This is a most interesting letter, and one I’d like to hear your response to… This young woman is a gifted preacher and pastor. Churches who are in the search process are figuring out how their congregation responds to a woman preacher by inviting her to fill their pulpit during the search process. What do you think of this approach? And how much does hearing a woman preach impact what congregations think about women pastors? Do you think churches should be more pro-active about having women preach? (By the way, if you heard this friend of mine preach, you’d probably say “gifted by God.”)

Scot,
 
I have received several calls from folks from small churches who need someone to fill their pulpit while they are between pastors.
 
As the calls have come in to me, I am noticing a trend … For instance, the call I received this morning, was from a man working to fill the pulpit in his small church and he said that he is especially interested in having me fill the pulpit early in the process because he “wants to see how the congregation will respond to a female preacher.”
 
In a funny way, I am being “used” as a test run for these small churches to see if they might just not be ready to have a female pastor.
 
It brings me a certain amount of joy to know that God might just be using me to pave the way for a woman somewhere who is being called and led into pastoral ministry by God … who otherwise might not have been called to one of these churches.
 
Anyway, this just made me grin this morning I wanted to share it with you and Kris.
 
A friend