This season, we’ve had the pleasure of speaking with so many wise women in ministry and engaging in enriching conversations with them. Now, Rose and Jenni sit down to reflect and wrap up the season by sharing their biggest takeaways and personal insights.
If you’ve missed any episodes, don’t worry! This recap will give you a quick overview of each one and hopefully inspire you to dive into the episodes that resonate most with you.
Listener Resources:
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Episode Transcript
Rose: Well, here we are, Jenni, at the end of some very incredible conversations with women in ministry from all over the place. So diverse.
Jenni: Wow, it’s been incredible. It has been a two months of just, I think, brain overload just by the wisdom of these women. But I have learned so much, and I don’t think I’m the same. I don’t know about you. I feel like I’ve grown so much, just listening and learning.
Rose: I really have. And before we continue on, Jenny, I want to say thank you so much for being my co-host. I could not imagine a better co-host for this series. And so thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me.
Jenni: Thank you, rose. It was my privilege. I think you could have done it yourself. You’re pretty impressive. But I have had such a great time. You can ask anytime. Anytime I get to learn and be with other women that are just wiser, smarter, kinder than me, that’s what I want to be near. So thanks for giving me this opportunity.
Rose: Oh, you’re so welcome. I was a regional leader for Vineyard Northwest for 10 years, and I’ve been telling people about you and saying, if I were still the regional leader, she would absolutely be at the top of my list for speaking at one of our events. I would bring you in a second. So anyway.
Jenni: Rose. Wow, that means a lot to me. That really does. Honestly, I just want to say thank you because it’s rare that women pull each other up. We’re getting better at it, but we are to invite each other to the table because we’re so threatened by it. And so thank you for not being that way.
Rose: You’re so welcome. It’s a big pie and we can all have a piece,
Jenni: Really. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we all get better because of it, right? That’s
Rose: Exactly right. So yeah, let’s, I mean, we had incredible guests and learned so much. Our first guest, Brenda Salter McNeil, what a privilege to be able to have the conversation with her.
Jenni: She’s so wise, just so much in her new book. Brilliant.
Rose: Her new book, Empowered to Repair, Becoming People Who Men Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities. And it’s all based out of the book of Nehemiah, the story of Nehemiah. But she takes that story and just leads the readers through a way to go out and help build congregations, organizations, and communities where all people can flourish and reach their full God-given potential. I love that heart in her. She’s been doing this work for so long and she’s so wise and so good at it. And this new book is incredibly important for anyone that wants to do racial justice.
Jenni: And I think for all of us that are sitting in a space of wondering why we aren’t moving forward, some of it is personal. We just have gotten stuck, and some of it is we’re not willing to take a look at history and we’re not willing to have these conversations that might be uncomfortable. But she is so good at helping us see in a way that is not threatening, but really taking a look at ourselves and saying, where can we be different and where can we actually make a change? So I really did appreciate her. We really love sitting down with my friend Tara Beth, and just how she is just a, well, you brought it up recently. You had said something along the side, and I’ll let you talk about it, about her when she took over the church. Do you want to say what your thought there?
Rose: Yeah, well, when we were having our conversation with her, because I don’t know Tara Beth, well, I only met her through this podcast series. So hearing her story, and part of her story is becoming the first lead pastor, female lead pastor, of I think a pretty large church. And it didn’t go well. And so the thing that really struck me, especially because in my current denomination, so many pastors are retiring and many wouldn’t even consider having a woman as a lead pastor, but yet there’s so many women ready. So Tara Beth’s wisdom around never take a church to be the lead pastor if that church isn’t ready to have a female lead pastor, you have to vet the congregation because it didn’t go well for her. I mean, I just thought that was such a word of wisdom for women because we want to step in and say finally we have the opportunity. But to vet that congregation, the leaders, the board, whomever, to make sure they’re really ready to receive and have a female lead pastor seems so important.
Jenni: I think also in that area of knowing what questions, when you say vet them, they need to know what questions to ask because I think so often, like you said, just want it so much more than they do. We want to go and change. We want to be trailblazers. But the reality is when people aren’t ready, there’s no purpose in us trying to push our way through.
Rose: That’s exactly right.
Jenni: And even if they think they’re ready, maybe it’s not us. Maybe we actually say not quite yet. I do remember someone wanted, and this was a friend of mine who was a part of this church and had asked, would I consider coming to this church? And as an Asian female, that’s two things. It’s not just female. I’m also a minority, and this is an all white church, all men. That’s it. I was like, I was not created for this. Some people are, but I was not ready to go and fight a fight that in the end, it’s not about whether my voice gets heard in the end, it’s about lives coming to Jesus. Right. And if I’m getting in the way, then I’m not helping anything either. So not that women don’t belong, I’m just saying if they’re not ready for you, don’t shove your way in. There’s plenty of spaces that are ready. And so that’s a good reminder of, okay, what are the right questions? Not everyone is ready. Sometimes they want to think that they’re ready and they’re not ready, and that’s okay. And everyone has their own time and just a wealth of knowledge there. For sure.
Rose: I love that Tara Beth also spoke about her recovery from that experience. So important. So I hope everyone will listen to Tara Beth because it was such a rich, important conversation. And so was Faith Eury Cho, now Faith is a friend of yours, right?
Jenni: Yes. And also really a lot of what Tara Beth said linked into what Faith ended up talking about, which is being in the wilderness and finding formation in the wilderness, finding a friendship with God. And even Tara Beth said in not those exact words of when she was doing her healing, what it’s to go back into that place and finding your foundation, your formation in God and the wilderness, We’re kind of afraid of it.
Rose: We are. And I think we’re trained in the church to pull people out of the wilderness. We’re not comfortable with people suffering or being in the midst of challenging formation. Right.
Jenni: How much do we need to prepare though, if we looked at any of the Bible stories, if you think about Moses, how he left Egypt, he was sent out, well, he was running, but he went out and in the wilderness, that’s where he was prepared to come back and do the work that God has always created him to do
Rose: And to lead a people through the wilderness.
Jenni: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Rose: Because you can’t lead people where you haven’t been yourself. Right,
Jenni: Exactly. So yeah, it’s a really good, beautiful picture. So yeah, if you haven’t read Faith’s book yet, you definitely grab that. That is one of the best books I’ve read in, I would say 2020.. was it 24. I think it read in 2023, end of 2023. But really incredible book.
Rose: And her book is Experiencing Friendship with God, just so everyone. Yes, exactly. Listen to that conversation. So important.
Jenni: And then I got to have, it was great that you let me invite all my friends on this.
Rose: Happy that you had such a great friends.
Jenni: It was just us hanging out with friends because we had Jeanette Salguero on and she just does such incredible work in advocacy. I look at her and I’m like, how do you do it? And she was pretty clear. It’s not about a balance of work. It’s not like you could do it all when you pick one thing, you don’t pick another. But just how important it is that we platform voices that are not heard for the people that are most marginalized because if we have any platform at all, we should be able to need to broadcast those that need it the most. And I don’t know about you Rose, but I get very comfortable being comfortable. And so hearing her share just what she does was convicting to me in a way that I never thought would be. So I ask often now, what is it that makes me uncomfortable? What is it that you need me to step into?
Rose: I love that conversation on so many levels for her as a Latina woman and then as a female pastor, and then as an advocate speaking truth to power in Washington DC. Incredible. So I think our listeners will gain a lot from that conversation.
Jenni: Yeah,
Rose: Agreed. Again, like linked in to Ines.
Jenni: Yes, exactly. I could have talked to Ines for days.
Rose: You and me both.
Jenni: I am so obsessed with her because she, okay, so I know that we brought up a new term, or she brought up a new term mujerista theology, and that is just the Latina version of Womanist theology, which is for the Black woman. And really just understanding that there’s a place for people that look like her and her just being bold about that. And for women, all of us, period, whether you are in the mujerista theology or womanist or just whatever you might be, we have been taught to take up less space to be seen and not heard from our childhood. And the truth is, God created us in this time, in this season to take the space that he’s allotted for us. And we have a hard time, time even filling the space. He gave us much less go beyond that. So I really love how she brings her church, her community, into understanding how to see the other and how to take up more space and hear what God has actually said to her and to others. For all of us can hear God clearly if we just ask. I just thought she was so brilliant.
Rose: She was absolutely brilliant. So much wisdom from her. It was an amazing conversation. And that led into Mary Kathryn Nader, who’s a PhD that actually wrote her dissertation on women in ministry and compassion fatigue. Oh my goodness. I think we talked to her about compassion fatigue, we talked to her about imposter syndrome and self-talk because many of the women that I coach and mentor, one of the things that they battle most about being a woman is I think self-talk and imposter syndrome. They’ll do something and then it’ll take a week to just tame the voices in their heads about criticizing every single piece of it. And so she was so very helpful around those issues.
Jenni: She was, and I think, I don’t know if it was during the recording or if it was off recording, but she even said, Mary Kathryn said, when I saw the lineup, I thought, why did they want to talk to me? And I’m like, here, we’re talking about that exact thing, that imposter syndrome of wait until they find out. No, she’s brilliant. And so this is all of us. And she had so much wisdom in her as well. I really appreciated her talking about compassion fatigue because I don’t think I had language for it. I mean, I heard it before, but to hear it really described and kind of plotted out of what it meant for women. We are already so compassionate. Well, most of us, or I say, I think I have less of that than maybe you Rose. But I’ll say that during Covid, I didn’t have this language and I just was burning out. And if I had known prior, I wish I had known all this stuff prior because I would’ve known better how to sit and abide and take care of myself and to Sabbath and realize, okay, there’s not something wrong with me here. I just need to go back to the source of who gives me compassion. And so yeah, just understanding that now, I guess it’s not too late, but just understanding these little pieces, these little nuggets.
Rose: I think for just all of that, we had so much wisdom from each of our guest stories. What were their rhythms? What are their practices? How do they reset? All of them had so much to offer around that for women in ministry. And we ended with two young women in ministry that was delightful.
Jenni: Yes. I love seeing, yeah, Cassie and Natalia. I love seeing the next generation just bouldering past us. I love it because it makes me feel like, oh, I did something.
Rose: Yes. I’m not kidding. I feel like when I see young women just bypassing me and I’m like, yes. I mean, it’s like a relay race. I’m handing the baton and they’re going on and they’re going to hand the baton. But I mean, Cassie, joy and Natalia were delightful to listen to both of them and their love for God and their love for what they feel invited to in this life and in this season was really delightful.
Jenni: I do appreciate how Natalia was. So she’s articulate in how she’s saying, how do we live outside the four walls? So often as ministry people we think, come to us, come to us, come to us. And she’s like, no, we need to go to them because that’s where they need us. And so creating new pathways and understanding and having conversations of what our community actually needs processing through that, that means that we have to stop and watch. We have to actually be in proximity with people around us. And I just really appreciated how she was just really aware of that. Yeah. I wish I had that kind of wisdom at her age.
Rose: I know, right? And Cassie Joy, I feel the same way about her now. She’s a graduate of The Seattle School, and I love that she was able to even articulate what her education did to prepare her for her first pastorate down in Southern California. Like ways of having enough self-awareness and things that some seminaries don’t teach you about. Right. Like that formation of emotional intelligence as well as spiritual spirituality. And you and I have talked about this, the social sciences that some seminaries do not offer. That intersection of theology and psychology. I really love that from Casie.
Jenni: Yeah. You know what, Rose, I just actually love that you’ve created, you’ve just invited me to this place, but you’ve created this platform where women can come as they are, women can come and share from their very, very different spheres and their different spaces of the spectrum. And just for us to learn from each other. I love that you knew, and you are a trailblazer for many of us. So thank you for the work. All the times that no’s were thrown in your face and the doors were slammed in your face and you said, no, we’re going to keep going because God has called me and because of what you’ve done, we can stand on your shoulders. So thank you for just giving this platform, providing this place for women to process together and feel seen and loved and heard. And now that we can say, you can use our own voices. And so that other women out there can hear this too. And hopefully men too would hear this and say, how can we be allies and how can we see the Imago Dei in its fullest? So I don’t know if I can say thank you enough for just creating the space for us. Keep doing it.
Rose: Thank you, Jenni. Oh my gosh. I hope we can stay in touch.
Jenni: Yes. Thank you all for listening!
