The author shows how unclear constructs hurt the cause of integration, and suggests a more fundamental point of integration for church planting and social action.
The woman told me her story quietly as we huddled around the table in her cramped home in Serbia. She was younger than me, and yet her face bore the deeply worn evidence of hardship and struggle for survival. Like many other Romani people in Eastern Europe, she was impoverished and illiterate, and I found myself completely captured by her story. Married at 16, she had her first of seven children at 17. Both of the men who fathered her children were abusive alcoholics.
We aren’t mad at the Masons. We’re not at odds with the Odd Fellows. And we’ve got no beef with the Moose.The two of us just aren’t going to join the Masonic Temple, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, or the Moose Lodge. No matter how well they decorate their meeting places. No matter how well their speakers speak. We’re just not going. For one thing, their rituals seem rather peculiar to us as outsiders. More importantly, we simply don’t see that they offer us any value. Again, we aren’t in opposition to them; we’re just not going to go to their meetings or join their ranks.
As an increasing number of mission agencies desire to involve more gifted women as decision-makers in their executive and board leadership structures, they are experiencing difficulty in finding them. How can we create more avenues to find, develop, support, and retain more gifted women to bring the perspective and talent that we desire for our organizations?
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