Something that will be addressed here a lot is the issue of women in the church and the obstacles they face in it. I had a conversation recently about the lack of women being mentored in the church. Even in churches that support women in ministry there is a lack of women being trained and mentored. We realized that part of the reason that this is stems from a desire to respect and protect women. In this day of lawsuits and stuff, most men will not be alone with a women. Men seem afraid of either temptation, judgment of others, or of false accusations and so avoid ever being alone (or have personal conversations) with women. Part of that fear is to keep themselves safe, part of it is out of respect for women. But the result is that while men still continue to raise up more men to be leaders in the church, no one is doing that for women. Something that in one sense is intended to help actually hurts. How can this be overcome? Do men just have to face the fear and take risks? Or are the structures that mentoring takes place in now need to be re-examined?