
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Silent Gender Gap on Your Church Staff Org Chart
We tackle the uncomfortable reality of women hitting glass ceilings in church leadership, even in organizations that preach equality and respect. This episode explores why churches often say they value female leaders while keeping them stuck in roles with limited authority, inadequate titles, or no seat at the decision-making table.
• Many churches verbally express value for women leaders but don't demonstrate it in their org charts or pay scales
• Four major theological divides in churches: Reformed vs. Arminian, spiritual gifts stances, LGBTQ issues, and egalitarian vs. complementarian views
• Women often serve in roles with pastoral responsibilities but receive "director" titles instead of "pastor"
• Pay gaps between men and women doing similar roles can reach $20,000-$30,000 in many churches
• Women frequently get left out of strategic conversations and aren't groomed for advancement
• Churches can honor their theological convictions while still addressing unconscious biases in how they treat women leaders
• The cost of maintaining these invisible ceilings is losing talented leaders who take their gifts elsewhere
Email podcast@chemistrystaffing.com to share your experiences with this issue or to discuss how your church can value women leaders without compromising theological convictions.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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Ruh-roh Todd's going to talk about women in ministry today. This should be a good one. Many churches say they value women in leadership, but if you look at the org chart, it tells a different story, and today we're going to be tackling really an uncomfortable reality. Women on staff often hit a glass ceiling, even in churches that preach equality and respect. If your church says that it supports female leaders but all the key roles still go to men, it may be time to take a look at that. We're going to unpack why this happened, what it costs your team and how to change the culture from we value you to we promote you.
Speaker 1:All right, so this is a controversial topic. Okay, let me talk as hi there. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over chemistry staffing and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I always have to say that at the beginning. So as part of my role at chemistry staffing and we've been doing this for eight years before that I started a website called churchstaffingcom. So that was almost 25 years ago.
Speaker 1:Hard to believe, but in the last eight years at Chemistry Staffing, there are essentially usually three, sometimes four, different things that are incredibly controversial. Maybe controversial isn't the right word but three or four different areas where churches kind of come down on one side or the other, and these are kind of critical as we look at. You know, potential staff members for churches and your church is probably the same way. One of them is you know, the whole Reformed Arminian debate. You know, is your church more Reformed in theology? Is it more Arminian in theology? Another is spiritual gifts. You know, are you when it comes to spiritual gifts, particularly speaking in tongues, are you a continuationist? Are you a cessationist? Are you we call them functional cessationists. You're kind of yeah, but you're not, and yes, but you know. So that's the second one, one of the third ones that's starting to be well.
Speaker 1:There's a couple more that are a little bit less Starting to do a different podcast here. I need to get back on track here. I saw a squirrel. A couple of other things are sexual LGBTQ issues. Those are starting to become more and more prevalent as the culture shifts. We have to put everyone through that filter, every church and every candidate. Another is political. A lot of churches have become more political, but the one we're going to talk about today is the whole egalitarian-complementarian debate.
Speaker 1:Women in ministry. What can women do in ministry if you're a complementarian, all of that and we're going to talk about that today, okay, so I understand everyone has a little bit of a theological, different take on this, and that's why this conversation is important. So let me just let me go with this with an open mind and you may agree, you may not agree, but let's start here. Okay, you've got a woman in your church and she runs the ministry. She leads the volunteers, she teaches every week, but when it's time to update the org chart, she's still just the assistant.
Speaker 1:Okay, why does so many churches say they value female leaders while keeping them stuck in roles with either no authority or no title or no seat at the decision-making table? We're going to talk about that today. Okay, so many churches, many churches and this has been, you know, just in denominational circles. I'm not Southern Baptist, but this has been a big issue in the Southern Baptist Convention over the past few years. It has been forever. But here, particularly in the last few years, many churches have incredible female staff members. You know, they're running ministries, they're leading volunteers, they're teaching, they're mentoring, but when it comes to getting a promotion or a raise or senior leadership seats.
Speaker 1:A lot of times they get passed over. Sometimes and we've talked to some women that are, that are talking to us about wanting to find a new ministry role they tell us that, man as a woman, this has happened to me again and again and the reality is, regardless your stance on if you're more complementarian or you're more egalitarian, this isn't a conversation about ability. It's about perception. Okay, and sometimes even bias, even unconscious bias, and sometimes even bias, even unconscious bias. Churches may not even realize how consistently they're inconsistent when they keep women in second chair roles or, worse, informal leadership with no real authority.
Speaker 1:So you just need to ask yourself how many women are really you've got women. I don't know of any church that and we've been doing this a long time I don't know that we've talked to any search team, any board, that has said we don't value women. Everyone says they value women, but they say it differently and every church has different roles for women. Some will allow women on a senior leadership team but not on their board or to serve as elders. So it's different on every one. But how many do you have? How many women do you have that are incredibly gifted, that you allow to really speak into, maybe even report to the senior pastor. How many roles do you have really great women in that aren't just kids or women's ministry roles For a lot of women in that aren't just kids or women's ministry roles For a lot of women regardless. And I think you can be a complementarian church and I think you can value women even in your org chart okay.
Speaker 1:But you have to realize that there is for many women, this invisible ceiling that shows up a lot of times and I get this, I get this. This has been the thing that's been kind of under the current in a lot of Southern Baptist churches and a lot of complementarian churches that aren't Southern Baptist. You know, we have a woman in a position and we call her a director, but she's really doing everything else as a pastor. Right, she's doing a pastoral role, but we call her a director. We would never call her a pastor. That might be semantics, that might be okay, but it does communicate. So titles are one way where this kind of invisible ceiling shows up.
Speaker 1:Another is pay gaps and again, sometimes this is conscious, sometimes this is unconscious, but you have women doing certain roles in your church and men doing certain roles in your church and there might be a $20,000 or $30,000 pay gap between the two of them. I know that sometimes this is not intentional and I tell you what this has kind of come out of our culture from even 20, 25 years ago the pay gap. It's really hard to correct that because it affects budgets. Right, if you're going to go back and try to make those a little bit more equal, it messes with your budget. I totally get that. And it could just be maybe a lack of advocacy in key rooms or key roles. And this isn't just anecdotal. I mean it is anecdotal, I hear these stories all the time but it's more systemic.
Speaker 1:Okay, many women are told that they're valued but they aren't invited to strategic conversations, they aren't compensated fairly we just talked about that or they aren't groomed for different roles. They just kind of stay in the seat that they're in and it kind of sends a message hey, we value you, you can work here. And it kind of sends a message hey, we value you, you can work here. You just can't lead here in any different kind of capacity. Again, I understand if you hold theological, complementarian views that there are going to be limits as far as preaching and maybe being an elder, those kind of things. But sometimes sometimes it's spiritualized, kind of amassed in this theological language or cultural excuses, but the result is the same. You know, women get stuck and they burn out. So if you've ever been told, if you're a woman, you've ever been told you're amazing, but we just don't have a spot for you up there, that does something to a person.
Speaker 1:And many women on church staffs kind of carry that, that style of disappointment, that resentment or that shame, and they don't want to stir the pot, but they notice the pattern and they feel that glass ceiling and they often leave and take their gifts and calling and potential leadership potential somewhere else. So if you're, if you're more on the complementarian level, I would just ask you, you know, to really dig down and maybe this is something you need to really, really. Maybe you've not dug into scripture about here lately. Maybe you really need to dig into scripture and identify Okay, so what can women do based on our complementarian theology? What do we feel comfortable with and what do we not feel comfortable with? Do we feel comfortable, even as a complementarian church, paying a woman a lot less for a position than we would pay a man? Those are kind of things that probably are just part of your church.
Speaker 1:That you've many times I know because I talk to churches a lot where they just you know we've either not thought about it or that's just kind of been the way it's always been and the risk you run is that you're going to lose some really talented leaders. I don't want you to compromise your theology, sometimes a lot more gifted with some spiritual gifts than what men have. Hopefully I'm not digging myself a hole here not do what we do without the women that are serving alongside of us that many times just feel kind of undervalued, even though we say that we value them. There, I did it. I named the tension out loud. Some people are going to say, todd, why even go there? I think we need to go there. We need to name the tension out loud.
Speaker 1:If you've got someone on your staff that's maybe has a title that needs to be updated or a salary that needs to be updated, or they just need to be told we value you and include them in a conversation that maybe you wouldn't have a month ago. That's the purpose of this discussion just to have you kind of reevaluate and rethink those valuable women that you have on your staff. All right, that's it for today. I anticipate a lot of feedback on this episode and I welcome it. So just be nice, be Christian.
Speaker 1:When you email me at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom, maybe you're a woman you'd like to kind of vent a little bit about, or tell me your experience about, a great church or a horrible church. Maybe you're a church that's kind of wrestling with us and you'd like to have a conversation about. You know, how can we value our women without compromising our theology? That's really a great question and a great starting point. I'd love to talk with you Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, I promise you we'll be back here tomorrow. I promise it won't be as controversial. Okay, so I hope you'll return right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Have a great day you.