“Growing”: which indicates our desire to develop as the dreams of God for the healing, redemption, and reconciliation of the world develop.
“Generative”: which means that we expect our friendship to generate new ideas, connections, opportunities, and works of beauty.
“Friendship”: Because we firmly hold that living in reconciled friendship trumps traditional orthodoxies – indeed, orthodoxy requires reconciliation as a prerequisite.
“Missional”: Because we believe that the call of the gospel is an outward, apostolic call into the world.

Growing – Should it not be understood that as a movement it do all it possibly can to support the 50 or 51% (whatever the percentage is these days) of the human race that has been oppressed, suppressed, marginalized and belittled from time immemorial?
Generative – I want the opportunity to serve the living God, who defies gender and all other terms we use to separate and delineate the Human Family. If Gen 1 is to be believed, at least theologically speaking, then we are created in God's image. Is there not that divine reflection of that which defies segmentation in both men and women? Are we not called to move beyond this boring, devisive gender question to embrace that which unifies us, that is, being, both male and female, in God's Image? Isn't that truly new, and emerging out of the darkness? Otherwise it is church done the old way with hip rhetoric, blah blah blah. I can incorporate Derrida and post-modern philosophy into my tragically unhip, old-fashioned mainline denomination and still feel welcome in that particular "conversation". As stodgy as the liturgy can be, I have plenty of opportunities to serve the Kingdom without having to prove I'm worthy because I was born a woman. Friendship – history testifies that the bible can be used to justify evil of all sorts – racism, slavery, colonialism, "holy" wars, etc. If the gender question is on the table, should we then also be discussing whether peoples of African descent be enslaved again because they are the descendents of Ham? Or, perhaps, eating kosher meat should be discussed, as one of the three things mentioned in Acts which Gentiles must do as followers of the Way? Where is the friendship based on Jesus' model, i.e. John 15:15-16, or is that only for men?
Missional – if this movement is to be truly apostolic, then you have no better model than the Pauline (from the unquestioned Pauline texts) mission – Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, Nympha, Chloe, Eudodia, Syntyche, Apphia, Julia, Persis, Tryphena, Tryphosa, the outstanding apostle Junia, and the seemingly endless Marys, including the arguably first apostle (according to John), Mary Magdalene. God found these women to be worthy of being part of the creation of the Holy Church. Women even today are not usually socialized (unless from NYC) to be assertive as leaders, and need encouragement to emerge from oppressive patriarchal systems. Please, without reservation, stand up for women who are brave enough to claim these women as their spiritual mothers in this emerging movement.

In the meantime, I think I'll keep my Deborah-esque voice quiet in this particular conversation until I can emerge as less of a judge and more of an apostle within it.

I am happy to help with your peace of mind, sister!

Paul Walker is blogging through a chapter a day of the book. His post on my chapter can be found here:

http://outofthecocoon.squarespace.com/main/2007/8/17/wikiklesia-5-virtual-mentoring-at-the-abbey.html#comment956890

Be blessed…

I haven't got a copy yet, but I look forward to reading your submission.

Scot McKnight has posted 61 threads on Women and Ministry on his blog. I think if would be encouraging to go and read them, now that the comments are closed, and look for the voices that are clearly standing up for the women. There are MANY men who step up to it.

And do you best to not get entangled in the rants of the clueless ones…

Look for comments by Michael Kruse and John W. Fry especially…you will be rewarded and encouraged by what they have to say.

Be blessed, all.

While I can't speak for Len and John, editors of the Wikiklesia book, I can speak for how I got to contribute a chapter. I saw Scot's blurb at Jesus Creed and thought to myself, "wow, I have things to say on this topic…but I don't know anyone and how would I even approach this…never mind, I've got too many other things going." Within 10 minutes I got an e-mail from a friend of mine who was one of the ones invited to write a chapter. He is a very vocal supporter of women and said that he was really hoping that a number of his women friends would submit a proposal…and he asked John if he could pass the invitation on to them. John agreed and my friend sent the invitation to me. I was shocked for about a minute, then fired off the proposal for what kind of chapter I would like to contribute. John responded immediately and said "please write a chapter in our book."

I do not know how many women send in proposals…but I do know that Len and John were careful to keep the topic of the book focused on technology. I know of a number of proposals that just didn't make the cut because their main focus just wasn't on topic strongly enough.

I also ended up asking John how he was going to do things like lay out the book and format things…and ended up working with John and Len through the entire production of the book. They were more than inclusive, they let me question them about everything they did and considered every suggestion I made…and we worked everything through with complete consensus. It was an amazing experience. And no, I'm nobody to them…just like I'm nobody to most who will read the book.

And the other women who wrote chapters were way more high powered than mine…but I still got the chance to say my peace.

It is possible, friends….

And Kathy,

What you are yearning for is exactly what I have been working on during the past 18 months. It is a terrible thing to have to be patient, but I can only say that the Holy Spirit is on the move and doing amazing things. It is never as fast as we want it, but God is working in spite of and through all these things–if we will believe.