The female voice

I woke up at 4:30 this morning. ...that's right, I said morning. And I chose to do this. No one made me. If you don't know me then you don't know how significant this is. Let me put it this way; at home my parents are shocked if I wake up before 11. The people who knew me best knew not to call me before at least 10a.m. Basically I love sleeping for as long as I possibly can.

So you may be wondering why I would wake myself up at such an hour when it is far from my normal routine of convincing myself that I can sleep until 10 minutes before I need to be somewhere...

This morning I met my friend Nate in Greenville at 6a.m. to get breakfast and lead worship in the chapel service at a Christian Academy for the 5th-8th graders. He asked me on Wednesday if I would come be a female voice and I agreed (as long as he bought me breakfast). So we ate, drove over to the school, set up, I typed in a few missing songs into PowerPoint, and at about 8 we worshipped briefly with the teachers then led worship at 8:30 for about 200 kids.
These kids were GREAT!! They had energy and they sang in worship. A group of girls even came up front when we played 'Marvelous Light' to lead the hand motions I had never seen (but I was VERY excited to learn. They were super cute!). We played for about 40 minutes before the kids had to head to class.
While we were starting to break stuff down, this 5th grade girl named Gala came up to me. I didn't know any of these kids which was a different experience for me because I'm used to having a gaggle of crazy girls around me at Christ Church. Anyway, Gala came up to me and told me that I had a really good voice. I smiled and said thank you, then asked her if she liked to sing and if she was in choir. She said she was and that she was taking voice lessons too. She was pretty shy. I told her that I took lessons too and that I sang opera in school. Then before she left she said, "you should come back more often."

That struck me, and not in a self-glorifying way (I am by no means a diva). This girl had just met me for the first time, only knew that I like to sing, but she wanted me to come back and sing again. This group of kids consisted primarily of girls. Nate is a great worship leader, but he does sing in 'guy-friendly' keys which are usually not very 'girl-friendly' (we're either trying to hit pitches in the stratosphere or we sound like tenors. I just make up a harmony). In fact, I'm willing to bet that before I came with Nate the usual set up is just one guy singing with a guitar. And that's not a bad thing by any means...but why do so few women step up to lead as God calls them?

When I was in youth group and we planned to go on a retreat, there were always enough dads willing to come as leaders but very few moms came forward at first notice. They had to be coaxed into it. Most of the speakers on these retreats were men. Most worship bands that I have seen are fronted by men(except for Flyleaf...cuz they rock). At WVU when I went to CRU, most of the talks were given by men. Even at Christ Church the 3 other interns are guys. And again, I don't have a problem with these men stepping up and using their spiritual gifts to glorify God. I respect them and I wish more men would step up and own the role God is asking them to play in His Kingdom.

My problem with all of this is that the female voice is missing in a lot of ministries. And a lot of ministries have more girls than guys who come regularly. These girls want to hear what the women in their lives have done to get where they are in their walks with Christ. I wish I had when I was in high school, just starting to explore Christianity and what that meant other than sitting in church every Sunday. There are so many issues we face as women that are not addressed in a group atmosphere. Some of those issues do need to be brought up in a safe environment of just women. But in general, I think it would be incredibly beneficial for the girls and guys to hear a strong woman of God lead large group talks in an authentic way. Guys want to understand us and so do girls.

Now before I get the words of Paul and Peter thrown in my face about the role of women in the church let me be clear. I am not suggesting that women should be favored in leadership or be in a high-ranking position within the church building. I AM saying that women need to speak up for what they believe, express themselves more in the church as a community, and to be role models to the young girls who are so desperately looking to them for guidance. We all need to look to Jesus to discern how to be effective in our respective ministries.


"After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.""
-Luke 10:1-3 ESV

Lead me On

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
-Luke 12:48b NIV


God is making me into a leader...and it's freaking me out. My most recent trip home to FCEC proved that to me, followed by a few more encounters in Greenville. This wasn't subtle like last January when, while driving back to Morgantown after leading worship at FCEC, God called me to pursue music ministry. The past week and a half has been a punch in the face from the Holy Spirit, telling me to wake up. I fell asleep by the end of January and I needed a wake up call. Wednesday night was the final blow....

I left Spartanburg around 5:40 for Greenville, a 30 minute drive from campus. I was supposed to meet a friend at Coffee Underground to just hang out and possibly work on music. By the time I got there and found a parking space, it was 6:20...40 minutes before senior high EYC started. My friend was no where to be found. Apparently we had a slight miscommunication in who was going to be where and when.
Sooooo I'm only human and to be honest I was pissed. I've been dying to write lyrics and music for months now, and so far we haven't done anything together. And even though I knew the no-show wasn't intentional, I bitterly walked back to my car and drove over to the church. My anger was still brewing inside, so I called a friend to have a quick chat before I went in to practice the worship set. I took a breath, pulled myself together, and walked in.

Within seconds of walking in to the room where my friends were practicing I knew I was still upset. And I couldn't hide it. There was no way I would be able to practice without dealing with what was going on first. So I did the level-headed thing...I picked up my Bible and walked out of the room while they continued to run through a song. I found a quiet room not too far away and opened up to the Gospels. I flipped through the underlined passages, looking for an answer. Why was I so angry about something so stupid? And why did I try to put on a happy face with my friends instead of talking about it? ....do I do that often?
I ended up focusing on two scriptures. The first was the story of Gethsemane in Matthew's Gospel. My first wake up call came from verse 41;

""Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body in weak.""

Jesus is speaking to his disciples in the moments before Judas betrays him. He has asked them to do one simple thing - keep watch while he goes off to pray. When Jesus returns, he finds them all asleep. How would you feel if you were one of the disciples who had fallen asleep? Ashamed? Frustrated with your own weakness? Unworthy? That is exactly how I felt when I read that story. I put my head in my hands and began to pray with a passion I had not felt in a long while. I was so involved in my conversation with God that I did not hear my friend knock and try to say hello to me.
I was just like the disciples on that night. I was reading and praying every day, teaching the kids at my church at home what it looks like to be a Christian (without the 'stained glass masquerade), and really walking with God on such an intimiate level. Then I fell asleep for a short while. Tears streamed down my face as I asked God to help me wake up from the nap I had fallen in to.
The second scripture I turned to was the one I listed above from Luke 12. Yet another blow to my heart. I was running from the growing pains. I felt like God was entrusting me with more than I could handle. And instead of praying and reading more, I was trying to throw my hands up in the air and give up. I sincerely felt like Moses before the exodus from Egypt.

"Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it."
-Exodus 4:12-13 NIV

Now I am in no way comparing myself to Moses, one of the greatest leaders in Jewish history. But I can certainly sympathize with the man. God is calling me to be more than who I am right now, and He had to wake me up from a nap to tell me that (sadly it isn't even the first time I have been aware of this plan). I'm going to be a musician and work with kids. That's where my passion lies. And I love that the kids come to me to talk about their faith and what's going on. They come to me because I am not afraid to be honest about my own life. I'm slowly dealing with everything I have been through in my life, and that makes me relateable. I've been where they are and now I understand what God was trying to teach me from those experiences. That's what they want and need to hear....someone who has been in the pits and come out of it by the grace of God.

Worship that night was the best it had been in a long time. God spoke to my heart, broke my barriers down and made me vulnerable before Him and the small group of friends present. I felt a call to just let go and lead as He tells me to lead. Quit worrying and don't be scared, because as Matthew 10:31 says, "you are worth more than many sparrows." God will take care of me no matter where my life takes me.

"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."
-Ephesians 5:14b NIV

In closing, vulnerability is diffcult. And my fear is that so few church leaders are willing to go there. That sends a very disturbing message to our youth - 'suck it up and take it somewhere else.'
It's terribly sad to think that I have to hide my heart in God's house. How do we begin to heal our brokenness if we can't open up and lay it down at the Lord's feet? Most of my struggle with faith has been a direct result from shoving all of my deepest, darkest issues so far down that I couldn't see them. But as we all know, just because you can't see something doesn't mean that it's not there. I could feel my issues like a splinter pushed deep inside my skin, and pain like that can only be ignored for so long. Eventually the splinter has to come out...when we choose to allow that to happen determines how much and how long it will hurt.