I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, or in the church, or around Christians, so you could say I had a secular worldview when it came to sex and sexuality. In some ways, what I learned from the secular world was more on spot, truth, than what I learned from the Christian community.

We’re starting a three-part series on sex. And today’s conversation is about what we learned about sex from our faith communities. And let’s be honest for many of us it’s wasn’t helpful, we might even say it was harmful. Ya, today we’re talking about that.

Today we engage with the author of No More Holding Back, Kat Armstrong, where we will focus on Mary Magdalene. Questions we will be wrestling with include:

In your book, you mention that the Great Commandment Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind isn’t gendered. Can you explain what you mean by that?

I want us to focus on “all your strength” for a minute. You ask the question, how strong is too strong. What do you mean by that?

Join the conversation.

Today we’re listening in on a conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well. I know, is there anything more to be said about this story? Well, there is.

When I see Jesus speaking to her, I hear him saying, “I see you. I see what happened. I see the injustice that’s been done to you and the death toll it’s taken. I’m not okay with that. I can restore you. Breath life back into you.” And that’s what he’s saying to us too.

Tamar is a woman in Israel, a princess with status, power, and position. However, her status was nothing compared to the status, power, and position of the men in her life. There she finds herself vulnerable, even lacking agency.

Gracie.

She lived down the road, came from an impoverished family, always wore the same clothes, short, high waters. She was one of the stops on our bus. There was something I liked about her, but I didn't want her to sit next to me. I'm ashamed to say it, but I was in the cool kid crowd, and I didn't want to be associated with Gracie.

As one of the cool kids, I had status. Gracie didn't.

Andy Crouch, in his book, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, one of my all-time fav books, defines status as "at its root is "where you stand" – is about your place in line."

Today we begin a series called Power, Vulnerability, and Leadership. These are lofty concepts, but as women, they impact us personally, don’t they?

So I’d like to see what God has to say to us about each of them of the- power, vulnerability, and leadership - by digging into the stories of four women in the Scriptures. Today we’re talking about Deborah. God’s plan A.

Many of you are leaders, gifted leaders in your company, home, and community. The idea that a woman shouldn’t lead seems archaic to you, right? And we hear more and more how important it is for women to be at the leadership table. Forbes magazine stated, “Companies with higher female participation at board level exhibit higher returns and payout ratios.” The World Bank said women are the best investment for an economy. Study after study shows in developing countries, “...when women gain control over spending, less family money is devoted to instant gratification, like drinking and gambling- and more for education and starting small businesses.”

We have started to recognize that families, communities, and even companies fair better when women are at the leadership table – with men.

In the conservative church, we are taught to be the ideal biblical woman. We hear sermons on how we are to be gentle and quiet in spirit, to submit, not to lead or teach men. And there are bible verses to prove it.

I used to think those teachings, that restrict, limit women, were based on the bible until I realized it wasn’t.

It’s also about sex, power, and gender constructs. That’s what I want us to talk about today, gender constructs. Don’t worry. I’ve got it on the calendar, and we’re going to discuss sex and power too.

If you were raised in the conservative faith tradition, then most likely, you were raised to be a received knower. And like me, you may have shifted out of that, but you don’t have words for it. So you’re probably wondering what is a received knower, or why does it matter?

In this episode, we dive into how we know what we think we know and what it means to be a critical thinker.

At 24, I got pregnant while living in a van. Yes, a van. Steve and I were newlyweds, and we weren’t doing well. It was either get a divorce or buy a van, travel the country and see if we still liked each other. Isn’t that what every Christian couple does when they have marriage problems, I think it’s why Steve and I were never asked to counsel engaged couples at our church!

So, I got pregnant while living in the van. And that took my life in a direction I had never envisioned. I never wanted to be a mom. I remember folding clothes one day on and thinking, “This is not how I thought my life would turn out.” Ever felt like that?

Today’s episode is a continuation in our series lime green, and it’s here we’ve been talking about her, the ideal biblical woman, who as it turns outs, isn’t all that biblical. Today’s episode – You’ve got talent.

This is our second episode in our series called Lime Green, reshaping our view of woman. Today we’re talking about letting go of her, the ideal biblical woman, and embracing the one of a kind never to be seen again person that is you. It turns out, what’s being promoted as the ideal biblical woman isn’t biblical at all.

Suffering, pain, and anguish are part of the human experience. God knows it and has given us a tool, a provision – lament. As I look back, I see a shift in my beliefs. Going to hopes funeral and lacking in being loved and loving like Jesus, that lament is a part of my faith journey, but I didn’t know it. Until…well, we will get there, first, let me say this I’ve studied for 30 years, and I missed how much Scripture talks about lament.

I came to seminary to get to know Jesus. When I got there, everyone was saying, “I want to be like Jesus,” but I can’t be like someone I don’t know. So I spent a while following Jesus around in the Scriptures. I tried to learn who this guy was that I’d committed myself to. Carolyn prayed for like an hour. What? I tried to pray but could only get up to about 5 minutes. So how could I know this God, and more importantly, how could I know and experience his love?

We're talking about hope, Biblical hope. I probably need to start by telling you what hope isn't and then what it is. Biblical hope isn't about our circumstance, nor is it about having some Pollyanna optimistic attitude. In the Scriptures, we see that hope is about expectantly waiting and many times waiting a really long time.

In this episode, I want to share a little bit about my journey around this idea of hope. You know, after the election in 2016, my male church leaders went radio silent about the sexual exploitation of women by our newly elected president, and I was deeply disappointed. I even felt betrayed. I understood that the Evangelical support was primarily due to this abortion issue, but I just kept thinking, "you can't have a say over my womb, not give a damn about my body being groped or raped," that just isn't gonna work for me.

I found over that year and then moving into the #metoo movement and into the #churchtoo movement that something was happening to my hope.

I’m older, and I’m looking back in my rearview mirror, where I see a more wrinkled faith what. I thought in my younger years, you know this escalator theology that would always go onward and upward, well we’re throwing stinking thinking out the window. 

In this 5 part series, we’re going to look into the concepts of faith, hope, love, and lament.

I have to be honest with you; it looks different for me now. Some of the things I used to believe I don’t any longer, and I’m trying to figure out the complexities of how to love a mentally ill family member or hold on to hope when sexism continues to rain, not only in the culture but in our churches.

Issues have gotten more complex and more nuanced, so what we’re gonna do is we’re going to look back on these issues faith hope & love with a whole lot of wrinkles.