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<\/p>\nRecently, I received an email from a woman who purchased my 4 DVD set “Women in Ministry Silenced or Set Free?” and then wrote me about the impact that the DVDs had on her.\u00a0 I was so touched by her testimony that I asked permission to share her story with the world.\u00a0 I have removed her name as she requested anonymity because of her situation.\u00a0 I hope that you will be encouraged and touched as I was when I read her story.<\/p>\n
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Dear Cheryl,<\/p>\n
I’m not sure if you are the one I should write to, but I wanted to let someone know that I watched the DVDs “Women in the Ministry” twice and my reactions to it.<\/p>\n
For three days I was an emotional wreck.\u00a0 I got angry, I cried, I’d stopped watching it and walked around the house talking to myself.\u00a0 I fell to my knees and told God I didn’t understand.\u00a0 I even was asked by others if I was feeling ok or if I was sick.\u00a0 It tore me up inside.\u00a0 Please, let me explain.<\/p>\n
I am a woman in my fifties..My background is a lifetime of being in conservative, fundamental, baptist churches and have been married for thirty some years to a man with a similar background.\u00a0 Our women are restricted in serving the Lord and are constricted to servant roles in our churches.\u00a0 We should only wear skirts and dresses which must be mid calf.\u00a0 We should not be bare armed although to the elbow short sleeves are permitted.\u00a0 We may cut and style our hair, but it should be at least shoulder length.\u00a0 We cannot preach, period, or teach males once they are 13 years of age and we cannot hold any type of leadership position, even on committees or panels.\u00a0 A man (usually the husband of the woman who really needs to oversee the event or function) is usually appointed the position of leader even if it is only a figurehead.\u00a0 We are taught that our roles are “separate, but, equal.”<\/p>\n
Through the workings of the Lord (though some may say the devil) I came across your web site.\u00a0 I was intrigued and ordered the DVD set WIM.\u00a0 I have always thought that something wasn’t correct about the restriction we are forced to be under.\u00a0 When I was a teenager, before I truly and fully understood this restriction, I felt called to be a missionary.\u00a0 I felt sure I knew to whom I was called and where I was to go.\u00a0 I counseled with my pastor as all good congregational members do and was shocked, confused and hurt to find out that I couldn’t be the missionary I felt led to become.\u00a0 I was told that no mission board would back me because I was a single woman and that the only way I could be a missionary to the people I felt called to was if I married a man who was also called to the same.\u00a0 But truth be told, I had to be wrong about my calling, because God calls men.\u00a0 God prepares the heart of a woman to follower her husband into the mission field, but doesn’t allow her to answer the call of a leadership position because the Bible says so.\u00a0 If I truly was called, it must be only to help my future husband in his ministries.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t understand why God would do this, after all, men were as sinful in His sight as women were and women were just as equal in God’s sight as men.\u00a0 I wanted to do what was right.\u00a0 My choices were thin, I could either accept God’s Word or be in rebellion.\u00a0 As time went on, I came to accept that men just might be more special to God than women.\u00a0 So I pushed my “calling” aside and accepted my role as a woman in the church.\u00a0 I married young, raised my children, helped my husband in his ministries, taught the 4 + 5 yr. old Sunday School, sang in the choir, played organ\/piano for services, etc., etc., etc., but I never really had peace.\u00a0 It was as if there was a “little tiff” between me and God.\u00a0 It was as if I had a hole in my heart.\u00a0 And when a man stood up behind the pulpit to preach on women and their roles, I would cringe, I would resent it and fight back the tears.\u00a0 That lost, confused and hurt feeling I felt that day so long ago would rise to the surface.\u00a0 I would tell myself that that was just my sin nature resisting the commands of God.\u00a0 After all nobody likes to be told what to do.. I would then ask God to forgive me for being rebellious and I would force it all back down.<\/p>\n
I watched the DVDs the first time with the reaction I mentioned at the beginning of this letter.\u00a0 After all, this was not what I had been taught.\u00a0 How could this be right?\u00a0 How could Bible Scholars, men who had spent their whole life studying the Bible backwards and forwards, have missed this?\u00a0 After I had settled down, a few days later, I watched the DVDs again with my Bible and a concordance with a Hebrew\/Greek Bible Dictionary and I followed along.\u00a0 Everything that was being discussed seemed correct and I greatly rejoiced.\u00a0 The hole in my heart has started to heal, because I now know that man is behind the restriction, not God.<\/p>\n
I, also, mourn.\u00a0 For although I now embrace the truth and will defend any woman who would dare claim these teachings for her own, it’s too late for me.\u00a0 I cannot do the same because to do so could mean I might lose my family.\u00a0 If I could not convince them that these DVDs speak the truth, I would be labeled a heretic.<\/p>\n
Oh how I do so wish that the Scriptures used in the DVDs were from the King James Version.\u00a0 It would take a miracle for me to convince my husband or some other man from the church to watch these.\u00a0 On the off chance a miracle would happen, as soon as the first Scripture is read and he\/they realize its not KJV, they will dismiss it.\u00a0 They will mock.\u00a0 They will give no value to it.\u00a0 It doesn’t matter that the study goes back into the Hebrew and the Greek, if the scriptures are not from the KJV then it is a work of Satan trying to corrupt the Word of the Lord.<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for producing these DVDs.\u00a0 They not only started a healing process in my life, but also, I am now wondering about other things that I have been taught as Bible truths.\u00a0 Some are:\u00a0 1. marriage.\u00a0 This would seem to go with the WIM (How submnissive is submissiveness supposed to be?);\u00a0 2. women’s apparel (How are we supposed to dress?);\u00a0 3. KVJ verses other Bible Versions;\u00a0 4. Pastor Rule. (Does he really have absolute authority?);\u00a0 5.\u00a0 Church Discipline (Is it necessary and, if so, what is the proper way to administer it.)\u00a0 Perhaps you will consider making DVDs on these subjects.<\/p>\n
I wish to know what church or denomination you are from.\u00a0 Perhaps there is a church in my area I could attend, ifone day I am able to break away from mine.\u00a0 It is so hard to attend now that I have watched the DVDs and know the truth.\u00a0 A visiting evangelist made a statement in which he cruelly denounced women counseling men and the men of the congregation responded with a hearty “Amen.”\u00a0 It hurt.<\/p>\n
I pray that Christian men will have their eyes opened to the truth as they read their Bibles and put away their preconceived notions and beliefs.\u00a0 I pray that they will soon liberate Christian women everywhere.\u00a0 However, I feel like Moses.\u00a0 I am looking over into the Promised Land, but I won’t see it in my lifetime.<\/p>\n
In Christ,<\/p>\n
(name removed by request)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Testimony from a woman who watched WIM DVD Recently, I received an email from a woman who purchased my 4 DVD set “Women in Ministry Silenced or Set Free?” and then wrote me about the impact that the DVDs had on her.\u00a0 I was so touched by her testimony that I asked permission to share her story with the world.\u00a0 I have removed her name as she requested anonymity because of her situation.\u00a0 I hope that you will be encouraged…<\/p>\n