Time to get down to business

Now for a brief insight as to why it is that Liz and I are so committed to Biblical equality. As mentioned in our personal profile, we've been in christian ministry for 35+ years and for all of that time were committed to mutuality in the way that we did marriage. For many years it did not impact on our ministry method, except that it will have been obvious to some that I regarded Liz as my best friend and closest ministry confidant. This eventually caused difficulties in a multiple eldership situation where other elders felt that Liz should not be privy to these 'leadership' matters. They felt that Liz was a defacto elder. We didn't really know how to handle it then because we were unfamiliar with the body of literature that was available to address such issues. Whenever we prepared people for marriage we encouraged them to embrace a more mutually submissive style as we felt that it was far more glorifying to God and the best way to serve one another out of reverence for Christ. Because we served in a conservative church environment it was soon obvious that some folks disagreed with our ministry style and objections were raised. I (Trevor) tried to embrace the accepted, traditional, position but found it very uncomfortable and impossible to teach with any conviction. We mostly kept our theological misgivings to ourselves and I avoided any teaching on the sensitive, often disputed passages. Not so long ago a returned missionary couple told us that there were good books written on this subject and we ought to get ourselves informed. So, this we did, which ultimately led to our being aware of an entire worldwide ministry devoted to this issue. I'm speaking of Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE). For us this was like manna from heaven. At last we could identify with other, well informed Christians on this matter of equality and we were not compromising our faith in any way whatsoever. What a wonderful relief this was, and is. Since then we've become even more involved with that organisation and taken advantage of the many book titles and gotten to know some of the authors on a more personal level. For us it is not just a matter of women being equally as gifted as men in their ability to serve in the church. It is that, but more than that, it is equality in the home. Men and women, husbands and wives, can and should direct the home and raise the children together. We believe that this is the reason for much of the spouse abuse that continues to occur in traditional, heirarchical marriages. Traditionalists, or complimentarians, as they are now known argue that you cannot have two heads of a home, someone has to be in charge. We agree, someone does! It would be far better that that person be Christ. If each defers to the other in reverence for Christ, no one person necessarily gets their own way but together they seek to discover what God would have them do as a family. There are all sorts of practical possiblities here that we can share in subsequent posts. Sufficient to say that the above is the principle involved and the Biblical basis for it would be Ephesians 5:21, ...'Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.'

The journey has begun

Not quite sure where this will take us and how exactly we are to link up with like-minded people but I'm sure that we'll learn as we go along. Counless thousands of others have been and are on this road sooo, hang on, here we go.

Making a start

This whole blogging thing is new to us. Kind of an electronic adventure that's about to begin. We are doing this in the hope of meeting new, but like minded people and sharing ideas and experiences of our christian journey in respect to Biblical equality.