Boys can be pastors, too!!

Was reading The Scroll - Christians for Biblical Equality's blog - this morning and came across this quote...

"My friend Wendy Joyner, pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Americus, Ga., tells the story of a little girl in her church who, after hearing a male guest preacher, turned to her mother and said, “Mom! Boys can be preachers, too!” I think that story illustrates that perspective matters. A little girl who had only known a woman pastor thought nothing unusual about her situation. She experienced God through a woman pastor just as many children experience God by means of a male pastor."

Makes me smile.

And it makes me remember a conversation I had probably 15 years ago with my niece Laura. She was 4 or 5 and was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up..."A pastor," she said.

I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I told her she couldn't be a pastor. I also remember wondering why.

Anyway, in 15 years I have come to realize that there are more ways of interpreting scripture and history than that which I saw modelled and heard preached in my childhood. Thankfully.

I think now about some of the female mentors I had growing up and am so thankful for their examples, but also sad that they spent a lot of their lives bumping their heads on glass ceilings that were theologically justified. I realize that when I bump my head now, it is on a ceiling that is cracked and broken in certain spots...and that encourages me.