Are you a lady? Do you long to be a help to your pastor but just don’t know how? Well, have I got some great news for you! A great little fundy lady named Stacy MacArthur (who happens to be the church secretary for Jeff Owens) has put together a helpful list of things you can do to help your pastor even though you’re only a woman. Isn’t that swell?
These tips include:
- Pray for him and his wife to keep your heart “tender” towards them.
- Don’t put your pastor under a microscope
- Examine your heart and make sure it is not holding any bitterness.
And then it really gets good with this…
We, as ladies, are not to say, “Amen” and stand up waving our Bibles in the air, but we can and should respond to the preaching by smiling, slightly shaking our heads in agreement with the preaching, and of course we should always laugh at the jokes that the pastor tells.
What great advice! I sure love it when women are forced to laugh at my jokes and I’m sure your pastor will love it too!
But there’s more!
Be a soul winner! Our pastors want the church house to be full. If we can fill our churches, we have a much better chance of fulfilling God’s plan, which is a part of our pastor’s purpose.
Seek to do things the way your pastor would want things done…Stop any and all criticism about your pastor…Give your pastor the benefit of the doubt…Look for opportunities to praise him…Find ways to thank your him…dress modestly…have a servant’s heart…
Do whatever your pastor says and then go out and fill up that church house, ladies! Bringing glory to your pastor’s plan and purpose is why you were put here on earth! (Well, you were put here to make babies and casseroles too but that’s just a given.)
So, when the songleader screams at us to wave our Bibles in the air during “Hold the Fort,” us ladies are exempted?
Sitting demurely, with a ladylike smirk and a gentle tug of the skirt to ensure modesty is all that is EVER required.
Do you think, back in the day, there were ANY women with any sense of humor whatsoever? I can’t remember anything that would remotely resemble humor from any of the “adults” there. I was always being told that I was being “flippant” and wasn’t sure but think they might have not been using it as a compliment.
Probably not. Now that I think of it, that’s probably why once i joined the Singles Ministry it suddenly became unusual that I had a sharp sense of humor. I started developing a reputation for being snarky, because by fundy female adulthood, I should have known better.
“Pray for him and his wife to keep your heart “tender” towards them.
Don’t put your pastor under a microscope
Examine your heart and make sure it is not holding any bitterness.”
Ok…is it me, or is this reasoning coming off like something has already caused women to question their pastor? If she’s stating this about a pastor with a clean slate…uh…it’s not starting people on the right foot, is it? Obviously something is wrong here if you have to tell people NOT to do these things, instead of giving a person the benefit of the doubt. It really is a bit “Stepford Wives” though, and comes off very creepy.
I just think there must be more to her story if she’s listing these things the way she did. Somebody got hurt, and she’d like to sweep it under the rug…
My fav is “A pastor is God’s appointed man to guide you and your family.” What about her husband????
I am not religious in any way, but couldn’t help notice that the word “God” appears only once. It is always do what is best for the “Pastor”. I suspect this is no coincidence.
Don’t put him under a microscope?? What about the Biblical qualifications for a pastor. If he met them to be hired, I don’t need to be concerned if he is still living his life in a way to meet those standards? And what about making sure that what he preaches lines up with Scripture?
My husband is a pastor – and I put him under a microscope. I pick apart his sermons. I figure if we should do it to anyone teaching the Word, that must include my husband! 🙂
Blech. I won’t even bother to comment on the other ones. I haven’t even read the comments and I am sure that much has already been said. But that one REALLY bugged me because I ENCOURAGE people in our church to put my husband under a microscope – examine his life and what he teaches. Do they line up???
But in Fundystan we are not supposed to look at the real man behind the curtain, only at the Great and Powerful Oz.
This book shows fundies’ true beliefs more honestly than most pastoral sermons would ever dare.
This is so shallow, but in the photo, what is with her HAIR? That huge lump to one side of the part…it gives me the heebie jeebies.
This reminds me of a book I once read on “being a godly wife.” In fact, the hairstyle was almost the same!
The book had such gems as:
Always submit to everything your husband says.
If you husband is a non-Christian and wants you to do something un-Christian (like going to a bar), pray hard enough and God will smite him down with a blinding headache so that you can submit to your husband without sinning.
Never talk too much about God in front of your husband or you may cause him to be jealous.
“Use your gifts and talents for the work of the Lord. We all have something that we can contribute to the work of the Lord, and we should seek to find those gifts and talents and use them to help our pastors in the church. Some might have the talent to sing or play an instrument. There are ladies in our church with great cleaning abilities, and they use those abilities to make God’s house look and smell wonderful. Maybe you have an eye for decorations. Whatever your talents, use them to be a help to your pastor.”
SFL- Rewriting the Bible so that the pew warmers will wake up to their part in the Body of Christ: gifted cleaners and decorators.
Odd that Paul doesn’t list cleaning and decorating among the gifts of the Spirit, isn’t it?