Corrie Gustafson is an ordained ECC minister who currently serves as the pastor to women at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California. She is the PSWC liaison to Advocates for Covenant Clergy Women (ACCW) and is a regional coordinator for Advocacy for Victims of Abuse (AVA). Corrie blogs regularly at http://pastorwithapurse.com. 

Even though 2,000 years have passed between Jesus’ death and my birth, I want to do anything and everything I can to enter into his story. Following the church calendar and observing Lent have become valuable spiritual practices for me. They help me grow closer to Jesus.

During Lent I fast more and pray more. I read the Gospels with the attentiveness of an actress taking up the script (and the role) of a lifetime. How I wish I were an eyewitness of Jesus Christ! Careful reading, a healthy imagination, and the Holy Spirit have become a portal into my savior’s world.

As I’ve joined Jesus’ story this Lenten season, I’ve found myself zeroing in on the women – where they are, what they are doing, and what emotions they display. As a woman, a pastor, and a writer, I’m often disappointed that we don’t have a gospel account penned by a female disciple. After all, “Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs.” (Mt. 27:55)

Jesus had many more than 12 disciples, a fact which we too often forget. Remember that he sent out 72 disciples to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God! I picture bands of disciples spreading out from Jesus like concentric circles. The women who followed Jesus and cared for his daily needs were certainly near the center circle. Whether or not they were formally commissioned among the 72, I imagine many women were overcome with the joy of the Lord. I picture them breaking away and hurrying back to their villages and families to share all that they had seen and learned at the rabbi’s feet. Continue Reading »

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Dominique Gilliard is a pastor, theologian and activist. He also serves on the board of directors for the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), and as the director of racial righteousness experiences for the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. You can find his blog at ctobt.com/ and follow him on Twitter @WEB_DuBois_Ture. The following was initially posted on Dominique’s blog on March 6, 2015 and he submitted it to be used also on this CBGE blog.

I would not be the pastor, nor the Christian, that I am today if it weren’t for female leaders in the Church. There have been women, in all levels of leadership, who have played indispensable roles in my faith and spiritual formation. I have been pastored, taught, and discipled by women who are called, anointed, and commissioned by God. These women are not in violation of Scripture; they are continuing a long legacy of women whom God has used and worked through to lead the Church and build the Kingdom. These women are boldly and faithfully living into their created purpose.

The Bible is full of examples of women serving in a variety of leadership positions in both the Old and the New Testament. These women serve as leaders in the Church and in the broader life of the religious communities in which they serve. From Debra, Huldah, and Miriam in the Old Testament, to a plethora of woman like the apostles Lydia and Junia, Anna the prophetess, Phoebe the deacon, Priscilla, Martha, Mary, Euodia, Syntyche, Tabitha (sometimes translated as Dorcas), and the nameless woman at the well in the New Testament — these women all represent a variety of different leadership roles that women are called to serve in and throughout the Body.

Moreover, in both the Old and Testament we see God at work, pouring the Spirit out upon males and females, indiscriminately. This Pentecost is prophesied in the Old Testament book of Joel (2:28-32) and actualized in the Acts account (2:17-21). Biblical scholar Linda Belleville reminds us that during Pentecost “the women among Jesus’ disciples were enabled for witness just as the men were (Acts 1:8, 14-15; 2:7-18). The result was a major paradigm shift from the male priesthood of the Jewish cult to the charismatic worship format and gender-inclusive leadership of the early church.” The book of Acts, known as the record of the early church, attests to this. Throughout the book, the significance of women in leadership is mentioned frequently. Continue Reading »

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Mary Peterson serves at Highland Covenant Church in Bellevue, Washington and was recently elected as the President of Advocates for Covenant Clergy Women.

The internet phenomenon regarding the color of a dress last week had me thinking about how we perceive things to be true because that’s the way we see them. We look around at the world, make judgements and proclaim what we know. Case closed. Or is it?  On Sunday, I read an article called What Is Blue and How Do We See Color? which describes the way we learn to see colors. According to the article, ancient cultures had no word for the color “blue.”  So for thousands of years, people talked about the heavens, the sun and the stars, but never about the blue sky. There were no words to describe “blue.”  Imagine not being able to describe or notice blue eyes, bluebonnet flowers, blue oceans, blue post-it notes, or even sapphires. The author, Kevin Loria, says this

“It’s about the way that humans see the world, and how until we have a way to describe something, even something so fundamental as a color, we may not even notice that it’s there.”

Think about that: “Until we have a way to describe something,… we may not even notice that it’s there.” There’s a lot of people out there who have yet to notice God. Maybe they don’t have words to describe who God is. Maybe, like the people in the ancient world, they have yet to discover God, because words fail us.  A huge part of my role as a pastor is to teach people the language of faith- the words we use to describe God. We teach the kids that God is love. We talk about how Abram and Sarai set off to far away places and discovered that God was there, too. We tell the stories of the Exodus, the desert, the exile, the prophets. At Advent, we wait for the birth of Jesus, Emmanuel. When people saw the amazing things Jesus did and heard the wonderful things he spoke, they wanted to know who he was- his name. Each week, we remind the kids that Jesus is the light of the world and that we no longer live in darkness. Continue Reading »

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