Jones is the pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Stromsburg, NE. She earned an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary in 2012. Abby is mom to Stella, Lucy, Mabel and Harper. Read more of Abby’s writing at sustainabletheology.com.

Looking back, I’m not sure how I survived the baby years. I’m just coming out of the throws of 24/7 caregiving after five years with three babies. My youngest is 18-months-old and all of the baby gear is officially gone. There are no more swaddles or swings, bouncers or binkis. There is just one item I’m hanging on to, because the sleep and sanity of our family depends on it. Each and every one of our babies required a sound machine to fall asleep at night. The crackling static, like a radio dial between stations, signals my brain that the day is winding down.

When I turn the dial, it begins to drown out the to-do list, the projects and responsibilities until I drift off to sleep. White noise is great at distracting me from the things that matter. And I’ve come to realize that the sound machine isn’t the only thing feeding me white noise. During the day there’s a constant static drowning out the sounds that matter. It’s the vibrating of my phone with a new text, voicemail, phone call or email. It’s the dinging of a new tweet, pic or notification. It’s the alert of a new post, article or comment. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’m being fed everything from political controversy to fashion trends, global conflict to religious memes. All of it is covertly informing my identity.

There’s no escaping the GoogleAds that know what I’m lacking. I’ve read countless articles about how Facebook has made us sadder and less satisfied. But all of this discontentment didn’t begin with the advent of the internet. Genesis 3 tells us that the curse of sin is that woman will look to her husband and her husband to his work to inform their identity.

This creates a dependency on someone or something other than God. For most of human history the value of a woman has been based on her role as mother, and of course the man she depends on to fulfill this role. As for men, their value has been wrapped up in their ability to provide for their families. Their success, their worth, their identity was in what they accomplish outside of the home. And it will never be good enough, until they finally die and return to the ground.

Women looked to men. Men looked to work. And we wonder why our lives sound more like noise than songs. For generations we’ve heard that this is the right way to do things. It wasn’t too many years ago that a woman would introduce herself as “Mrs. Jeff Jones”. And to this day, one of the first questions that man gets asked by a new acquaintance is “What do you do for a living?”. A woman, in God’s eyes is not valuable because of her husband. A man, in God’s eyes is not valuable because of his labor.

We’re in-between stations.

Twist to the left and you can tune into creation. In the beginning, God’s hands created and formed the beautiful and wonderful and majestic world, and God made man and woman imago dei (Latin for “image of God”). They were created to be co-workers, caring for God’s masterpiece hand in hand. But sin cracked this image. There were no gender roles. There was no division of work. There was only the role of image bearer and the work of stewarding creation.

Twist the dial to the right and you can tune into the reality of God’s Kingdom. It’s the music of God’s restorative justice making all things new. Returning the creation back to it’s intended state. In this Kingdom, where God rules over all of creation, the image of God is not only repaired, but renewed.

We were made adequate to do all of the work God made us to do at creation. We’ll be remade to do all of the work God made us to do in the Kingdom. But in the middle, we squabble about who should be able to do what work. We’ve muted what is beautiful in the beginning and at the end, causing confusion about our purpose and our identity. We end up taking our identity from soundbites in the form of buzzes, dings and tweets. Everything here in the middle is subject to the noise.

 After listening to the white noise all of these years, when I’m quiet and listening to it at the end of the day, sometimes I can make out music in the background. Sometimes it startles me, and sometimes it’s subtle. But it’s there. There’s a song breaking through the noise. We just have to listen for it.

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Nilwona Nowlin currently serves as the Administrative Specialist for Governance for the ECC and is an active member of the Christian Community Development Association. In her “spare time,” she teaches workshops about living successfully as an introvert. Nilwona also randomly blogs about random things at thedreamerspeaks and is a member of the launch team for Kingdom Covenant Church (Chicago).

Last year, the CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) held its first ever Women of Color Retreat. During the retreat, I had a few “fangirl” moments during interactions with Christina Cleveland and Rahiel Tesfamariam. I later discovered that a new friend was having her own fangirl moment after meeting me. This revelation made me pause and consider the voice and influence that I possess. I recognize that this is a gift from God, and I want to be sure that I am a good steward of it. As I was reflecting on this, I was reminded of the Commission on BGE’s Develop a Deborah initiative. Throughout my journey to becoming a leader in ministry, I have certainly had help from people who have walked alongside me and/or used their own voice/influence for my benefit. I believe that, in order to truly be a good steward of my voice and influence, I must use it for the benefit of others. So I would like to use this space to introduce you to a “Deborah.”

Nadine Bitar is a friend of the Covenant by way of North Park University. I met her in 2012 during a joint undergraduate/seminary course at North Park. I had minimal interactions with Nadine during the course, and it wasn’t until we worked together on a group project that I had a chance to get to know her a little better. Nadine is a Palestinian Christian, and crossing paths with her greatly impacted my understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During a recent trip to the Middle East, I had a chance to visit with Nadine in her hometown, the Old City in Jerusalem. During our conversations, she shared that she was planning to return to North Park, this time to pursue a seminary degree.

After completing her undergraduate studies in Youth Ministry, Nadine returned home to Jerusalem, where she is serving as the Program Coordinator at Terra Sancta Schools Central Office. She works with 15 schools in the Holy Land, Jordan, Cyprus and Argentina. Her tasks include leading Bible study, teaching Sunday school and preaching the gospel any chance she gets. The number of Christians in the Holy Land has greatly declined because of the conflict, and Nadine has been grieved by this as well as the number of young Palestinian Christians turning away from God because “they are not seeing his presence in this awful political situation.” The Christians who live in the Holy Land are often referred to as living stones; Nadine believes that these living stones are integral to the Holy Land and make its communities strong and faithful.

Nadine’s time at North Park as an undergraduate helped her shape her identity and caused her to become more committed to her culture and faith. She has chosen to return to North Park for seminary because she wants to better understand her faith and further equip herself to do ministry. She wants to learn not just for her sake but for the purpose of educating her community and helping them come closer to God. Nadine’s vision is “to see the Christian community speaking out and expressing our faith openly to the world. Our presence in the Holy Land is very important for all Christians around the world. The land of Jesus needs its people to be present in the places where the word of God became flesh.” Her desire is that Christians around the world would stand with their sisters and brothers in the Holy Land.

Nadine Bitar is an amazing young woman with a prophetic voice. More importantly, she is my sister-in-Christ. If ever there was someone who was close to being a literal Deborah, it’s her. She is set to start seminary in Fall 2016 and is currently in the process of fund raising. I have committed to do what I can to develop this Deborah, and I hope that some of you who are reading this will be inspired to do so as well.

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Veronica Gilliard is a member of New Life Covenant Church in Atlanta, Georgia. She also serves as secretary of the Southeast Conference Women Ministries Executive Board. She is also currently a student, pursuing her PhD in Educational Leadership with a specialization in Higher Education. In her spare time she enjoys cooking, bowling, and reading.

Last month I was able to attend a conference with an unofficial theme: lament. The idea of this particular collective of individuals was to allow us a time and space to come together, in light of the nation’s multiple recent tragic events and deliberate injustices, and to encourage and challenge each other. In light of all that happened, we came together with an unspoken acknowledgement that we were all broken, yet willing to press onward, not necessarily toward change, but more importantly toward conviction.

We often like to describe wrestling with this brokenness as “processing” when we should be lamenting. Processing is important, but rather useless if we never move on into lamentation.

As a woman, I struggle with the principle of lament. I am expected to weep, wail, grieve, and display sorrow, particularly over things others see as trivial. This expectation is reinforced daily as you hear bigoted, sexist remarks such as:

Spoken: He throws like a girl.
Unspoken: Girls are weak.

Spoken: Stop crying like a little girl.
Unspoken: Girls are emotional.

Spoken: That girl needs a man.
Unspoken: Girls rarely get the decency of being referred to as women. A women’s agency and value are inextricably tied to her relationship status with a man.

So on and so forth. In a lot of ways I find myself resisting the displays of emotion that are expected of me, for fear of confirming a stereotype that I know to be unfair and inaccurate. Yet at the same time, my heart breaks for so many groups right now: refugees, immigrants, students, parents and families of disabled children, disabled adults, teachers and professors, the poor, those in leadership, etc. Yet, try as I might to hold all that in, there are times when I need to express my emotions, and the emotion that I choose is lament.

Interestingly enough, the more I have chosen to lament for the broken nature of this world, the more I am asked the following question: Why are you so angry?

Anger? No, lament! Immediately I feel stereotyped again, questioning the way I expressed my grief; second guessing the decision to depict my sorrow. Scatterbrained, I find myself trying to justify my weeping.

Today, I encourage you to resist the need to justify your lament. Christ did not call us to stoic, politically correct, and agreeable lifestyles. As we lament, let us be unashamed of our voices, using them to acknowledge both tragic events and deliberate injustices, and to encourage and challenge each other while praying earnestly for change.

For example, I lament the sociocultural oppression that inhibits my ability to lament without being stereotyped as an angry black woman.

What do you lament?

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Rev. Cathy Kaminski is the lead pastor at Trinity Community Church in Cincinnati, OH. It is her privilege to serve, love, and care for those who have paved many paths of righteousness through their lives of faith and service.

The day before Thanksgiving, while many of us were busy lost in the hustle and bustle of pre-holiday traditions, our church suffered a loss. Early that morning Frances Alice (Fuller) Gilmore went to meet the Lord. While I’m sure many of you never had the pleasure of knowing Fran, or may never have heard her name, I guarantee that you have felt the influence of her faithful life.

How? Well, you see Fran was a woman who wore many hats in her ninety-two years. She was a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, librarian, chair of our church’s nursery school board, Christ-follower and naval officer. That’s right: Frances Alice Gilmore was a World War II veteran.

This shy girl from a small town in Maine answered the call of her country’s need. At age nineteen, she enlisted with W.A.V.E.S., (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), and was soon stationed in San Francisco. W.A.V.E.S. was a program passed by Congress allowing women to fill shoreline assignments in order to release their male counterparts to active sea duty. If you’re anything like me, you might know little about these women who served our country, but I promise you that all of us, male and female alike, know their legacy.

Fran’s act of bravery would transform the course of her life and the lives of her loved ones. But I’m also convinced, that her willingness to step out into the unknown, to be a trailblazer down paths few women had ever walked before changed the course of history. It’s because of women like Fran that I am able to be a pastor today. Her faithfulness, her quiet confidence, her pioneering spirit opened doors. Her life broke down stereotypes, transformed minds, and set in motion opportunities for generations to come.

A few months back, Jo Ann Deasy wrote the blog post “In Honor of the First,” (See in Covenant Blogs here.) She wrote in honor of Sherron Hughes-Tremper, the first woman ordained to the Evangelical Covenant Church. Women like Sherron and Fran changed this world. I don’t often take the time to stop and gauge the depth of their gifts to humanity, but when I do I’m lost in adoration. A glass ceiling sadly still exists, for some more than others. But it is raised that much higher because of the influence of women like these. Women we may not know, but women whose lives continue to give us gifts long after their time on earth has come to an end.

In honor of Fran and the many other Frans out there, I write this post. A small piece of her story. A tribute to her legacy. My debt and gratitude go far beyond the words of this piece. I hope and pray to one day be remembered among pioneers like my friend Fran.

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Jo Ann Deasy is an ordained Covenant pastor currently serving as the director of institutional initiatives and student research at the Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh, PA.

Did you know that women seminary students incur more educational debt than male seminary students?  Despite the fact that male and female seminary students bring with them almost the same amount of undergraduate debt, women students incur more debt while in seminary.  This is despite the fact that women students are more likely to be enrolled in shorter degree programs.

Educational Debt Incurred While in Seminary

      Source:  Association of Theological Schools Graduating Student Questionnaire, Spring 2015

The numbers are even more drastic for African American Women students 58% of whom will incur more than $40,000 in educational debt in seminary verses their African American male (47%) or their white female (21%) counterparts.

Why the great disparity in debt levels?  I currently serve as director of institutional initiatives and student research at the Association of Theological Schools, the professional organization of most theological schools in the United States and Canada.  In my role, I have been wrestling with statistics regarding women seminary students seeking to understand this and other disparities between male and female students.  I don’t have any certain answers, but here are a few observations.

While more women are enrolling in shorter degree programs such as the Master of Arts in Christian Ministry or the Master of Arts in Christian Education, these degrees are less likely to be eligible for full- or partial-tuition scholarships, many of which are geared towards the Master of Divinity degree which is generally considered the primary degree to prepare people for pastoral ministry.

Women are also less likely to have a clear sense of call when they enter seminary.  This is especially true for evangelical women students.  While reasons for this may differ among women, it seems to me that this larger trend must somehow be connected to the mixed messages women receive from church and society about their potential to serve as pastoral leaders in the church.  During my time as Dean of Students at North Park Theological Seminary, I witnessed many women who came to seminary with some sense of call, but with no clear direction.  It was only once in seminary, among a community that fully advocated for their role as pastors, and often after experiencing affirmation for their pastoral skill in an internship or CPE program, that these women were able to even consider and eventually to embrace their call to pastoral ministry.

Again, scholarships for those entering seminary often privilege those who have a clear sense of call before coming to seminary, who have been in churches that will nurture and then commend that call to seminary admission’s committees.

Does the uncertainty of churches regarding a women’s call to pastoral ministry then also contribute to the inability of women to find meaningful work and economic support while they are in seminary?

What does all of this suggest?  First, it reminds us why the topic of Biblical Gender Equality still needs to be addressed and why the conversation needs to continue to include reflections on issues of race and class as well.  Second, it challenges the church to consider the cost of remaining silent when they see women called to ministry and to consider how they might provide financially for women both embracing and struggling with call.  Finally, it calls denominations and seminaries, anyone who funds theological education, to consider how scholarships might be privileging certain people based on gender or race because of the cultural complexities for not white men who are called into ministry.

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Abby Jones is the pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Stromsburg, NE. She earned an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary in 2012. Abby is mom to Stella, Lucy, Mabel and Harper. Read more of Abby’s writing at sustainabletheology.com/

Advent has seemed darker than usual this year. There have been a series of horrific events, instilling fear and robbing us of peace. Simultaneously, the political climate is increasingly hostile, and disciples of Jesus are divided and suspicious of one another. This is a time when God’s children need to come together, bringing good news into a dark and desperate world. Instead, we are bickering with one another across the aisle.

It is important to remember at such a critical moment that God is at work. God is doing something right where we are. The land we are standing on is fertile. A promise has been planted, and new life is springing up right where we are. God’s plan is not for desecration and destruction, but for restoration and resurrection.

For far too long the narrative of our faith has been told by white men of power. Patriarchy has controlled the message and it’s delivery, leaving only a select few eligible to teach and lead and proclaim. We have this beautiful, transformative message about God putting on flesh to live among us, to bring good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, sight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. God is working to put all things right, to make all things new, and God invites us to be instruments of redemption in the world.

This good news is for the least, the marginalized, the voices that have been silenced throughout human history. And yet, too often there have been restrictions on who is allowed to communicate this message. I was recently denied the privilege of proclaiming the good news at an ecumenical gathering because of my gender. Members of my congregation have been told that our church is “loose on theology” because they have a female pastor. We don’t have time for this behavior, we have work to do and we’ve got to learn to work together. Now more than ever, people need to hear and see and experience the good news that we have to share.

The world needs to hear a unified vision of hope from the people who know the restorative nature of God. In Advent we are reminded that we are not waiting for something that we’ve wished for to come true. Wishes are nothing more than desires disconnected from a promise. The characters surrounding the birth narrative of Jesus are filled with hope. They were given a promise that they were waiting for. We too have been given a promise that we are waiting for God to fulfill.

This is absolutely the moment that the world needs to hear about God’s promise. People are afraid, people are grieving, people are living in utter darkness, and we have a story about hope and life and light. The voices that are controlling the narrative are telling us to be afraid, that darkness is triumphant and evil powerful. We need to hear vibrant and unified voice proclaiming the good news. We cannot continue to relegate the voices of women to the background. We need every single voice we have telling an alternative narrative. Every single voice is important in sharing this story with our troubled world. The world is desperate for a better story, and we’ve got just the one to share!

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Cathy Kaminski is lead pastor of Trinity Community Church in Cincinnati, OH. She is 31, single and often exclaims, “I’m getting older as fast as I can.” But Jesus has called her to this season and this stage of life. She is trying to remember that and celebrate daily.

I feel like God has given me great grace and compassion for others. It is what allows me to enter the stories of people in my ministry context and love them well. However, I am often hit with the stark truth that I do not have much grace or compassion for myself. I know I am not alone in this reality. There seems to be a disconnect for many of us. We know this is an area of growth, but somehow the weight of expectation and standards seems too much to shake.

One way this manifests itself in my life is through comparison. If only I was older I could do this more effectively…. If only I was married I could connect with this person…. If I were a parent…. If I were male. It’s not that I have rose colored glasses on and assume in all these areas my life and ministry would be better. But there is truth behind the fact that ministry is different in each stage of life.

But it hit me, this season of my life has benefits too. Yes, if I were a middle aged male pastor I would be able to connect to some people more easily. But this stage of life, my gender, my age, my marital status, all allow me to minister in a unique and profound way. I could always compare myself to others or I can choose to celebrate who God has made me to be in this moment!

Recently I had been playing the comparison and grace game and not winning. Then something beautiful happened. A friend in my church turned five years old. I wanted to stop at her house and drop off a flower to say happy birthday. I ended up staying for over two hours playing with her and her seven year old sister. At one point my friend turned to me and asked, “Are you a mommy?” I answered, “No, I’m not.” She thought about that for a moment and responded, “Just a pastor then?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, just a pastor.” A pastor who gets to connect and love many children. A pastor who has the flexibility to let a five minute errand turn into a two hour rich experience. A pastor who is approachable enough for children to do her hair, run around the yard with and play games.

There are times that I want to be someone else. And in those moments I do not have much grace. But then there are times when I recognize the gift of my presence. The blessing of who God created me to be in this exact moment. I was able to build up my five year old friend and show her love because I am a single, young, female pastor.

It’s not about grace or compassion. It’s about thankfulness. Am I thankful for who God has created me to be? Am I thankful for the blessings that come with this season? Can I learn to be? And when I’m learning, grace and compassion follow.

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Abby Jones is the pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Stromsburg, NE. She earned an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary in 2012. Abby is mom to Stella, Lucy, Mabel and Harper. Read more of Abby’s writing at sustainabletheology.com. 

Last Fall I grabbed my husband’s DSLR camera and the keys to our car. We live in a little rural town, so it took me a whole two minutes to drive far away from civilization and down a dirt road. Leaves were changing colors and the sun was about to set. It was the perfect evening to learn about photography. I zoomed in, and in, and in, until I could closely see the cuts and curves of a blade of wild grass. Everything behind it blurred and blended into the background. Chiggers gnawed at my ankles as I circled around the shot, trying to capture the desired hue of orange and magenta bursting through the empty spaces in the frame.

After I had spent a good thirty minutes with the lens zoomed in as far it could go, I felt a little disoriented. My eyes were blurry and I was out of balance. I was learning to focus on one blade of grass and as I started to think it might look nice hanging on a wall, I slowly began to zoom the lens out and realized I was completely missing it. As I zoomed further and further out I began to see one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen. I was so focused on the detail in that tiny blade of grass, that I was missing the whole picture.

Most of the time, I function this way. I’m a detail person. I get lost in the particularities that make up one individual tree that I quickly lose sight of the forest. Last night I was sitting around a table with a group of fabulous people. We had all read the book of Matthew the days leading up to our study. We digressed about tassels and phylacteries (Matthew 23:5), and before we knew it we were zoomed pretty far in to the most obscure and quite possibly trivial details that we missed the story.

I don’t know about you, but I fall into this trap more than I’d like to admit. Growing up in church, I was awarded for memorizing Bible verses. I’m pretty good at the essentials, John 3:16 and Romans 3:23 to name a few. But how often do we read John 3:16 followed by 3:17? We tend to memorize verses with no regard to context. We learn passages outside of their chapter, removed from their book, apart from the Bible.

We create theology, doctrine and dogma without the whole of Scripture in mind. We zoom in so far on one particular passage or verse that we neglect to read it within its book. We develop arguments and articulate positions based on a handful of verses, removed from their context, their book and without their place within God’s greater story. We obsess and deconstruct and analyze to the point that we completely miss the point. When we do this, we risk missing the grandeur of God’s movement, power and redemptive work taking place in the lives of people all around us. And that movement, power and redemptive work is not bound to the lens and focus of our eyes, God is not contained to our frame.

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Corrie Gustafson is a pastor at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California, where she regularly passes Google self-driving cars. She was ordained to Word and Sacrament in 2014 and serves as the ACCW board liaison for the Pacific Southwest Conference.

Staff meetings, board meetings, break-out sessions at conferences, ecumenical clergy gatherings, Covenant pastor cluster meetings, worship service planning meetings: I’m often the only woman in a roomful of men. I’m used to this dynamic after 15 years in professional ministry, but it was a jarring shift at 19 years old when I followed my interests and the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and became a biblical studies major.

As I progressed in my major two things happened: the classes shrank (which I liked) and the male-female ratio tilted steeply (which I didn’t always appreciate). I gained a band of brothers in the trenches of Advanced Koine Greek, but there were also times of profound loneliness. As one of a few women, or the only woman in a small class, there was often pressure to speak to the “female perspective” or to represent women who were already in ministry. This pressure intensified in seminary.

In both college and graduate school, when the controversial (to some) topic of women in ministry came up, eyes would suddenly turn to me. I was encouraged to share my thoughts and my interpretation of scripture, but this invitation was a package deal. It often came with an unspoken challenge to give expert-level exegesis of some of the most challenging texts in the Bible, and to have a holistic (a.k.a. impermeable) theology on the subject.

As a theology student, I never felt completely free to be a learner. Many fellow students, and even some professors, saw me more as a representative of a group or type, rather than an individual. It didn’t seem acceptable for me as a woman in the hallowed halls of theology – historically the domain of men – to be uncertain about some passages, to be in a process of discerning my call, or to be a bit uncomfortable with the label of pastor. For those who oppose women in ministry, any of these things were seen as vulnerabilities that could topple my theology and discredit my call to ministry. What I craved then – and occasionally still thirst for a decade after completing seminary – is the freedom to be Corrie.

I want to be Corrie, the committed disciple, and thus a constant learner of the way of Jesus Christ.

I want to be seen and known as Corrie, a child of God who brings my unique personality, and gifts, and story to the work of pastoring.

I wish that everywhere and for all time the fruit of my ministry wasn’t questioned, watered down, or dismissed because of my gender. I regard being a woman as an asset to ministry and to the church because I believe that we best serve the church and the world – both made up of women and men, girls and boys – when women and men work side-by-side without hierarchy. Being a woman makes me a minority in my field and it gives me a unique perspective in ministry, but it is not the only, or even the primary, uniqueness I bring to ministry.

Mainly, my ministry is unique because I’m me.

I’m a creative: I write, I sing and I act. I served several years as a chaplain, so talking about death and dying is as natural to me as talking about soteriology or this week’s order of worship. I’ve traveled to 18 countries and studied in Europe and the Middle East, experiences which have profoundly changed my worldview. I spent 19 months unemployed while seeking a call to ministry, so I know a thing or two about perseverance through a financial drought and a spiritual desert. I’m single and 35, full of purpose and thriving in celibacy.

Those are just some of the things that have shaped my story and that shape my ministry. Being a woman is a significant piece of me, but no more or less so than all the other pieces.

I am Corrie. I’m a pastor. And I am your colleague. I celebrate the day when we call each other friends and there is no other agenda between us but to graciously and joyfully serve the Lord together.

Amen.

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Mary Peterson serves as Pastor of Children, Youth and Family Ministry at Highland Covenant Church in Bellevue, Washington. She is also President of Advocates for Covenant Clergy Women.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

No doubt this passage from Genesis is familiar to you. The kids in our church are reminded every September that God created all that we see in this world, including you and me. Genesis 1 goes on to give more details regarding those first few days, weeks and months of Earth’s existence. God was busy, to say the least. As we enter the creation narrative, we see God’s imagination running wild as aardvarks began to roam the earth while bacteria quietly reproduced in the tiniest of places, and elephants looked up to see pterodactyls flying overhead. Scripture tells us that God looked at all he had made and saw that it was good.

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’”

The author of Genesis repeats the important parts to remind us that humans were created in the image of God- to reflect our Creator.

Often we think of the command to “be fruitful” in the most basic way of multiplying through reproduction… go forth and make babies. I think this passage is asking us to do way more than that– God is telling his people, the man and the woman, to go out together and fill the planet in his image. God filled the planet with creative and beautiful things. And we are invited, or even, commanded to go out together and be creative. My seminary professors referred to this as “the cultural mandate.” God gives that first woman and man instructions to go out and create culture- all of the things that make us human. From art to engineering to politics, making culture is making a way for us to do life and live together. And God gave this responsibility to both the female and the male.

We are not able to create the kind of culture that God imagined on our own. We need one another… “male and female he created them.” God has gifted each person in beautiful ways to go out and make culture, be fruitful and fill the earth. Maybe God has gifted you with teaching, or maybe you have killer skateboard skills, or maybe you are researching a cure for cancer. Maybe you can pick up any instrument and make music. Your organizational skills can be what makes the ministry at your church come to life. Maybe your paint brush makes spaces beautiful and thought-provoking. Maybe you partner with your sewing machine to make blankets for teen moms to wrap up their newborns. Maybe you use computers to make the internet work more smoothly. Or design roads that make it possible for people to commute to work safely. Perhaps God has called you to lead the church and point people to Jesus. Maybe God has called you to raise a family or tutor children at the school across the street.

And the good news is that all of those things can be done by God’s people- male and female. Your gender does not prevent you from living fully into what God has called you to do. In fact, your gender is needed to carry out God’s plan. After all, “male and female he created them… God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Take a few moments to think about the people God has placed in your life. Are there any who need to be reminded that they were created in the image of God? Are there any who are waiting to hear that they are called and gifted? Are there any men or women in your church who need to hear that God wants them to participate in the creative process of bringing forth his kingdom? Maybe you are the one who needs to speak into their lives and remind them that God created them and calls them to do something important.

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