Walking and working with young female ministers in the United States, Europe and Southern Asia have been a passion and privilege of my journey for several decades. That journey has provided rich opportunities to observe, reflect, and go back to Scripture again and again regarding God’s calling upon women and girls and how we navigate that call both within the church and in our larger world. I’d like to share a few observations for your personal reflection.
Divergent views on women in ministry are still with us throughout the body of Christ, and I suspect they always will be until we all go to heaven. Whether they are found in denominations, local churches, or families, those views can be divisive, disheartening, and sometimes hurtful. In the spirit of humility it’s important to remember that the most eloquent, well-argued theological views we hear (or voice) are still human. Scripture, from beginning to end, shows us plainly it is God who knows and calls anyone He wills by name—whether we look more like Deborah or David. The sovereign God appoints people, pours out His anointing oil on sons and daughters, and faithfully makes a way for those on whom He places His hand. There is no better waymaker or door opener than Him!
We can respectfully agree or disagree with one another’s views on women in ministry, but I am personally accountable to live out my life to please the One who asks in a still, small voice, “Beth, will you still follow Me?” And after all the decades of debate about women in ministry have fallen silent, my answer will remain, “Yes, Lord, I will follow You.”
Admittedly, at times that yes came with some tears. Other times, it came with a shout of excitement. But let’s move on, my friend. If God has laid His hand on us for His kingdom mission in this strategic day of harvest, let’s be about our Father’s business. (And if you are a Pentecostal theologian who is called and gifted by God to be a voice for His daughters in ministry, don’t let me slow you down!)
For serving in ministry or church leadership it’s critical that you are confident in your identity in Christ—not your identity as someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s wife or sister, or someone’s pastor or professor. Many may know me as “David Grant’s wife,” which I am, and which I love being. But that’s not where my peace and confidence are when people’s words or Satan’s lies hit me head-on. Like the apostle Paul, who said, “For to me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), our strong foundation is knowing who we are in Him!
Every male leader, pastor, evangelist and teacher who discerns the call of God on women and girls and advocates for them on their journeys is a gift, like my pastor Ervin Mason when I was 15. They are colaborers and brothers in Christ. It’s a privilege to work shoulder to shoulder with gifted, godly male colleagues and to walk out the mission of God together.
We celebrate the victories won together. But when we find ourselves in tough spots as leaders, I also want my male colleagues to know that when they pass the ball to me, they can trust me not to drop it. We are not here to do the will of God in spite of each other; we do it in relationship with each other. My sentiments are captured by what the great missionary general Charles Greenaway once said: “I’ll do everything I can to help you. But if I can’t help you, I sure won’t hurt you!” I seriously question whether men and women in the body of Christ can work together in spiritual leadership as well as God intends if we are actively or even subconsciously competing with each other.
As we value being one in Christ and intentionally discern the image of God and His gifts in one another, female and male leadership teams in the body of Christ have the capacity and opportunities to set a higher bar for collaboration in a secular world marked by competitiveness, dismissiveness, stereotypical thinking, and abuses of power. Our mandate as individual believers is to be like Jesus. But leaders and leadership teams in the body of Christ are called to look like Jesus, too.
From a New Testament perspective, I cannot make a case for ministry being a right for anyone—male or female. Every disciple’s journey with Jesus, since the time He was on earth, began with an invitation to literally sacrifice their life: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it” (Luke 9:23–24). God’s call to serve in ministry or leadership is a holy, humbling call and a privilege. It in no way modifies the first and most important call of Jesus: to give ourselves as living sacrifices and to take up His cross. That’s not “rights” language. The more closely our personal journeys with Jesus reflect His Philippians 2 example, I pray the more our private and denominational conversations about women and men in ministry will look and sound like Him, too.
Some days, people bless and affirm us. I’m grateful to God and them for those times. And other days, people don’t. In all cases we can continue to walk in God’s truth, guard our hearts from bitterness, and serve Him however He leads. People cannot cancel God’s call, nor can they disqualify us from ministry. But unhealed hurts, resentments, and bitterness that are allowed to take root in our lives can. To do long-term ministry with strength and spiritual health, David and I came to a point when we knew we had to choose forgiveness as a daily spiritual discipline rather than as a case-by-case decision that depended on the circumstances. During very difficult challenges in our leadership over several years, we determined that nothing anyone has done to us or said about us is worth missing what God has for us to fulfill over a lifetime of serving Him. Although it’s not easy or natural, we discovered we can lean in to the grace of God and continue to forgive like Jesus daily.
To be clear, this does not indicate we can trust some of those individuals again or should ever put ourselves in harm’s way. No. But we can choose to forgive in prayer before God and receive healing and the freedom to move on with Jesus, whether we ever receive an apology from those individuals or not.
Positions for ministry and leadership come and go. Serve well wherever you find yourself, but hold positions lightly. We fill them, but we do not own them. God’s call, His passion, and the gifts He gives are what remain fresh from season to season.
Never apologize for your God-given strengths and gifts. Used with grace and generously dedicated to God, they will enable you to walk out His sovereign call with dignity, courage, and victory—all for His glory. The best case for having women in ministry is ultimately the well-lived, Spirit-anointed lives and ministries of countless women in the multicultural church around the world. The fact that God continues to call and pour out His Spirit on daughters who sacrificially obey Him cannot be dismissed.
This is not an American phenomenon. As was true in the early decades of the Assemblies of God a century ago, single and widowed women can be found today serving missionally in some of the most difficult, demonized places in the world. They inspire and challenge me! Why would any woman choose a dangerous, sacrificial journey far from family and home that may cost her everything—including the opportunities for marriage, remarriage, and children—or possibly even cost her life? No, my friend, she’s not doing that because she’s ambitious. She’s doing it because she’s been called by God and sent on His redeeming mission to the ends of the earth.
Future Generations of Leaders
To advocate for God’s daughters means advocating for God’s daughters for generations to come. It’s advocating for hidden women who, because of their cultures, will most likely have to hear the good news from a woman. Many women in barren places around the world are crying out to a God they do not know to help them in their terror and distress. Who will go to them? From the beginning of the Assemblies of God, strong, fearless young women have worked as pioneers on the edge of vast darkness and brought the One who is light—again and again and again!
Women friends who are leaders in other denominations remind me at times how blessed we are as women in the Assemblies of God to have the option to be credentialed ministers. No, we are not perfect, for sure. But we are blessed. The church was instituted by God, but it is made up of people like us who are still human. But with God’s help—and courageous, wise male and female advocates throughout our history until now—women have become an integral part of our ministry family and an increasingly normalized part of AG leadership.
Note, in 1998 when George Wood expressed concern to me about the low numbers of women choosing to take ministerial credentials in the Assemblies of God, they were at least 15% of the total credentialed ministry family. As of today, 27 years later, credentialed women now represent roughly 30% of total ministers. There are 11,046 credentialed female ministers in the US Assemblies of God and more than 700 across America who serve as Assemblies of God lead pastors. And God faithfully keeps pouring out His Spirit on hungry sons and daughters around the world.
Beth Grant and her husband, David, are cofounders of Project Rescue, which for more than two decades has been empowering survivors of sex trafficking in sixteen nations. The first woman elected to the Executive Presbytery of the US National Assemblies of God, Grant is a prophetic voice for justice, equipping others to bring hope and freedom to the world’s most vulnerable. Her new book, Leading With a Whisper, is available now at amazon.com.
