[00:10:35] Okay, you know what comes to mind is like is is Romans 14 you know you kind of alluded to this verse yeah that each one of us will give an account of himself to God and I think I think yeah collaboration is really exciting and even in my in my church life for my church tradition we kind of came from a very much like a senior pastor.

[00:10:57] And I have been a very popular model of like you know there's one senior pastor and and I've since and many others in my network have like really adopted more of a plurality of elders model and I love I guess the collaborative and the teamwork aspect of that.

[00:11:12] I love these types of ideas of like getting help getting resources from others.

[00:11:19] I wonder though is that because deep down I'm afraid take responsibility or as it's deep down because I just like to share the load or deep down there is like patting things out in a broad team when there does need to be that actual sense of responsibility and that's kind of me imagining the worst about this I actually do believe you know I'm convinced from

[00:11:39] that I'm not going to be a part of the importance of like a team leadership and quality of elders etc but they're at the end of the day even when there is a plurality of elders there is I believe a first among equals that's called to that and there is like a calling to take responsibility.

[00:11:55] Before we talk about like the idea of a community project there also is the person who's doing a lot of the work and claiming taking their responsibility and will stand accountable for it.

[00:12:06] Yeah especially in smaller churches where you're you don't have an assistant pastor who's on staff and you don't have up and coming pastor who's you know like an intern it you and several laymen who may be preached once every month or two so yeah you're lonely because you're doing a lot of the work and I imagine that's might be the case at your church.

[00:12:27] Yeah I'm the only staff yeah but I'm not particularly lonely but I am the soul full time person but yeah so on the one hand it's a solitary venture but doesn't need to be full of exclusive like solitary confinement you're not on your own in this.

[00:12:48] So how Angie have you found that teaching can be a community project that it can involve others.

[00:12:55] You know there's a proverb not in the Bible but there's an expression it takes a village to raise a child.

[00:13:02] Yes I proverbial saying thank you it takes a village to raise a child and I think that's also true of the church and not to undermine the critical role that elders play but I believe that elders are called by Christ to shepherd the flock and guard the doctrine of the church

[00:13:20] and he's entrusted them also with gifted men and women to help them accomplish that task God didn't intend for them to do it alone and I think of all of these verses in the New Testament that support that idea like in Hebrews 10 it talks about speaking of spurring one another on to love and good works and it's in the context of meeting together.

[00:13:42] And the New Testament one another's happened in community speaking to one another and song hymns and spiritual songs Ephesians 5 teaching and and monitoring one another Colossians 316 encouraging one another and building one another up for Cecilonia's 511 and then Romans 12 this list of spiritual gifts speaks about how we're all one body so the the highly hierarchical church might miss out on the rest of the bodies contributions

[00:14:11] and elders teachers stand much to gain from the gifts and insights of their flock members so that would be one thought and then also I think most pastors would would say that they don't have it all figured out and most woods desire the input of others but they're often just so busy and it takes work and foresight and preparation to seek out that kind of input especially before sermon

[00:14:37] and but even after it it takes some intentionality and I know plenty of pastors who are just barely keeping up with the demands of the pastor because they don't just preach sermons obviously they're also doing you know pastoral visits and taking all kinds of administration on and it's just a lot of work so finishing their sermon the night before doesn't necessarily allow them the time to to get as much input on what they've prepared.

[00:15:01] And so I don't know I think that I think them a lot of pastors would benefit from it and they can think of the men and women in their audience as their their team their allies who want to help them and enrich their teaching.

[00:15:17] Yeah allies is such a great way to to yeah to view our I was going to say to view our heroes but then even the idea of a hero that talks about well there's one of us who talks and then it's one of us who listens you know we avoid I avoid the word audience then even here almost means the exact same thing but to think of the mature people in our congregations or in our in our context.

[00:15:45] Yeah there are allies and they give insight into how people think the type of questions that they're actually struggling with which often I find people struggle with different issues than like then Bible nerds struggle with you know yeah they're not particularly interested in like the new perspective on Paul or the push back against the new perspective on Paul or or some synthesis like that is interesting to me at the moment but it's not interesting to anybody else and so yeah.

[00:16:15] While that should exist there in the background and be a stimulating thought.

[00:16:20] The type of questions people are wondering about like need to be asked like what's actually important to you this week and how is God met you and where do the prayer requests that you have and how can God's word this week be helpful to you how can I ask the kind of questions that need to be answered yeah totally and I think of I was I don't know if your audience is familiar with the preacher talk teachers talk podcast by nine marks and semi interest.

[00:16:46] But they had an episode in which one of their hosts can work opulent it's I believe it said the episode is entitled giving and receiving feedback and I imagine that you have show notes.

[00:16:56] Yeah perfect so he talked about how although we don't we don't endorse any other preach we are the one and only.

[00:17:03] They are their competition.

[00:17:06] You're my favorite hands down.

[00:17:11] Yeah I listen to it like almost every week it's a really good show there's there's other shows in this in this genre of podcasts and I think they're all good.

[00:17:20] Sorry to interject but yes no no not at all but i'm not joking this is my favorite as much as I like the other one but they were mentioning so K.

[00:17:28] I've heard Copeland mentioned that in the week weeks maybe her prior to his message and he rate he will send his text to a diverse group of people in his congregation the businessman or woman the blue collar worker the young believer the season

[00:17:43] believer the single mom the widow the Sunday school teacher maybe even a teenager i'm not sure I didn't re listen again but I just remember thinking that's such great exercise to do and then he'll ask them two simple questions what question does this text raise and what objections should I make sure to address.

[00:18:03] And I find that so helpful because people have different lenses through which they view the scriptures and those kind of.

[00:18:10] In sources of input will will greatly enhance how we approach the text if other people help us take off our own lenses for a minute and put on theirs yeah yeah now you know i can see you on the zoom screen and you have your books behind you and you can see me and you can see my books behind me and I can sold books all the time on.

[00:18:32] To how to understand a passage even how to apply a passage I might look to these different things but to think of the fact that yeah we're surrounded by a community in our in our churches like their people that we can learn from just as much as these authors of these books and they're actually incredibly far more accessible and you can.

[00:18:50] Can ask them direct questions and they could feed they could feed back and that's a fabulous resource again maybe moving beyond the idea of like you're the uneducated and i'm here to educate you but it's like band all of us we're just trying to figure these things out together we're trying to what it means to walk an obedience and.

[00:19:08] And the ones that you ask their questions are representative of so many others who are like you and we should be really eager to learn from people that are willing to talk to us and answer these questions mm hmm and that's why I remember discussing this with some women Bible teachers how.

[00:19:26] Jen Wilkin and Kathleen Nielsen and these other godly Bible teachers in the women's ministry realm produce video content and and then books to accompany them that that then churches purchase and that's the content of their women's ministry Bible studies and.

[00:19:43] And in an ideal world each church should have enough trained women that they themselves can teach their women and not depend upon these resources and i'm imagining that Kathleen Nielsen and Jen Wilkin and all the others would be happy yeah if they didn't have to sell these resources to unresourced or under resourced churches and they they talk about how.

[00:20:06] Women who teach their women directly they know their audience they love them they pray for them and so it goes both ways when when your audience is the people you know when you're here is when you're interlockers or whatever are people that you have a relationship with they are going to give you so much more than Jen Wilkin can receive when she's doing a video based Bible study that's going out into.

[00:20:31] The world without her knowing her audience and she she understands limitations of that but I just see that as another reason why we have so much to gain from these in person teaching opportunities and especially for women who we just don't preach Sunday after Sunday so we really have to pursue these venues and.

[00:20:50] Occasion's yeah yeah Angie so I haven't warned you at this question but some I know that you've you've taught the Bible in in diverse settings in diverse continents and you've i'm sure worked hard to kind of know the audience in these different different contexts.

[00:21:08] How how do you get to know them and how do you get to know kind of the the the felt needs and what does let's say teaching in Senegal or like how do you yeah how would you teach a passage in Senegal perhaps different than you would in Canada.

[00:21:26] Yeah that's a great question yeah and I think that maybe it forces you to be too broad and I forgive me if that's too part of a question no no but it's important to realize that our audience determines so much of our approach and unfortunately I think people in the west think that people in the eastern non western countries are story story focused people and that we in the west are more driven by facts but I don't think that.

[00:21:56] That's true and I think that a good story teller really well you know like we we kind of are used to hearing a lot of Pauline pistols preached right in a lot of our churches in fact I remember in seminary my preaching professor Dan Green whom I will be mentioning later on said that a lot of times guys graduate from seminary and they have a wrinkle in their Greek New Testament or from in the Pauline section because that's where they end up going the most and yet narrative is the majority of the Bible and I think that.

[00:22:26] I think that's why I think the most important here is appreciate a well woven story from scripture just as much as a synagogue's sister would and I tend to seek out opportunities to teach narrative because I think that they know those stories so well they they come to life in ways that more not literate because the women in Senegal can read but that are more are highly intellectualized church culture maybe doesn't of focuses.

[00:22:56] So that's one thing I would do focus on the story telling and then obviously applications that are taking into account their unique experiences in their culture and not you know in the west.

[00:23:11] Okay, and is that from demographic research are you reading these sort of things or is it through interacting with women in Senegal and then back home and noticing the differences.

[00:23:25] Well I did have a lot of miss theological training before I went overseas so our mission had to go through some intense training and then I kept up and I was I had a good friend who was a missionary in Africa for many years and then handed up leaving the direct field to work.

[00:23:41] In story telling and training pastors and preachers and teachers in storytelling and so that really helped me understand his name's Tim Branigan and he's amazing and so he really helped me see the importance of storytelling and how a lot more of the Bible is story then didactic epistolatory literature.

[00:24:00] Yeah, yeah okay and so that's yeah and so to back up a little bit you were speaking about your kind of referencing how cared word Copeland would would ask you know blue collar workers and young believers about the passage.

[00:24:16] Is that from like what he texts them these questions or would he gather them together or what are ways that you think that we could interact with people in our congregations to ask these kind of questions about the text that are coming up.

[00:24:30] I believe if memory serves me correctly that he sent them an email and then asked them will send me send me just and if we asked too much of people then we're probably less likely to get much feedback right so there's probably certain people that you can literally print out.

[00:24:45] And hand them a feedback form on a Sunday morning and say yeah, I want you to give me this filled out by next Sunday you know or or by Tuesday whatever but some people maybe two simple questions via email and they know that all you expect is you know two paragraphs and that's doable for most people and so I believe that's what he said he just sent an email.

[00:25:08] Okay alright and what do you do?

[00:25:11] So I don't teach as often so when I do I get I'm on a face on a WhatsApp group with the women that I teach with and so we will discuss our passage and we'll share our manuscripts and I get a ton of pre teaching feedback because I have the time I have the luxury that you as a pastor preaching on a very regular basis.

[00:25:31] I don't have and so I received feed I sent Taylor turkey 10 my manuscript before I taught at the TGC Canada National Conference on Exodus one a few weeks ago and so I got great feedback from her and from other women in oh I even asked there's a Facebook group that if any women are listening and interested in joining is called women Bible expositors and so it's for women who are in the teaching ministry.

[00:25:55] So I asked on that Facebook group would anyone be willing to read my manuscript and give me feedback and so a woman that I didn't even know who's now become a friend took the time to give me extensive feedback.

[00:26:06] So that really helped sharpen my manuscript.

[00:26:11] Wow and so that was for you know we could say kind of a kind of a big message you know it was root would you would you seek out that much feedback on a

[00:26:24] when it's what it's you and the regular the regular girls going through the regular passage.

[00:26:29] For women ladies girls.

[00:26:32] No offense taken.

[00:26:34] I appreciate your sensitivity.

[00:26:36] I don't teach in small settings anymore only because when I get invited I immediately channel one of the women that I'm training to take that

[00:26:45] because I really want to equip and then launch other women into ministry so I only speak at conferences

[00:26:51] and it's not because I only want the spotlight but it's because if other women are eventually going to replace me at big conferences they need to speak at that women's breakfast and at that you know gathering of some sort that's smaller.

[00:27:06] Wow wow that's great.

[00:27:10] So what's your role for these these ladies that are taking your invites that you're getting so you're giving them that and I imagine from from the

[00:27:21] what little I know about you that's not so that you can have more free time.

[00:27:24] You're probably yeah again you're doing that for their sake and then also this is not that you're just abdicating responsibility but you're using this as an opportunity to

[00:27:33] invest in them as in they teach and then are more and more competent qualified to do so.

[00:27:39] It's often more work for me to delegate it because I asked them to send me a full manuscript.

[00:27:43] Yeah and then I have to give them feedback and it's hard because that takes a lot of work to to give constructive feedback that will encourage them but not discourage them if they've got quite a bit of progress to make but I know that they can work on certain things so yeah no it's definitely not so that I can you know watch more Netflix.

[00:28:02] Yeah somebody preached in my church last Sunday and you know it was all in all.

[00:28:12] I think I saved about an hour you know because there was you know multiple phone conversations and in person one kind of kind of practicing it almost yeah and then the follow-up feedback like I think that average that if I add all that up I think I saved about an hour.

[00:28:30] Yeah however like next time will be a little bit shorter yeah and and then also I just think it's good for the church to see more and more people especially Irish leaders.

[00:28:39] Yes you know filled up to do that so.

[00:28:41] Yes it might look like oh yeah cool Mike is to wake off well no but it's it's better in the long term for for that guy for this church and then I think for this Christian community brought in the Broadway it's good so.

[00:28:54] That's great we've sure deviated from this conversation but I think this is all it's all loosely connected to the idea of like teaching be being a community project.

[00:29:04] I was hoping to get advice from you on how we could pull in others to do to do like kind of work alongside with us but I'm learning even more in this conversation so thanks for taking this diversion.

[00:29:16] Yeah I'm glad it was fun.

[00:29:18] Anything anything left or anything else that you think should be said on the notion of like Bible teaching as a community project like in it's it's solitary yes but it's community what what else should we say before we kind of park this and then move on to feedback seeking.

[00:29:33] I'm ready for feedback seeking how can we seek feedback certainly there's better and there's worse ways to seek out feedback and then to give feedback.

[00:29:45] Yeah you want to talk about giving feedback or receiving feedback first.

[00:29:49] First I'll just talk about giving feedback and I think back to my favorite professor who was at my seminary is Dr. Green he said one time in class the student asked him how do you see through church on the Sunday.

[00:30:02] And not critique the sermon and I love what he said because he said that when when he goes to church he's there to listen to the sermon and be ministered to it by it and to worship Christ that comes first.

[00:30:18] So if someone asked for feedback at a church that you're attending visiting whatever then we should definitely be prepared to give that but we should first fight to allow the sort of the spirit to work in our own hearts and the cerebral exercise should be secondary so that's just across the board something that probably us who are preaching nerds have to fight to always do right.

[00:30:45] Yeah if I get asked to give feedback on something you know which which you know happens and often oftentimes i'll say yes and then I don't really get around to it.

[00:30:56] But I try to listen to it like two or three times because I first I want to listen to it first as a Christian and then I want to listen to it again as a critic.

[00:31:06] I first want to like I there's there's a part of me I could tear apart anything you know and I think that's a bad habit to have so I want to listen to it to be ministered to and then I want to tear to shreds on the second go.

[00:31:23] Oh that's good we can't do that very often in church unless of course we go to the recording afterwards so I guess we can't do that is just said it's it's time consuming and maybe that's why you don't do it as often as well.

[00:31:34] No it is yeah so I actually I'm actually not super good giving feedback on the spot like you know after after I've heard a servant a sermon because like well i'm actually you know you know brother I was just trying to get fed and you fed me thank you for feeding me and here's some things that I really treasure.

[00:31:51] If there's notable massive gaps then of course I could I could highlight those but I try really hard it's an internal and my wife has seen me do it before like you know so glance at me sometimes and and I know that because she's looking at me she notice something wrong and then she's looking at me to see if I notice it and of course I noticed it but i'm trying to not think about it and then focus on the next point good for you good for you that's a good that's exemplary and they'd encourage us me to try to do better because.

[00:32:21] I have to really concentrate on listening to be broken by the word and not think oh well you know according to Brian chapel that that you know is that the best way it's just the New Testament give authorization to use that old to some passage that way.

[00:32:40] Yeah it's worth saying but I think yeah i'm fighting against the impulse to have that be the first and the only thing that I that I think while it's taking place yeah but most of all is being like hey this is this is true and yeah maybe Paul wouldn't have used Moses that way but it's still God's word and what can this you know how can I grow as a father follower spouse through this.

[00:33:04] Anyway so i'm glad that your professor had the same philosophy that I do that's great i always affirming when smart people agree with me.

[00:33:11] Yeah what else about like yeah giving feedback have you have you learned.

[00:33:16] Yes one thing that I realize is that obviously but maybe not but it needs to be solicited so I was at a women's retreat of my church and we invited a sister who's a conference speaker

[00:33:28] and she's an author and she's so great and she's the total opposite of me she's sweet and soft spoken and gentle and very feminine and very just like she resonates with people in a different way that I do.

[00:33:40] And as she was teaching I started taking some notes on my phone like I do when my husband preaches and then I realized she didn't ask me for that so i'm not going to give it to her.

[00:33:48] And then at one point in during the weekend she said I got admit that when I heard that and she was going to be at this retreat I maybe she didn't mention me my name but because there's also like my my coach and the women's ministry director at our church the deaconess she's gifted teacher as well so she said and my pastor's wife is an amazing teacher.

[00:34:09] She works with children and she speaks of women's retreats where it's like a mother daughter retreat and she's amazing and so she's like when I heard that I was going to have to speak in front of all these gifted women I was really intimidated and so I realized that had I given her on solicited advice it might have been kind of like wait.

[00:34:25] I was already nervous and now you just confirmed that you know whatever so.

[00:34:31] If she were to come and ask me I would still be able to give her what I thought because I just left it in my notes on my phone whatever but another thing is that feedback should be specific so comments like you did a great job or that was really edifying our generally not as clear for the speaker to understand okay what what do I do that's good and what do I do that's maybe not as good.

[00:34:54] So the more specific the comment can be like why really appreciated how you explain the meaning of verse five I never understood that until you know you mentioned this one nuance of the Greek or whatever so that's important yeah yeah I was also going to say the feedback should be well timed so Sunday right after church is not the time to tell my husband or my pastor you know what I was really not as good as I was.

[00:35:23] I'm not as happy about this or I think you could have you know whatever it is it should be something that if it's solicited I maybe keep it like because my notes are in my phone you know like I'll I'll have the feedback in my phone and then I can just email it on you know such and such dates so just to give the person who just spoke time to come down from about adrenaline of speaking and and not immediately get kind of like discouraged by feedback even if it's kind.

[00:35:52] Yeah yeah and have you been on the receiving end of some like poorly timed or even well I can't speak to motives but like yeah have you ever received bad feedback before.

[00:36:06] Well, I have received feedback where the positive feedback was vague and the constructed feedback was specific and so it was a little puzzling because I'm like oh but what did I do right because I would like to

[00:36:21] continue to do the things that I did right well but if the feedback is general it's hard to know how I can improve in that area or continue and improve like do it even better you know if there's something that I'm doing well then I want to nail it even more next time so yeah that that kind of thing is something that you know I've heard but then it's it's common to give general feedback from

[00:36:50] from like to hear general feedback from the average here but but this was more from like a fellow teacher so anyway another thing that I think is important in and this is related is that it should be balanced so if we have trouble let's say

[00:37:09] let's say that the message was a train wreck we still need to find something encouraging to say and I think of how when our kids are are not doing great in school but we see that they're working super hard then we commend them for their effort and so if if we're having to give feedback to someone who's young and maybe inexperience but who's

[00:37:30] working on their craft then at least commend their effort and be specific about the ways in which they were intentional to prepare and study and if they didn't then well you know maybe just make sure not to give them my next time right yeah but also not to overwhelm them with all of their flaws because

[00:37:48] there's so much that we could say that could really bring someone down and so I would say for example that if we focus on the three most important things especially if they didn't ask if they didn't hand us a sheet saying fill out this sermon prep a feedback form then let's focus on the most important things so if the sermon was a running commentary that had little illustration, little application

[00:38:11] and all law and no gospel well then follow focusing on the arms and the awkward pacing is secondary you know like content trumps delivery.

[00:38:22] Sure sure and yeah so you mentioned the idea of it being being balanced and then proportional and I appreciate what you were just saying that the emphasis needs to be on the most important things so yeah there's there's issues of you know whatever your hands when your pockets that's fine but if they miss the

[00:38:40] gospel if they didn't speak the name of Jesus then that's far more important and should take more of your time and yeah you spoke earlier about how yeah sometimes you've received like generic bland positive feedback and then like specific negative isn't it isn't nice when they're when they're both when it's an evenly balanced actually highlighting the positive and the room for growth rather than just like oh yeah in general it was good but yeah

[00:39:08] I think it's a good thing to do is that you're not going to be able to do something that you did wrong.

[00:39:13] Okay so in this conversation like I'd like to maybe move on into some more specifics of this so like I'm a I'm a man I'm an elder I'm a lead pastor and I have benefited from specifically seeking out like females to look over my notes and to give like that preemptive contributions or viewpoints or questions or comments and you're all about that like that

[00:39:34] should be the case. What do you think that men should seek out feedback from women?

[00:39:39] I'd like to say that I shared this question on a Facebook group of female theologians and they gave me some suggestions so I want to give them credit because a lot of these women had gave me some great insights so this was a group project.

[00:39:47] Yeah okay okay you curated this. Yes so I'd like to begin with the story.

[00:39:53] So when I was a seminary I loved my preaching classes and I loved my preaching professor and I remember him and I having a conversation once in which I told him that I hope to be married someday I was single at the time and that I'd love to be able to help my husband in history and preparation and giving him feedback and he said hmm I'm not going to be able to do that.

[00:40:03] I'm not sure that every guy will like that you know just prepare yourself for the fact that that might not fly and maybe that's true for some of the people who are in the same position as me.

[00:40:13] I'm not sure that every guy will like that you know just prepare yourself for the fact that that might not fly and maybe that's true for some of the people who are in the same position as me.

[00:40:22] And he said hmm I'm not sure that every guy will like that you know just prepare yourself for the fact that that might not fly and maybe that's true for some men but Dr. Green didn't know that I would marry Dan Thornton who is just this humble godly man and he loves it when I help him and he sees it as part of the blessing of having me as his Ezra Kanegdo his suitable helper.

[00:40:49] So for example he's on the council of the gospel coalition Quebec that's sold out and they had a kind of a gathering of all the council members and they were discussing this very question of how do you receive feedback how do you seek out feedback.

[00:41:04] And so Dan mentioned that he gets a lot of that from me and the guy said the laugh at the thought that one of their members is married to a homilitician like him.

[00:41:15] And most of them have to go out of their way to seek out input from other pastors because they're in small churches where there's one train pastor and then layholders who aren't necessarily as equipped in preaching whereas for us that's our pillow talk.

[00:41:31] Okay yeah and that yeah that might be on the more unique side but but yeah it's now yeah my friend Pilgrim Benham he talks about like mentors and this is not entirely the same thing but he says like the best mentors are the ones that like know him best love him most and tell him what he doesn't want to hear.

[00:41:57] And like who is better capable or qualified to do that than you know one's own spouse who literally loves you most not in some figurative sense but is like covenantly connected and promised to be with you for better of course and they want you to succeed.

[00:42:13] Yeah so yeah that's great here's to yeah not making that weird.

[00:42:18] Well and you know you've had a number of guests on the show who have said that their wives are tremendous helps them in this area and not I don't know if necessarily the majority of those men who commented in that way were married to women whose job is to train women in Bible exposition but it just goes to show that there is benefit from hearing from our wives first of all but I also think that if pastors consider that half over half of their hearers are women over half right because we are over half the church.

[00:42:47] Yeah then pastors stand much to gain from having these voices contribute to their preparation and feedback and I just extensively explain the benefits of listening to your wife's feedback but I also want to say that a pastor's wife shouldn't be the only female feedback because although her reality is valid.

[00:43:11] She is not representative of the 40 year old woman who's single and in the workplace.

[00:43:18] The working woman who's a mom but who doesn't homeschool like the pastor's wife who's a stay at home mom perhaps.

[00:43:26] The pastor's wife doesn't understand the realities of a divorcee or a widow or a single mom or of a teenager and for that matter pastors teenage daughters don't necessarily represent all the teenage girls in the church.

[00:43:39] If you think well I talked to my daughters and my wife so I'm covered.

[00:43:44] And so all this different list of demographics these women will have different questions and reflections on gender and relationships and career and ministry and service and so many other things.

[00:43:56] And so one of the women on the Facebook group suggested why not do an exercise as a pastor when the next time you prepare your sermon imagine that your entire audience is only women.

[00:44:08] And see how that would broaden your perspective. How you would think of ways to address some of the different demographics that I just listed.

[00:44:15] Yeah, I appreciate you highlighting that let's say my wife and my daughter are different than then yeah the typical person and for me that's double your tripple so number one I'm American and I live in Ireland so on the one hand there's that we have that but you know and this is not an

[00:44:37] easy way to dishonor my daughter but you know like we got in a pretty big well one of our biggest arguments ever came from her wanting to read the book of Revelation and I said, you know, Rosie you should wait a little bit longer until you're a little bit older before you could read

[00:44:51] and she was stomping around the house that she was going to mom and then mom was like, I agree with dad you know that's weird but that's really weird.

[00:45:02] So I just I know that that's not everyone else's experience.

[00:45:08] How is Rosie? She's nine now but she was she was seven then since red revelation but it was like in a supervised way.

[00:45:19] Yeah, but she wanted to read it when she was seven and she just could not believe that mean old dad wasn't letting her read it when she was seven.

[00:45:25] Oh, I love that story.

[00:45:27] I know it's weird. There was no.

[00:45:29] Yes, I love it. Send her to beams one day I'd love to hear her preaching.

[00:45:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:45:34] So yeah, so yeah, that would have great kind of like like grid, you know, like there's there is yeah people that are stay at home moms.

[00:45:43] There's people that like don't want that that are actually like thankful that they're not doing that and each of them being like happy and godly and different view viewpoints of that second marriages.

[00:45:54] Longing for marriage there's all these different stages and I appreciate I guess yeah your nuance look at that there's no such thing as like a generic woman.

[00:46:02] And so we should do what we can to address the different kinds of yeah that other half of people in the church.

[00:46:09] I think you're right to point out yeah, I think it's in most churches. It's more than half, you know, 55 60% and so it's worth some thought.

[00:46:18] Yeah, and also if you were to engage a core group of women and men for that matter in listening and providing feedback, you would teach them to think more critically, listen more attentively and discuss more thoughtfully instead of listening passively knowing that well,

[00:46:38] you're not going to have an exam at the end of the sermon, you know like not that you're testing these women but when I know that I have to give feedback, I'm on the edge of my seat.

[00:46:48] And I think that that could probably produce a greater participation in the act of worship if people are knowing that their pastor depends on them to help them help him make progress in his word work.

[00:47:02] And so it's not just as even have like a question and answer session periodically after the sermon where the pastor and some of the elders and maybe the women's ministry director or you know just a team of people are on stage to answer questions about that sermon and about other things.

[00:47:19] And it allows for an even more biological experience than the sermon, which is not generally biological. Although I did the TGC women's cohort on how to teach the Bible and the session that Jen Wilkin taught has been transformative for me because she taught how whether she's teaching five women in her living room or whether she's teaching 5,000 women at a TGC national conference in the USA, she teaches dialogically where she'll say now what's the verb in verse four?

[00:47:46] And the women have to look at their Bible and answer even though she's not actually able to hear the voices of 5,000 women speaking under their lip under their voice, you know just but they're engaging.

[00:47:59] And so there's something so beneficial to speaking with your audience in a way that engages them but a Q&A would obviously be even more biological than a message even if it was given in this format.

[00:48:11] Yeah, I'm reaching for between two worlds. I know that in the first first or second chapter, John Stott speaks about yeah that all good preaching is dialogical and he does not expect there to actually be called in response but he says that good preaching should raise a question, let it kind of linger a little bit and then and then answer that question.

[00:48:36] And that whether that's true in kind of the big picture, the big questions of life or the microcosms that Jen Wilkin is looking at what's the verb in this verse but there should be some sort of thing of like again we talked earlier on about using the word audience or hearers you know or listeners but like it's a way of involving people that shows that your job is not just to sit and listen.

[00:48:58] Like your job is to interact with these ideas and even these verses with me and I'm going to guide you in interacting with this.

[00:49:05] Definitely. And another point that I think is important is that illustrations in a sermon, I think that it might be more work for the pastor but for a pastor to go out of his way to use illustrations that depict women in a positive way.

[00:49:21] That speaks powerfully to to over half the church women that that contributed contribute showcase women that contribute to the body of Christ throughout church history and throughout their own communities of faith is really meaningful.

[00:49:39] And I have a friend who's a pastor in training like a pastoral intern and he regularly uses illustrations like that that are inspiring because he references inspiring women.

[00:49:50] And one time he quoted Jen Wilkin and like it's not very often that I hear a woman Bible teacher theologian quoted and it says something to me.

[00:50:03] It communicates the dignity and worth of the contributions of women and I love this brother.

[00:50:10] It's just it's so encouraging to do that. And pastors should get familiar with the writers that women are being influenced by in their churches and then if they're writing well and giving good insights why not quote them, right?

[00:50:29] And the same goes for application, illustrations and applications can often maybe come from the experience of the speaker but applications that relate to a variety of the heroes are really important.

[00:50:45] So we talked earlier about singleness and how most women I know who are single it's undesired and to show there's some men who are single in the church but the proportion of godly single women is greater.

[00:50:55] And women struggling with infertility or miscarriage or singleness really struggle on Mother's Day for example.

[00:51:02] So being sensitive to understand that Mother's Day is some is one of the hardest Sundays of the year for some women and honoring their pain when celebrating the contributions of mothers and things like that is just something that maybe might not be on the radar of every pastor but that would be helpful or recognizing there are women who are undergoing physical or psychological or sexual abuse at the hands of their husbands.

[00:51:31] Or who are struggling with body image issues or who are survivors of childhood trauma and sexual abuse or who are facing health challenges that are unique to women like PMS difficult pregnancies trouble with nursing postpartum depression endometriosis menopause all these things some of these words may even be like unknown.

[00:51:52] Unknown are male listeners but they're yeah endometriosis is a new one I haven't yeah i'll look at that one up yeah.

[00:52:00] But all that to say that when when someone takes the time to understand the women and acknowledge their unique struggles it honors them and I've heard pastors mention male struggles and for example challenge men who are struggling with the pornography addiction

[00:52:20] and even then sometimes that can be hurtful to women when there are women in the church who are also struggling with a pornography addiction and when it's depicted as a guy problem it just compounds the shame so that's just a few thoughts.

[00:52:36] Yeah, hey, hey thanks i just looked up endometriosis and yeah so thank you i learned something just there during that and yeah and something a very small thing that I have started doing in the past couple of years or kept past year to be honest is.

[00:52:55] yeah just the generic stories that I can make up on the spots you know about you know the artist who completes a painting the runner who finishes the race i found as a man it's i'm always imagining a man doing those things and i've just tried to.

[00:53:11] You know imagine it's a woman so i mentioned you know just like an artist completes her work and then stands back and she looks at it and she appreciates it or as the athlete stretches her body and then crosses the finish line it it just it's the easiest thing in the world to do but i've got specific feedback that people notice it well people women notice it yes and it's it's a very small thing it goes over most people's heads but it's a small way to acknowledge it.

[00:53:41] I'm not just the other half of the church and i'm always up for learning like please i'm not here to be like listen i've got this you got this locked down i'm not i want to be growing in this and i'm putting conscious thought and work into it in a way that some of my peers aren't and i have found that i've had a lot of good conversations with my peers about like.

[00:54:01] It's pretty easy to do this and it's not going to bother anybody and you're not going woke or anything yeah it's just a easy way to acknowledge the other people in your church yes thank you thank you for doing that and thank you for encouraging your brothers and it means so much because you have tremendous influence and God's giving you a platform in which you can.

[00:54:21] raise awareness on this and i think for example of when roe versus weight was overturned i heard in social media and in different Christian settings people celebrating it and being very clear that abortion is murder and i agree with that statement 100% however.

[00:54:41] However a lot of women in the church have had an abortion so to state abortion is murder and not follow that with but but there's grace there's forgiveness can can really be harmful to a woman who hears that statement without the nuance of gods forgiveness because she's probably living with the years of shame from whenever she made that terrible decision.

[00:55:12] And i think about how i host a podcast with another woman in France she's a bible teacher and she's a ministry as well and we did two episodes on what the bible teaches on menstruation.

[00:55:24] And we just thought that men were going to tune out because a third of our audience is men like the statistics are we're able to know this and so i wondered like who's going to listen to us and then a couple weeks a few weeks ago i was in France on a ministry trip.

[00:55:41] And i met one of the men who's listened to every episode and he said you know which ones were my favorite the two episodes you did on menstruation they helped me understand my wife they helped me understand the scriptures better and they were just so enriching and it just made me laugh because what are the chances that the average cool podcast that i love to listen to with you know one man hosting or two men hosting is going to broach the subject but this little example is just an anecdote about how.

[00:56:11] If pastors hear from the women in their church they might learn things that will help them better communicate the word on a Sunday morning from the pulpit.

[00:56:20] Sure how should I address menstruation from the pulpit?

[00:56:27] Well even just acknowledging that PMS isn't a joke you know like like because i think i've heard it in those terms but just acknowledging that when you teach from you know Mark five.

[00:56:41] So the woman with the issue of blood like the pastor does not realize what it would be like for a woman to endure that because he doesn't embody that every single month like i do and so when i taught on mark five.

[00:56:56] I told that story a lot more graphically without being inappropriate but just saying just imagine her going down to the river and etc so i'm not suggesting that you know every sermon should have a mention of.

[00:57:09] You know the diva cop or something but.

[00:57:13] What i'm on it's so many different words and this conversation my Google search history is going to look weird after this.

[00:57:20] You're going to start getting ads for washable menstrual pads or something yeah.

[00:57:25] Yeah well yeah but that it's not that it's not just a yeah a quip you know or you know who was time at that time of the month you know yeah you're you're you're right to highlight this and.

[00:57:38] You're right the like in my mind i'm thinking of all these old testament passages about you know the vehicle standards for that type of stuff but but you're bringing this into even new testament stuff for this is something that even Jesus.

[00:57:50] I myself like interacted with in inappropriate way again i think you're you're right to say and i'm not getting this impression i got a.

[00:57:58] You know re schedule got 12 guy got your 12 week series on this i'm not going to yeah please don't.

[00:58:06] In fact yeah this i won't trust me i won't okay and so.

[00:58:13] Yeah thank you so those are fascinating very interesting um you've you've mentioned a book actually i have it kind of in my.

[00:58:21] My my ebook library but i haven't read it yet preaching that speaks to woman what what's that all about why should I read that.

[00:58:29] Okay full disclosure i haven't read it but it was recommended by the.

[00:58:33] We have that in common women yes but he was endorsed by hadn't Robinson okay so that speaks volumes so this woman is.

[00:58:42] A Bible teacher a hamletician seminary professor and so she writes this book to help pastors understand how to dress their female audience and i haven't read it but.

[00:58:52] I was recommended and i'd love to so that's all i can say about it but i did want to mention another point about the importance of translations the csb the net bible or the nl t or the niv tend to translate the word men.

[00:59:09] Like anthropos as people now the word an air in Greek so there's two words in Greek for man and one of them means people humans and the other one means specifically men and we don't have that nuance in the English language.

[00:59:22] And the word at the word a del foi which is translated brothers and in older translations they translate brothers and sisters and the reason i think that's important is because for so long i've i've thought of many of those passages that say men.

[00:59:36] As applying to only half the church and i've heard them talk that way and so when we use a translation that is inclusive without tampering with the gender of God.

[00:59:51] Never okay i'm never suggesting that but why not use a translation that in our generation speaks more you know like maybe in you know the 1700s everyone knew that men meant both but now.

[01:00:05] Days it feels excluding of half the church so i think that's helpful and do you have any thoughts on that well yeah i mean so are you suggesting that we switch Bible translations or is it is it appropriate for the preacher to say and you know it says brothers here but of course this is for men and women.

[01:00:27] Or do you recommend that we buy new Peebiles.

[01:00:32] You know i'm not going to i'm not going to lie to you i don't think you need to change a translation change the Peebibles but what i've done is that considering that a translation is not inspired it's the original manuscripts that were inspired i will change the translation myself like when i'm reading if if something is not inclusive but i like the other nuance that that translation brings all just say brothers and sisters because i don't think that i'm.

[01:00:56] You know adding to the Bible i'm simply.

[01:01:01] Bringing two translations together in a sense you know.

[01:01:06] So yeah and another thing that i think is important is that when pastors preach from quote the pink passages you know the ones that women know that we've often memorized that we've been taught at women's retreats and women's breakfast.

[01:01:20] They would especially benefit from our input because we might know those passages better than they do you know because they've been used to teach us are complimentary and values so i think for example of a sermon i once heard on first peter three.

[01:01:35] That's like peter's famous passage on submission women submission and he concludes with a warning to husbands to be gentle with their wise quote less your prayers be hindered.

[01:01:46] And the the sermon that i heard this dear brother didn't mention those words he didn't he didn't touch that and maybe he just ran out of time that's probably what happened but.

[01:01:58] I think that it's so important to not skip those words because they are the there are there are the crux in the sense of the man's responsibility in that section so that's something that a woman had.

[01:02:15] A woman had a woman you know given input should say i'd love to hear you speak on this in particular because i'm very familiar with my responsibility i'm a good complimentarian you know i know what i need to submit it means.

[01:02:28] And then another time i heard in a without a lot of intervals between them I heard two messages and two different settings on first to meet the chapter one this very important passage where paul is commending the faith of his prodigy Timothy highlighting the influence of lowest and unis his mother and his grandmother.

[01:02:50] Both preachers skipped over that entirely they didn't even mention the crucial role of mothers and grandmothers and women older women have over the next generation.

[01:03:04] And in one of the cases i reached out to the brother and i didn't know him but i had spoken to him very briefly and so i sent him a message and he said thank you so much I will make sure that the next time i teach this.

[01:03:19] I incorporate that he received it so well and we become friends since so it was just a model of a godly humble reception of of a feedback like the one i mentioned.

[01:03:32] Well i recently did Philippians i did kind of a four week series on philippians four and so there is in verse two there's yoria and zintiki and you know of course i enjoy reading i like to read i also like to listen to listen to listen to sermons i'm a.

[01:03:48] i'm a i'm a bible nerd i'm a preaching nerd so i like to listen you know and i tell you the way that different preachers handled verse two it kind of it kind of it tipped their hands to a lot of a lot of things i've heard and we don't know a whole bunch about yoria and zintiki we know that they labored side by side with paul we know the three.

[01:04:10] Yeah, we know that their names are written in the lambs look alive.

[01:04:15] We know that but then yeah i heard some preachers say oh look you know isn't it great that like philipp the church in philippi had female elders here we have these female elders you and zintiki that are there and then others have talked to you know use that as an opportunity to make a quip about how maybe they were arguing about what kind of salad to bring to the pot luck the church pot luck and you know how women are this so argumentative.

[01:04:39] And yeah and again from looking into that passage we don't i don't believe that their elders and i also believe this is something far more significant than church pot luck issues yeah but the way that they're either elevated or dismissed it it showed how the preacher understood the you know maybe women's roles in general.

[01:05:01] Definitely and you know of philippians one verse one says to the to the deacons and elders you know so i would be comfortable with maybe.

[01:05:13] Considering that they were deaconesses you know because paul uses that that notion elsewhere but yeah.

[01:05:21] I'll consider it i'll put that within the spectrum of church pot luck to yes something else that i wanted to mention is that gen wilken she gave a message at an act twenty nine conference in which she discussed.

[01:05:37] Women in the church and she said that one of the reasons that's important to hear the voices of women is that women don't outgrow their vulnerability therefore they tend to have eyes for other vulnerable people vulnerable people the marginalized the power list the week and they notice these things a bit faster than a pastermite and she used as evidence for that the number of women who are in foreign missions who are in social work I would add an education special education human service.

[01:06:07] And other caring professions so the input of women can help us recognize where we might not be seeing those who are.

[01:06:18] Meeting of special care and gentleness in our.

[01:06:23] And also as a side note i know this but we're not focusing on that but I think it's also important to get.

[01:06:33] A different set of demographics giving input you know different nationalities and ethnicities in religious background like a Muslim background believer in Senegal would have a far different.

[01:06:42] A set of lenses than the Catholic background believer when my husband was preaching or teaching at the seminary so i think we just have much to learn from all kinds of different perspectives yeah yeah yeah whether it's through books that we consults or as you're saying yeah people that we bring into the conversation.

[01:07:03] Well this yeah this conversation is diverse good and and long i'm going to ask one more question but so.

[01:07:14] This has come up a couple times even in our earlier conversation but you know like your complimentary and i'm a complimentary and.

[01:07:22] Why should people of our theological persuasion particularly be interested in this good question now.

[01:07:32] Before i answer it directly I just want to ask you have you ever attended a women's conference as a spectator or observed a woman teaching women yeah okay yeah you probably had to do.

[01:07:44] Because i'm the only person on staff at my church and we hosted a women's conference and so i'd be there to do slides so i was doing slides so did i vault did i offer to go no did i register in pay no but somebody needed to do slides so that was that was me up until.

[01:08:00] This year the answer would have been no good well i imagine that you had to do a fair amount of deciphering and.

[01:08:10] Imagine that women week after week are having to decode the way that men speak because.

[01:08:17] The way that we men communicate is not identical to the way that women do and especially in our complimentary encircles we believe that men and women are not mutually interchangeable now i don't.

[01:08:30] Pendle pedal and gender stereotypes and sometimes i find these broad strokes like well all women are this and all men are like that to be.

[01:08:40] Mistaken and i'm not very feminine on the stereotype spectrum and my husband is not like you know grunting and spitting and burping kind of guy he's he's sensitive and he's gentle and caring and very madly but in a godly way not enough i'm going to go shoot things way.

[01:09:00] So we don't conform to those stereotypes and we shouldn't perpetuate them but at the same time as complimentary and so we see that there is a distinction and if we want to honor that then.

[01:09:13] We should recognize that and my husband down was even helping me with this this morning he was saying that if preaching is persuasion then to effectively call all of our heroes to spirit filled gospel transformation then we need to connect with them in meaningful ways.

[01:09:28] And so after you know listening to that genwoken message that i mentioned she she mentioned that.

[01:09:35] So many egalitarians unlike egalitarians we see the differences and we acknowledge that men are different and yet they preach as if we weren't different you know like like pastors might not always preach to half their church as if they were different than them.

[01:09:54] And genwoken she said we are you familiar with the trends that are influencing the women in your church.

[01:10:03] And she mentioned essential oils as a joke but there's so many elements of our Christian subculture that are.

[01:10:11] Just filtering through women's ministries and she asked are you familiar with the 10 dominant Christian female voices on the web and the reason that's important to a pastor is because.

[01:10:20] Those women you've got them for 40 more 5 minutes during your sermon on a Sunday but they're listening to that ladies podcast and reading her books and buying her merch.

[01:10:30] So some of them are awesome and they're spurring your women on to faith and good works but others could be subtly influencing yours the women in your church in ways that you would not desire so part of ministering to your women is knowing what speaks to them what appeals to them in ex women's.

[01:10:49] Women's word ministry and try to consider ways in which your word ministry can learn from how to speak to half of your church.

[01:11:00] And women need mothers in the church and we don't believe in female elders but if we are seeking out women to speak into the lives of the women in our church then pastors don't have to be the only authoritative teacher in the church.

[01:11:18] And I know that's difficult in small churches but there's if women don't hear women teaching ever then they won't know that they need to study to be equipped to be women of the word.

[01:11:30] And so in however that works out in a small church dynamic or a big church dynamic it's important to have these kind of avenues for them to hear other voices other than yours without compromising our complimentary convictions.

[01:11:43] Sure yeah and if there's yeah if the pastor has an awareness of let's say 10 teachers online that do have an influence in the church what are ways that and let's say there's concerns about four or five of them you know.

[01:11:59] Oh yeah this podcast getting passed around you know I'm not crazy about that.

[01:12:04] How can how can an overseer like express concern about this without coming off as maybe like a domineering man trying to shut down women's voices when it's actually not particularly that it's a woman it's that like I think that she doesn't she's not really offering the best or most healthy Christian world deal.

[01:12:23] I think that if a woman's ministry at a church is a silo that is operating completely independent of the oversight and care and nurturing and shepherding of the elders then he will only intervene when he's like you're reading what you know but if he's in close communication with the woman's ministry director and he is.

[01:12:44] Shepherding her as she shepherds her women in the church then it won't be a matter of putting fires out it'll it'll come up naturally and he can channel her towards better resources because she herself is saying I really appreciate this podcast by this woman and this one and so i'm encouraging the woman in this direction so there's there's a symbiotic relationship but that requires that from the get go.

[01:13:09] of ministries to women be closely connected to their elders without them necessarily being you know domineering like you said because.

[01:13:19] Pastors don't want that and they don't have time for that you know but if they trust the women in their leadership to inform them and to keep them abreast of the issues that their women are facing then they can strengthen both she can strengthen his preaching and he can strengthen her Bible teaching as.

[01:13:38] He guards the doctrine of the church is women's ministry by channeling them towards better resources.

[01:13:45] Yeah yeah yeah i mean i'm kind of replaying even what I said it's like how can I how can somebody you know come in and then.

[01:13:54] And then you can wash the voices of these people without looking like you're quashing the voices of these people but I think what you're pointing towards is actually a whole lot more.

[01:14:03] Philippians chapter four verse three you know like labor side by side yes that's kind of what we're on about what we're looking for labor inside by side and then out of that i don't know that soil that ecosystem then like the healthy healthy fruit is coming out of that.

[01:14:19] And then you know that's the only way to make a labor that point or to stretch that analogy too far but.

[01:14:24] Well thank you so very much you know sometimes there 25 minute episodes sometimes they're pushing an hour plus wow.

[01:14:33] But people listen to them sped up most of the time anyway so that's that's fine i've enjoyed this I you know it's some as much as I might have like i'm i'm trying i'm taking i'm taking steps I think in in this side type of direction it's wonderful to speak with you and even be learning.

[01:14:48] From you getting more ideas I know that you know.

[01:14:53] A lot of people in my position are only kind of beginning to think of this basically because they push play on this podcast episode you know so i'm thinking about it a little bit more than maybe some of my brothers and hopefully that this conversation is just spurring some conversations and can cause I guess the other half of the church to be well represented and cared for because as we degree there's.

[01:15:17] You know we're different we're creating God's image and we're created differently and we want to yeah honor and help and teach God's word in a way that ministers to to both halves of the church or 60% and 40%.

[01:15:30] Yeah.

[01:15:31] All right well i'm going to certainly link to many of those episodes that you talked about and for the the franca files what's the what's the name of your other podcast.

[01:15:41] It's called katian singular it's just a word for Christian in the female singular so yeah I can share that link as well and apparently men like it too so.

[01:15:51] Yes one third all right well thanks so much Angie always a pleasure and i hope that this conversation and all the media expositors collective help you to grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word thanks Angie.

[01:16:06] All right well thank you so much Angie I really enjoyed that conversation you brought a lot to the table and you've given all of us food for thought to be sure.

[01:16:18] Well at the beginning of the episode I announced that our next in person training event is going to be in Livermore California on May 24th and 25th to keep up to date on this announcement and others visit our website.

[01:16:35] Expositors.co you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and you can sign up for our mailing list it's about once a month it has some updates about what we're doing as a ministry I also make sure to include a section called Mike's monthly ministry and message writing missilani which is just basically a collection of articles podcast YouTube videos that I've come across and that I think.

[01:17:04] If you are a listener to this podcast especially if you listened all the way to the end you and I probably are into the same stuff so make sure that you scroll down to the bottom of that website add your email address and then you'll get Mike's monthly ministry message writing missilani some stuff that I think that you'll like.

[01:17:27] Well next week on the podcast you are in for a treat because it's myself Nick Katie Brian Stupar and John Whitaker speaking about ways that the pulpit on Sunday morning can push people towards pathways of progress in their spiritual journey.

[01:17:51] I hope that this episode and all the video expositors collective help you to grow on your personal study and public proclamation of God's word.

[01:18:01] This podcast is a part of CG and media a podcast network that points to Christ we are supported by listeners like you to help us create more great shows visit cgmedia.org slash support.

[01:18:21] you