Is it okay to pursue men?

I so admire Carolyn McCulley. To quote a great WW episode, “I love her mind. I love her shoes.” I really do! Everything I have ever read or heard from her, I have not only agreed with substantively, I have rejoiced in her gentle and winsome tone–especially when she is talking about people with whom she disagrees. Truly, Carolyn McCulley lives out 2 Timothy 2:24-26:

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth …”

On today’s Revive Our Hearts broadcast, Carolyn discusses a hot topic in the church:

Is it okay to pursue men?

Let me tempt you with just a few lines from the broadcast with the hope that you will click on through and listen to the entire show:

“So for every rule that we’ve set for ourselves–‘This is how God works’ –there are millions of testimonies of how God loves to surprise and delight His children. So I think our goal is to be godly, to make sure that we are serving in faith, that we are not hiding out nor promoting ourselves, to be praying, and to be encouraging and serving our brothers; to be known as a woman who is an encourager to her brothers in the church.”

2 Comments

Anony-mouse

July 12, 2012 at 11:18 am

I agree with your assessment about Carolyn being truly awesome – humble and Godly too.
She gets what it is to be a woman and single in today’s church. Unfortunately, my experience is that the relationships between men and women in the church are uncomfortably obsessed with all of the trappings about “roles” and shoulda, woulda, coulda’s. Things like: who should do what, say what, when and where, and to whom…
I find being involved with evangelism and outreach thru a parachurch ministry is much, much more realistic and fulfilling in terms of how people actually deal and relate with each other – especial across the gender divide.
I know we’re not supposed to be judgmental about the church, but some of the areas where we lack God’s divine, big-picture-view can sometimes be especially painful to people who don’t fit the perfect mama, papa, 2.2 kids, 2 cars in the garage mold.
I am grateful that He works through His broken people in the formal assembly, but it seems He works even more so with us out there in the world, day to day, living life on life on terms, and ministering to one another. There’s just not a lot of time and space and place for one anothering during formal times of gathering. And when we try to do informal things, that’s when the church gets kind of creepy and unreal. We’re great at the vertical, but seem to have quite a bit of struggle when it comes to the horizontal.

Thanks to all the Barthels for the blog! Keep writing….

tara

July 12, 2012 at 2:55 pm

Ah, yes. We do have lots of room for improvement re: the horizontal relationships in our churches!

Thank God for grace.

Anony-mouse

July 12, 2012 at 11:18 am

I agree with your assessment about Carolyn being truly awesome – humble and Godly too.
She gets what it is to be a woman and single in today’s church. Unfortunately, my experience is that the relationships between men and women in the church are uncomfortably obsessed with all of the trappings about “roles” and shoulda, woulda, coulda’s. Things like: who should do what, say what, when and where, and to whom…
I find being involved with evangelism and outreach thru a parachurch ministry is much, much more realistic and fulfilling in terms of how people actually deal and relate with each other – especial across the gender divide.
I know we’re not supposed to be judgmental about the church, but some of the areas where we lack God’s divine, big-picture-view can sometimes be especially painful to people who don’t fit the perfect mama, papa, 2.2 kids, 2 cars in the garage mold.
I am grateful that He works through His broken people in the formal assembly, but it seems He works even more so with us out there in the world, day to day, living life on life on terms, and ministering to one another. There’s just not a lot of time and space and place for one anothering during formal times of gathering. And when we try to do informal things, that’s when the church gets kind of creepy and unreal. We’re great at the vertical, but seem to have quite a bit of struggle when it comes to the horizontal.

Thanks to all the Barthels for the blog! Keep writing….
tara

July 12, 2012 at 2:55 pm

Ah, yes. We do have lots of room for improvement re: the horizontal relationships in our churches!

Thank God for grace.