The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast: Lead Like N... - Red Flags Driving Women Out of Church (and How to Fix Them) with Kadi Cole

The art of leadership network, severe breakdown of trust.

I think there's a lot of pieces that go into that, but it is probably the number one issue

I would say.

I think women for the last 10 years have been voting with their feet.

Welcome to the Carrey New Hoff leadership podcast.

I hope our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership.

Today, tackling a tough issue, why are women leaving the church?

And I sit down with Katie Cole, who's got extensive experience in this issue.

And while we don't have deity yet, we do have thoughts.

That's that I think are going to be really helpful.

She reveals the number one reason why she believes women don't trust the church anymore.

We talk about investment in versus ROI.

We talk about culture and a whole lot more.

I think there are clues here.

So whether you're complementarian, egalitarian in your theology, we talk about what that means,

why everybody probably could use to benefit from honoring women better and treating them better

and a whole lot more in this episode.

It's fascinating, it's eye-opening, and you'll want to sharpen your pencil

and get a little bit of homework done as a result.

We also come to some very practical solutions and suggestions as well.

You can get show notes for this by going to CarreyNewHoff.com slash show notes

or even easier, they're all in my art of leadership academy.

Go to theartofleadershipacademy.com.

Hey, Katie Cole is a leadership consultant, author and speaker.

She has three decades of experience in organizational development.

She's a former executive director at one of America's largest multi-site churches.

She specializes in helping churches and organizations.

Ernest, the leadership potential of both men and women.

She wrote an incredible book called Developing Female Leaders.

She has a brand new podcast, we'll talk about that.

And so without further ado, my conversation with Katie Cole

on why women are disengaging from church.

Katie, welcome back to the podcast.

I always love our conversations.

Thank you so much, Kerry.

It's always an honor to be here.

And I'm excited to dive into today's topic.

Well, we're going to solve a problem once and for all about why women are leaving the trick.

We're talking about it.

We don't have any current data on that.

No, this is a different news.

But I was really grateful when you said, yeah, I'll come on.

And we'll try to at least put our heads around this issue for an hour or so

and see what we can learn about it.

And the good news is I believe there is a research being done on this later this year in 2026.

So hopefully we'll have some data to pour over.

But Katie, I'm just so grateful for your ministry and grateful for you.

And you just seem to be in an era of outrage.

You seem to be like a scene.

I can work with these people.

I can work with those people like that kind of person.

So I just want to say thank you for who you are.

Well, thanks so much.

I appreciate that.

It is an interesting time.

I'll give you that.

Oh, tell me about it, man.

Okay, well, let's start here.

Can you define for those who have heard the terms, but maybe don't understand them.

What is the difference between a complementary and view,

complementary and view of women in leadership in the church versus

an egalitarian view of women in leadership in the church,

because we have both constituencies listening.

And the thing I love the first time we talked about this,

you serve both churches very happily, which is cool.

So what's the difference between complementarianism and egalitarianism?

Sure, these are two different ways of looking how men and women interact together in the body.

And really it comes from our theology around the Trinity.

How we believe God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, interact together.

So complementarian, or also known as like a hierarchical view,

is that God the Father is like at the top of the hierarchy.

And then he gives his orders to Jesus.

Jesus carries them out.

He gives orders to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit carries that out.

And in the unity of the Trinity, there's hierarchy where everyone's equal,

but complementary.

That's where that term complementary and come further complementary.

So in the body of Christ, then, we take that image of God.

And as we bear the image of God in our interactions with each other,

we then have the same complementary but hierarchical view.

On the other side, I hate to even describe it as binary,

because there's a lot of nuances in between, and people express their difference.

True, there are people who are probably well, almost.

Yeah, but it does kind of tend to be these two main theologies.

egalitarian is really is the root word for equal.

And it means when this person thinks of the Trinity,

they're thinking of those three people, not in terms of top down,

but more circular.

They're equal.

They're interchangeable.

They collaborate.

They're unified in their oneness.

And there's equality among them.

Different roles, yes, but no one person over another.

And so when we see that expressed in the community of Jesus' body,

particularly in church or leadership,

there's equality between men and women.

There isn't certain roles that are open for men or not open for women.

There isn't a male headship that a complementary in church would have.

And I think it's important to say this is really considered

a secondary theological issue,

meaning people who love God and know the Bible

can make really strong biblical cases for either one of these.

We really will not know.

Some people have very, very strong opinions and they know they're right.

I'm very cautious about that on any secondary issues.

I sort of say we're all going to get to heaven and half of us are going to be surprised.

I'm not exactly sure which half.

But those are the two sort of views of it.

And those, as you can imagine, really play out differently in church and leadership.

And particularly, well, it plays out in a lot of different ways,

but it particularly plays out in our context and culture now around women leaders.

And how far up the leadership chain in a church can women go?

It also has implications in family dynamics

and how a home is run or how decisions are made between a husband and wife.

It also, on extreme ends, particularly on the complementarian side,

can have implications in the kind of a career a woman could have or not have

if she has authority over a man.

But again, I try to make a case there's really a spectrum

rather than sort of a binary choice that I'm four or against women leaders.

So it plays out differently and all of us probably have experiences

in a variety of contexts and in a variety of ways of how that influences our belief

and sort of alignment around that with other people.

That's really helpful.

So on the egalitarian side, though, just to help me understand,

doesn't mean that women and men are the same.

There's no differences.

Or doesn't mean that no, there can still be distinctive features,

characteristics of men and women that we are designed by God differently

just so that we have a little more nuanced understanding of egalitarianism.

Sure, on the egalitarian side, definitely men and women are different.

Just like we would say again, back to the Trinity, God the Father

is different than God the Son, different than the Holy Spirit,

different functions, you know, they do complement and help one another.

It's more about sort of authority and power.

I would say on the egalitarian side, how that plays out in context, though,

is there is a lot less gender sort of boxes that people live into.

Like this is the right way to be a man or a right way to be a woman.

Women do these roles, men do those roles, women have these gifts,

men have those gifts.

There's a lot more assumptions maybe on the way that plays out

and complementarian viewpoints.

But really, and again, it changes in the dynamic

with that you find yourself.

And I'm not a theological expert on this, but this is kind of just a one-on-one

sort of orientation to it.

I would say both people on both sides would say we value women, we value men,

we want everyone in the kingdom.

I think the heart behind it is often very much the same.

But again, our view of God changes how we interact with one another

and that's usually what's up play.

Is either inherently misogynist?

Well, theoretically, no.

But I do think that if someone has misogynistic tendencies

or control tendencies on a male side,

they're going to gravitate and appreciate a complementarian view better.

I would also say that if we have a woman who tends to migrate to control

or want dominance, she's going to migrate to an egalitarian view.

So I don't think the viewpoints have that.

I don't think the cultures create that.

I do think people self-select in the environment that fits who they feel called to be.

And so we tend to see that show up in the people we know,

and it's easy to make that assumption.

Well, I think it's important to say as well that women have a variety of viewpoints

on complementarianism versus egalitarianism, right?

There are, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but

there appear to be sizable numbers of women who are very comfortable

and actually align with a complementarian view.

Is that correct?

What did you see?

Absolutely.

I don't, otherwise we'd have a whole bunch of churches that are all women.

On one side and on the other, that's not how it works at all.

And I think one of the most confusing things is the fact that women disagree about this

and have very strong biblical views.

And especially in my generation, I'm smack in the middle of Gen X.

We have often times grown up for women who have been in the church a long time

and in the Christian faith for decades.

We've been in women's ministry and Bible studies and we've done K-author

all the studies that put us in God's word.

And we can have really strong doctrinal debates about this

and vehemently disagree about it.

But for women, it tends to be a much more personal issue than for men

because it greatly affects our understanding of who we are,

where we fit in the kingdom, the gifts that God has given us,

what calling really looks like.

You can't really separate either the role of being wife and mom

as a primary identity from that conversation either.

So all of that is really personal for women.

So it's much deeper, it's much more emotional.

It has a lot of passion behind it because it changes the way we view ourselves

and what God has called us to.

So let's talk about the way this shows it practically

in a way a lot of people who maybe didn't go to seminary would recognize.

So you end up in churches and I'm not pointing fingers.

I'm just, this is just all for background as we get into the conversation,

where women, for example, might be able to teach but not preach.

They might be able to be interviewed or they could do a mother's day message

but they can't preach a sermon.

Do you end up with distinctions like that?

Like what are some of the, I guess, the practical manifestations

that you've seen of a complementary in view and some of the distinctions

or the lines that get drawn in the church?

Well, I think some of those things are the result of just

congregations and leaders creating workarounds.

And that's one of the reasons why I say the way this plays out is really more

along a spectrum.

It is a spectrum.

Yeah, I like to say there's really strong

complementarian and egalitarian views.

There's mild and there's moderate.

And so those mild views tend to overlap a lot.

And so you may see things in a church.

This is actually really common and I think most churches

have been shifting at least in practice,

if not full theological viewpoints to the middle,

where we may say things like we reserve elders

and senior pastor role for men,

but we will allow women to hold the title pastor

or we will let them lead in these certain ways.

And part of that is, or like you said, the classic,

on Mother's Day, that's a day we let a woman preach

because it's about motherhood.

I always like to challenge people to think if the roles were reversed

and we wanted to only use men on male days.

We'd have a Father's Day sermon.

They'd be allowed to like shovel the snow and maybe like,

I don't know, you know, something manly,

clear the deck after the winter storms or something like,

I don't know what it would be, but we tend to fall into those kind of like gender-based roles.

And that is really where we start to see the dissonance between,

my church says this about my theology,

did I see this in action?

Another area that gets really confusing is pastors' wives,

because women are now allowed to do certain things,

unless you're married to a pastor,

now you can do these things or you get to be on stage

or we now will call you something that's different.

And so for women in the congregation,

it starts to be very confusing.

It feels more inclusive,

it feels like we're letting women do more things,

but when it's attached to certain gender roles,

it's not really as empowering as it might seem

to the men who are making those efforts.

Has there been a shift in the last 20 or 30 years toward more churches

and more leaders embracing either the middle or egalitarianism?

I mean, again, we're sitting here with not a lot of data.

We're just having this conversation.

But I'm curious, because this is an issue that's really close to your heart.

You've written on it.

I think you've written extremely well.

In this topic.

So is that something I'm perceiving that isn't happening

or are you seeing the same thing?

I'm definitely seeing the same thing.

What I'm seeing more intentionally is that in practice,

and part of this is a result of our culture,

lives of women are changing over the last 30 years.

Women are becoming fully educated.

They're delaying marriage and parenthood.

So now you've got women who are well into their early-to-mid 30s.

That's a good 10 to 15-year spread of freedom to do ministry

and lead in the church that we've never really seen before.

And so these women are growing in leadership.

They're growing in capacity.

They have university degrees or graduate degrees

that they're bringing into ministry.

And pastors are seeing their capacity

and seeing the fruit of their leadership

and giving them leadership.

It's causing them the question,

why is our view so staunch on this?

Or why is our the way we describe it?

Or why do we have these limits?

Let's re-look at how we're thinking about this.

And that's where you see a lot of changes around titles

that we use, expectations, staff roles being offered.

I think also a lot of men have wives

who are now empty nesters and are ready to lead

and they're capable of leading

and they've been leading and they would like the title

and they would like a paycheck for their contribution.

And they value that.

They see it from the inside.

Their daughters are coming of age

and they're looking at their dad and they're like,

hey, I have a ministry degree from college.

But it seems like this isn't the place for me to serve.

Do I need to go down the church down the street

or dad do you have a place for me here?

And so it's challenging pastors to rethink,

maybe not necessarily the white paper or their bylaws,

but definitely how it plays out in their church.

But then when it plays out differently,

it does cause them to rethink their theological view.

So I wouldn't say every church is changing theology.

I do think they're updating their practices.

I do think they're clarifying their theology

around what that actually is.

And are we as strong and black and white about that

is when our church was founded 50 years ago,

is there more room for more women?

And then how do we really want to empower women

and make sure we're using all the resources

God has brought to our church?

Hey, this episode is brought to you

by the Art of Leadership Academy.

So you know in today's conversation,

we're talking about something

that's both heartbreaking and urgent.

The growing number of women who are leaving the church

and the deeper reasons behind it.

So I want to share a couple of resources with you

that can really help you and your team

respond with wisdom, clarity and trust.

So first of all, I explore this trend in-depth

in my 2026 church trends report.

One of the most disruptive shifts happening right now

is that while young men are showing up in record numbers,

which is awesome, women are quietly walking away.

And the reasons go far beyond headlines.

And if you haven't downloaded the report yet,

you'll want to get the latest data,

my insights and discussion questions

that you can actually work through

with your staff or leadership team in your context.

And then secondly, if you want to go deeper

and actually build a healthier culture in your church,

one marked by trust, integrity and strong leadership,

I want to invite you to join the Art of Leadership Academy.

So inside that, you're going to find practical courses,

coaching and a community of church leaders

who are committed to leading well

in a complicated moment.

You don't have to navigate the challenges your church

is facing all by yourself.

You can start with an all-access membership

to get the clarity and the guidance you need

to lead a thriving ministry.

So two resources to help grow your leadership.

Number one, the church trends report

and secondly, an all-access membership

in the Art of Leadership Academy.

Get both by visiting the link in the description

of this episode wherever you're listening,

YouTube, Spotify, Apple.

Just scroll down, click the link

soon you'll be on your way

or simply visit the artofleadershipacademy.com.

Today's episode is brought to you

by Compassion International.

So as Jesus looked at the crowd of 5,000,

he had compassion on them.

He actually healed them, he fed them.

And the text tells us that Jesus was moved with compassion

like this deep gut sense of,

this isn't right, I'm going to make it right.

Compassion changes the way we give,

the way we lead and the way we show up for others.

It changes the way our churches grow

and the legacy we leave behind will actually change

because we had compassion.

Because a posture of compassion,

a heart geared toward others actually changes everything.

So the question becomes,

what if you led, we led with that same posture?

In partnering with global churches,

Compassion International has been serving children

for more than 70 years.

And they've seen that in all aspects of ministry

and all aspects of our lives,

when we lean into this posture, compassion changes everything.

You can download free resources

and learn more about how compassion changes everything

at compassion.com slash carry.

That's compassion.com slash carry.

Yeah, I actually have a couple of people

I know who are shifting their views

from strict complementarianism to something closer

to the middle or egalitarianism.

We actually have Preston Sprinkle coming up on the podcast.

He's got a new book where I think he's rethought

his view around women and ministry.

So it is a very interesting topic.

And it's one that's really resonating

with the leaders who listen to this podcast,

the people who are in the academy

who are hearing about it all the time.

Before I get there, there's one more thing

that I'm increasingly curious about.

So, you know, Beth Moore is on the podcast soon

or was just on depending on when this airs

and, you know, and Vos Camp, good friend.

You look at a generation of women

who like Lisa Turkers couldn't teach at their church

because it was 20 years ago when they were starting out

or 30 years ago or 40 years ago.

So you're allowed to do a Bible study

not allowed to get onto the platform or the pulpit.

But then you also see a number of next generation leaders,

you know, just to name a few Sadie Roberts and Huff.

You've got, you know, Madison, Trout, Pruitt

or Pruitt Trout or whatever.

You got a lot of younger next-gen leaders

who girls gone Bible.

I mean, they've terribly cobbled.

They are, and I'm not saying they wouldn't work at a church

but they don't work at a church.

And they've got this massive platform.

Jenny Allen's another one, you know?

So Beth and Jenny Allen and so on and so forth.

And they have this huge platform.

Like leaders are like, I had 2000 people out of our church.

I'm like, you know, they get 2000 people

to respond to an email.

Like it's crazy to see the influence

that some of these female leaders have.

And one of the questions I'm asking is,

are they doing it because there is still no room

at the church or is this just the way to go?

Any thoughts on that at all?

Because I think about the talent involved

that we're maybe just leaving on the table as church leaders.

I don't know what you think.

I am a die hard local church girl.

Like this is my passion.

It changed my life.

I want to help it be the best it can be

to change other people's lives.

And to live out with Jesus commanded us

and the gift that the body of Christ is to us

in local expression.

And 100% leadership, gifting and calling.

And particularly those people you just talk about

in my opinion have a real pastoral and noisy.

They are gathering people together

and pastoring them towards the Lord.

That calling will not go away

if it's not utilized in the church.

It will just relocate.

And the older someone is,

the more you will see them have a story.

Beth Moore talks about it in her book of being,

and I wouldn't even say women were frustrated by it.

They were just clear about the reality

that this isn't something.

This calling that God's giving me

isn't something that has space for me in the church.

And so they took that elsewhere.

They're gonna obey the calling

and walk through the doors that God opens them.

And it's been incredibly fruitful.

I do wonder how that would have changed

had they been given platform in their local church.

What would have been different, not only there,

but in churches everywhere.

But God still used that.

And I think most women that I know

who have had that experience,

I would say I'm probably one of those.

Even though I've stayed in ministry,

I'm with them now in my mid 50s and I'm like,

oh dang, I think of myself at 22.

I probably had a preaching capacity

that never got utilized.

I probably could have led at much higher levels

than I ever imagined.

I spent most of my time,

particularly in full time church ministry,

just kind of amazed I was doing what I was doing

rather than having a vision for what God could be calling me to.

And so the church right now is in a major disruption

because those of us who kind of had that route

and have sort of made a way in a new way,

this next generation of women, they're just bypassing it.

You know, we're like, we're going through like the Uber

or I just watched a whole news article

on the disruption of the pizza industry

because pizza used to have the market on delivery.

They were the only food that got delivered.

Now every food is delivered

and so the pizza industry is crumbling around that.

So that's what's happening to us to have a platform

or to be able to speak or to share the gospel

or share the testimony or you can even,

I'm even using girl language, I'm sharing,

not teaching, not preaching,

but I'm sharing.

I was like, my advice is I still have against myself.

But you know, it used to be you had to go through

the authority of the local church

to have any sort of endorsement.

And now you just have to open an Instagram account

or do a Facebook live.

You can, you can be on YouTube and do anything

and everyone's doing it.

Women particularly are doing it.

And so I get invited to way more women's Bible studies

that have nothing to do with the local church

than I ever get invited to things at my local church.

So it's happening all over.

It's one of the reasons women are disengaging

from churches.

They don't need that platform anymore.

And churches are wondering like what do we do?

They've sold out to the culture and I'm like,

I don't think so.

I think they're just stewarding their giftedness

and they're calling differently

because they know they can.

And that changes everything for women

and it changes a lot in the kingdom as we look forward.

Boy, there's so much there.

And I want to say too in the list of names I mentioned,

there might be some of the women I don't know

because I haven't really examined it in any detail.

Who would say, no, I'm complementarian.

So I'm doing this outside of the church for reasons.

So I want to be respectful of that.

But let's put your church hat on

because you did serve as an executive pastor

of a very, very large church.

You have served in the local church.

If you were and you're not today,

but you're married to somebody who leads a local church.

I know I'm now a pastor's wife, so.

You're a pastor's wife.

So there you go, write some privileges,

parking spots, all I'm kidding, not all that stuff.

But if you put your strategic hat on

and you were like, all right,

how are we going to leverage the gift?

Because I'm guessing the majority of people who,

yeah, you probably, you know,

you don't have an Amvas camp

or a Sadie Robertson Huff in your church.

And all these people are committed to local church, by the way.

But you probably have somebody who has like 5,000 Instagram followers

or is blowing up on TikTok

or someone who's got a YouTube channel.

And if you were looking at engaging women

or somebody who just leads a Bible study

and 300 women are showing up

or 300 people are showing up,

you've got someone like that in your church, probably.

What do you do with that?

How do you leverage that?

What's your, put your church leader hat on?

What's your advice, Katie?

Yeah, well, I think there's always two things happening

when it comes to using the people resources of our church.

One is we have commands that every believer is supposed to do.

And it's our job in discipleship

and in leadership development

to be moving people towards those.

We're all supposed to be evangelists.

We're all supposed to show hospitality.

We're all supposed to love one another.

We're all supposed to pray.

We're all supposed to get,

we're all supposed to do all of those things.

Have generosity.

But then there are God's anointings

that stand outside the norm.

Giftings that are unique to that person.

Anointings for a season.

We have to steward those differently.

And I think the tendency of most churches

is to put all the people in one pipeline.

And we don't have space for the outlier.

And when the outlier comes in an unexpected package,

a woman, a 15-year-old, a 60-year-old,

someone from a different cultural background,

someone who's a different economic level

than our target audience,

when they come in a package unexpected,

we don't really know how to steward that well

because they don't fit in the pipeline.

They break all the systems.

We give them authority.

They don't follow the rules.

They don't turn their visa receipt in on time.

They're out like starting colleges

and launching campuses.

We find out about it four months later.

Like it irritates us and all of our systems.

And so when we don't know how to steward anointing well,

and we actually have to do both,

we have to have the pipeline

and we have to make space for the anointing.

And sometimes anointing is seasonal.

Sometimes someone came through the pipeline

and then God does something or in the middle of it.

And so I think part of what we have to do

is leaders is hold a little bit more open handedly,

the spontaneity of the Lord,

so that even as we build systems,

and a lot of times the bigger we grow,

the more systems oriented we become,

we lose the entrepreneurial edge

that allows us to have explosive expansion

in a way that God designed for us to do it.

But we have to know how to fuel it.

We have to know how to crawl it.

We have to know what guardrails to do

and which ones don't matter.

And it almost never matches the HR policy book

that we have been working on for the last three years

and is now finally online.

As the person who wrote the HR book,

that's one of my hardest lessons in leadership,

is I could demonstrate the anointing out of any service,

out of any ministry, out of any leader.

I was, I could just organize it to death.

And it was in my, I mean, I was in my late 20s

when I started to realize I am actually creating more harm.

I think I'm the answer to this disorganized mess.

I actually can kill it if I'm not careful.

And the bigger we grow, the more we hire people,

gifted like me.

And we organize the momentum out of what God is doing.

That is so well said.

I think one of the challenges is we have categories

as pastors and most of us are doing the best we can

with what we have.

And it's like, great, you can create, you can do this.

So if let's say you have an 18 year old

who's big on YouTube, channels blowing up,

it's a woman, a girl, college student, almost.

You're her leader.

What do you do with her?

Because my joke has been, we'll get her to run

pro-presenter.

That's what we'll do, right?

You're techie, you're techie.

Just come here and make our pro-presenter better.

If it's a girl, you're gonna put her in charge of communications.

If it's a guy, he goes to the AV booth.

That's how it works.

Right, right.

Okay, yeah, you run our social media

and the guy I'll run pro-presenter.

Yeah.

But to really, that doesn't totally tap into the gifting.

So if you will, it's happened to the anointing.

What do you do?

I think part of what we're talking about,

particularly with that example,

is we're talking about kingdom influence.

That if we look at our ministry as leaders of a church,

as to how do we get people to help us achieve our mission,

rather than remembering that these people

God brings us are our mission.

And our mission is to accelerate their calling.

So if I have a different viewpoint,

I need to actually pastor a young woman

with that kind of influence way differently

than I pastor everyone else.

We've kind of gotten better at this,

I think around giving and people with the gift of generosity,

that a person who can make a million dollar gift

every couple years needs a different kind of pastor

than someone who's living paycheck to paycheck,

and is tithing regularly.

We don't demand the same requirements of him.

The senior pastor goes in as lunch with him,

every couple months to keep to pastor him differently.

That needs to happen for this.

Those are the outliers.

And so instead of saying, oh my gosh, Lord,

thank you for bringing someone with this much influence.

How do I leverage that for our ministry?

How do I help her bring those people

to our young adults thing we're trying to kick off next month?

Instead going what does she need to steward this

to be the most effective in the kingdom?

How do I make sure she doesn't break down

and end up in a ball in her bathroom

three months from now from the pressure

and the negative comments?

How do I help her know her identity is in Christ?

And how do I put the right people around her?

Which by the way, are not a bunch of middle-aged pastors

wives who have never been on the internet.

That's not who she needs.

She needs leaders, she needs influence.

You probably know people who have huge internet,

you know, think or call Kerry and find out who he knows

that can mentor that does who's been on the podcast?

Like what connections can you open for this young woman

to have the kingdom surround her

and help her to be everything she's meant to be

and all the opportunity that God's gonna bring her

and steward that well that she doesn't end up

one of these fallen leaders that we see

just dropping like flies right now.

We all have the potential to do that

and the younger you are and the bigger your influence

and the earlier it happens,

the more Satan is going to come after you.

Her spiritual family is supposed to be there

to hold her arms up and put protection around her,

start a prayer team for her.

Like I can think of a hundred things we can do

to leverage things for her and putting her in a back office

and telling her she has to work nine to five

and get these photos, Photoshop is not the way to go.

I don't know, do we?

You know, that's a great advice

and that really resonates too.

I talk to a lot of CEOs and one of the long time listeners

of this podcast will know,

I come back to this question a lot

but they're just looking to be pastored too.

It's like, I don't want to blow the influence.

I don't want to sell my soul and great advice.

Well, we'll get to the topic at hand

and I want to do a little bit of setup

because if we just get into wire women leaving the church

and we don't have a good context behind it,

it just, I don't know, this is a much bigger conversation

and we are dipping our toe in an hour plus

just into the ocean, that's all we're doing.

But I would love your take

and we've hinted at it a little bit

but why are women leaving the church?

Because you've seen the numbers, you've seen the math

especially in the younger generation,

Gen Z younger millennials, men are moving in

for the first time in pulling history,

men are engaging in the local church

at a higher rate than women

and women have been exiting now for years.

What do you think is behind that trend, Katie?

Well, I think that's actually one of the most important things

to know is when that stat came out a few months ago,

I just, everybody was shocked,

everybody seemed up in arms.

For me, I was not surprised

because I know that really since probably 2010 to 2015,

the numbers around women have changed dramatically.

And usually what we would see in the polling data

is that women would always be more engaged than men in church.

And so if engagement went up, it went up for both,

women were higher, if it went down, it went down for both.

And there was a pretty significant gender gap.

Around the year 2000, I think for about three or four years,

the gap began to narrow.

And so those things started to squeeze together

and women were starting to trend closer to what men were.

Now for the first time, it's reversed.

So in my mind, this is not a new phenomenon.

This is just the moving of women.

And now it's reflecting on men.

And because men tend to be the target for most churches,

we have kind of, we still are living sort of in 90s business model

around customer targets.

And men tend to be the place.

And there's an assumption, which isn't all wrong,

but it's probably just outdated.

This idea that if you get the husband,

you get the wife and the kids and everybody else.

And so there is a good way.

Yeah, I subscribed to that.

I really did.

Yeah, I did too, because actually for a long time,

that was really true.

It's not true anymore.

And so that's not what's going to take us into the future.

That's a 30 year old mindset.

It was helpful for a while, not helpful anymore.

And so I think it's still trailing.

Like I think people are still seeing results from it.

But when you look at just women on those statistics,

women have been telling us pretty clearly

that church is not giving them what they're looking for.

That the research would say, again,

there isn't a lot of research on this.

Women have sort of been under the radar

in terms of research, which is not unusual.

But women not getting the kind of support

that's actually helpful to their life,

spiritual support, emotional support

for their actual daily life.

They do not have a good return on their time.

So they spend a lot of time at church.

They're involved in a lot of things

with very little sort of ROI on that.

One of the things I think has happened

is the methodology.

This is particularly true for middle-aged women,

the methodology of raising our kids

has really not proven to be effective.

So many women have their children not walking

with the Lord, even though they were there every Sunday.

They went to small group, they were in youth group.

This next generation, Gen Z,

leading the church has been pretty devastating

to Gen X women who raised them.

And that has caused them to question

a lot of the methodologies that's been given.

Breaking down around churches,

we've seen moral failures.

As we see the Me Too movement, the church too movement,

many of those women are victims of that,

or they're one degree away from someone who is.

And not only the sin that's happened in that,

but the cover-ups of that are very,

they should be alarming to all of us,

but they're particularly alarming to women.

So the trust breakdown is significant.

And women's lives have changed dramatically.

Most are working, most are educated,

most are balancing family or long-term singleness.

They're balancing their parents

and the care of their aging parents.

First-time generation really to be sandwiched in this way.

And the church really has not changed its strategy

around reaching women for about 50 years.

And so if you think 50 years ago,

what the role of a woman in a typical 20 or 30-year span

of her midlife was, it's dramatically different today,

but our strategies are all very much the same.

And so women have been voting with their feet

and leaving for a while.

So that's a lot.

When we need to, I want to back up a little bit

and start taking it bit by bit.

You said you also, at one point,

subscribe to if you get the man, you get the family,

and that perhaps that worked for a season,

but it's not working anymore.

Can you explain what was good about it

while it lasted and then why it broke down?

Well, I think in the era of the 90s

and into the early 2000s,

we still had a lot of stable family units

and women were very engaged in church.

In fact, in 2015, again,

this is the latest data I can find in 2015,

less than 10% of women in America

had never been to a church service.

So 90% of women had been to a church service.

Had been to a church service at some point in their life.

We tend to track like who's actively involved,

but that is a really significant number.

90% of women have been to a church.

So when women begin to mature,

they get married or they have a baby or both,

they tend to want to bring their kids to church.

And so the person who's not coming is the husband.

So if we target the husband,

a wife is already wanting to be there,

is already wanting to bring her kids there,

is already wishing her husband would come.

So if we can get him, she's already in,

or she easily follows because of the primary.

Yeah, that was a theory.

And I would say many churches ran that play

and it was incredibly successful,

partly where you were in the country.

So Midwest, Bible Belt, incredibly successful.

You know, the four extreme corners,

the US, not as effective,

but definitely in those places

that have a lot more sort of gender orientation

towards male headship,

those things were really primed for that.

And so it was very, very effective.

I ran a lot of plays in ministry based on that.

And it's one of the reasons why I didn't worry

about being on the platform.

I'm like, I'm not the person who's going to reach

a 30-year-old dad.

So I'm okay being in the wings on that.

I care about the kingdom, I care about families,

I want to see the church grow.

That makes sense to me.

But in today's context,

those, first of all, that stat, I know,

I don't know what the new stat would be,

but I know that's not accurate anymore

in terms of 90% of women have been to church.

I also think that marriages have broken down

or never actually formed.

Most young adults have cohabitated,

but not have actually been married.

So even the way we target it as a husband and dad

is not really the avatar we would be looking for,

even if we were running the same play.

I think also now, most women are D-churched,

which is a completely different assumption

or way to connect with women than women who are unchurched

or who have been churched one time or a few times.

And so now we actually have to overcome

the break of trust that's happened.

So there has to be a real strategy for women also

to help them overcome that, heal from that,

trust to be rebuilt,

and actually to invite them back into a community

that has been hurtful to them in many ways.

This episode is brought to you by Glue.

So ministry leaders, you're called to serve,

to connect and to change the world,

but doing that often means fighting technology

that wasn't really designed for your mission.

That's why Glue is here,

to build a trusted technology platform

that serves the faith ecosystem.

Glue is transforming how you lead

by providing a complete platform of values aligned tools

and technology that help churches understand

and connect with congregants, reach new people

and engage them in compelling ways.

With solutions like Glue workspace

where ministry leaders get work done

and partners like Igniter Media,

Barna, Visitor Reach, and Outreach,

Glue is providing the digital backbone

for the faith ecosystem, equipping your church,

ministry, and individuals to thrive in a digital age.

To learn more about how Glue can help you

do more of what you're already called to do,

simply text my name Carrie to 46816,

that's C-A-R-E-Y, to 46816.

I want to get to that,

but I want to go back a little bit.

I'm trying to remember that long sense you had

that was just so full of really helpful insight.

ROI, you mentioned that women have given a lot

and not seen an ROI,

and I believe you framed that in the context of relationship.

They're looking for relationship,

they're looking for connection, they're not getting that.

Do you want to unpack that a little bit?

And then we're definitely going to get to abuse

and me too and all that.

Yeah, I think one of the challenges

with our current church strategies

is that we ask a lot of people.

We ask a lot of adults.

We ask a whole lot of teenagers.

We have very full calendars.

They're very rhythmic and very weekly.

And so it's very demanding on a family,

especially in today's context.

You know, when I was growing up, we went to church

Sunday morning, a lot of people went Sunday night,

you went Wednesday night, you had choir practice one night,

you had youth group another night,

you could be at church almost every day.

There weren't as many competing demands.

Jobs weren't as demanding.

People didn't carry work home with them like they do now.

Sports teams as a parent were not the same.

Not just sports, but academics.

The importance of having a job is a young person.

There's just a lot of demands on families

that are very different now.

And so for women who are also probably

navigating their own career,

they have a lot of demands on them.

They carry what we call the double shift.

They work a whole shift at work.

Then they come home and they're the primary caregiver

for children in the home.

Many times they're caring for parents.

There's just a lot of demands.

And so women have to be very strategic

about where they invest their time.

And I would say most women are not saying,

I need some me time.

I really got to make it to the gym.

I really want to go shopping with my girlfriends.

I really care about how my hair looks.

They're saying, what do my kids need?

What does my family need?

How do I make Christmas special?

How do I get another job?

So my son can actually go to the college

he wants to go to.

They are self-sacrificing for their family.

So if they can rally everybody on a Sunday morning

and make it to church for an hour,

and everyone leaves more joyful, more spirit-filled,

more aligned as a family,

loving God more, they are going to make that happen.

If they rally the family,

and the kids' ministry is like, okay,

the message didn't really connect with anyone,

the kids don't like their whatever.

If it doesn't have something that has a return

for her family, she's not really considering herself,

but for her family, it's going to be hard to keep doing that.

And that's where I think some of our strategies

around students and children

is really costing us a lot now

in terms of what women want to invest in.

And so many women raise their kids in the church,

and then once their kids don't need it,

there isn't a lot for them there.

And it hasn't really mattered until now,

but now they really want to do something

that's going to benefit them,

that's going to return on them, both for their kids,

but then for themselves also,

where is the place I feel spiritually live?

Who are the people that are life giving to me?

If all I'm doing is serving six hours a week,

but I don't receive what I need back,

I'm going to find a place that gives me both

a contribution and something that I gain from it.

Once again, there's a lot there, Katie.

So you mentioned, you show up to a message,

you don't get much out of it.

Maybe your kids like or don't like

what's happening in kids or student ministry.

I agree, life has gotten much more complex

in the last 30 years than it was

when we were raising our kids and they were young.

What did church leaders do about that?

Is it like better preaching?

Like how would you invest in kids ministry?

What would you change about the weekend experience?

What just put your XP hat on, strategic hat on?

What would you recommend?

Well, I think Sunday morning, you know,

I think those of us who have been

in higher level ministry leadership for a long time,

we know Sunday morning has not had the same poll

that it always has had in our culture.

Sunday at 10 o'clock is still the ideal time.

If you're doing a church plant, please start there.

But alternative service times, multiple days.

This is one of the reasons why we see the trend shifting

on like Thursday evening church services

because it fits into the rhythm of a family much easier.

You get a big return on your investment of time

when you go to a service at that time

or even doing things that we've generally lost

in ministry, small groups, Sunday schools,

things that add on to Sunday morning

so that we're going as a family to church

and we all hit multiple things at one time

rather than having to go multiple nights a week.

Simple things like that.

How do you align those things together?

How do you offer meetings around volunteer trainings

or leadership development opportunities in line

with where people are already at service?

So if you think of how do I get the most from a drive to church

and how do we maximize that and do as much as we can

while someone's already on property,

that is one of the first things to be looking at.

So rather than another night of services

or I'm sorry, another night of offerings,

linking that into services and offering weekend services

and alternate times, that's probably the first place

I would say.

The second thing is what are the messages we're giving

and what are we talking about?

I think a lot of times there is a aptitude

for male voices in the pulpit.

And so a lot of women, I would say I fall into this.

I've grown up on male preaching.

I understand male metaphors.

It's the discipleship I've had most of my life.

But when those worlds begin to expand

to stories, metaphors, teachings, angles

that are more aligned with my life,

those do come alive in me.

And so I think one of the competencies

that we're seeing overall in leadership

everywhere, marketplace church,

we're definitely seeing it around women leaders

but is the competency of emotional intelligence,

relational intelligence, vulnerability.

Those are pieces that women naturally are good at.

They communicate in those ways.

Soft skills are generally not what women are missing

when they step into leadership,

most men are missing it.

And so you can see that in the pulpit.

That many of the sermons are hard hitting.

They're very pointed.

There's not a lot of intonation.

I still tease pastors.

I'm like, please quit saying you're bad at counseling.

Like we're in a mental health crisis in the country.

Even if you're not that great at counseling,

please don't announce it.

That's not an attractive quality of a leader anymore.

That says you can't help me or my kids.

So those things have shifted.

And so when you can expand your repertoire

or the tools in your preaching toolbox

to expand into those softer skills,

you're not only connecting more with women,

you're actually communicating more holistically

to your congregation and you're reaching a generation

that lives in that world.

Gen Z has been raised on emotional intelligence.

They have been raised on team dynamics.

Their classrooms are completely different

than the way all of us who are older went to school.

You watch their feeds of anyone under 20.

It's all about their fields.

It's all about their mental health.

It's all about their awareness.

If we're not including that in our teaching,

we're eliminating a lot of the population.

Mostly people who are not exactly like us.

So it's generational, not just gender.

Absolutely.

It's where the culture is going.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Let's talk about not safe space for women.

Church to me to what extent is that fueling

the exit of women from church in your view?

I think that topic, not only around the sexuality issues

of those particular topics,

but I think the issue of trust in the church

as a whole in leadership and what it means to be a pastor,

I think that has had a severe breakdown of trust.

I think there's a lot of pieces that go into that,

but it is probably the number one issue, I would say.

I think women for the last 10 years

have been voting with their feet around ability

just to keep up with church demands and engagement

and have a return.

But I think the reason women have left the church

and I know many who haven't left Jesus.

I think the assumption is they walked away from the Lord.

I don't think that's true for most women.

I think they still love Jesus.

I think they're still pursuing him.

I think they just don't want anything to do

with kind of organized church or,

I think we use a term organized religion.

I don't think that's really what they mean.

I think the American evangelical church

is the thing that really has let them down

and their trust in it is very low.

And so we have a lot to rebuild there.

I think a few pieces come into that.

I mentioned earlier pastors that have fallen

and been taken out of ministry.

Again, women my age, many of those leaders

are the ones we grew up with and read all their books

and did their Bible studies.

And they, you know, maybe from afar,

but they discipled us in many ways.

And so, especially if you grew up in an environment

that was complementary and are very male dominated,

those voices was submission without question.

And when those submission without question people

take a tumble like that, those people that you really trusted

and set yourself aside for it.

That is a, that is a severe breach of trust.

I think the politics, I know we probably don't want

to have politics on here, but I do think it plays

a huge piece in this.

Again, especially for older women who are looking at leadership,

women who have been serving in the church for decades

who have leadership capacity and time and availability.

The politics and the things we were raised on

around integrity and character that are now

sort of dismissed in today's context and sort of set aside.

That is a real dissonance that creates

what exactly are we standing for?

What do you believe or where do I stand on this?

It's caused a lot of people to question.

And I think their kids, again, Gen Z's coming up

and they're watching this, they're much more aware,

they're much more in tune, they're watching it on social media

and they're sensitive to what their kids are going through.

Many are going through gender exploration.

Many are questioning their faith,

many are deconstructing the faith of their parents

and they want to be able to have their faith look solid

and be something their kids can respect

or at least they know they'll be accepted in.

And most of what's shown on social media,

I don't think accurately reflects the heart

of most Christians, but it is what is communicated

on social media and that creates a real breakdown

of who do I align with, how do I participate

and how do I make sure that matches who I know God to be

and the kind of Christian I feel called to be,

how do I make sure the people I love have a place in that

and how do I make sure I'm gonna be in a safe place

as well for my own exploration?

You mentioned the character issue

which I'm really concerned about as well.

There's a harshness to Christianity today, meanness.

And I think it's reflective of our climate as a whole

as a culture.

Is that a factor as well in, I know mean women

and it's et cetera, et cetera.

It's not like all men are mean and you know,

that kind of thing.

What do you talk about, Kerry?

Listen, I didn't say it, I didn't say it,

but that's not a gender-exclusive issue,

but I mean, how much of that is an issue?

If you're a bit of a bully pastor,

if you're, you know, broke culture,

that kind of thing taken to an extreme,

is that having an impact at all

on women's engagement in church?

I think so, I think it depends on the context you're in,

I think it depends on the church you're in.

Again, I think there's sort of like the church I go to

and what I see online.

And you know, the algorithms will always elevate

those kinds of voices, even if they are the minority.

But when it's in your feed,

unfortunately, people assume that it's the majority.

And if they're not connected in a Christian community

that's healthy, that's loving, that can balance that,

it is really easy to assume that all people are like that.

And because I think a lot of that culture

and that sort of niche of the Christian community

is very vocal and they're very vocal about their faith

in it, those two things get locked together.

And so people make assumptions of association

that aren't necessarily true for everyone.

Yeah.

Some of the data that is coming in,

particularly around Gen Z women,

is that it's not just leaving the church.

And you mentioned you have friends who have left the church

but haven't left Jesus, which is, you know,

I think wonderful, let's, let's cling to.

And I know you're committed to the local church

and you wanna see everybody back in a healthy church,

et cetera, so do I.

But there's a number of Gen Z women

who are stepping away from faith,

who their Bible readings lower,

you look at the stats that Berna provided,

their Bible reading is lowest, their prayer is lowest,

their spiritual engagement is lower than men.

And I'm just wondering, what do you think is behind that?

And again, that's a tough one.

I think part of the challenge,

even in our own mindset, at least for me,

is we've always assumed that women

are more likely to do those things.

We're more relational, so the relational connection

with Jesus makes more sense, it's more natural.

We tend to be academic learners,

so we love to read and learn and study.

And yeah, this next generation,

and I think we don't have any data really

on generation alpha, but they're the true COVID kids.

And so I think that's gonna be an even bigger shift.

And I don't actually know that I've got great insight

to that, I have several young adult women in my life

and I definitely try to connect with people there,

but I do think a lot of it has to do with searching

for things in other ways.

I find Gen Z to be very spiritually hungry.

I think that's part of what we're seeing

in the revival happening right now.

But I would say overall, I see Gen Z pursuing

lots of options for spirituality.

Christianity is one of them.

And so I would caution all of us not to assume

that there's a revival in Christianity happening.

And I think there's a revival in everything happening.

And so we need to sort of mark that.

And I think women disengaging from those kind of daily habits

is a sign of that.

I think they're doing daily habits.

I just don't think they're doing Christian daily practices.

Are there any other signs or reasons

that you're seeing that we haven't talked about so far?

I think the trust thing is a big piece.

I think the other piece is the mindset

and the way our culture operates now has shifted.

I don't think that those of us serving in ministry

have caught up to this in how we lead ministry.

So one of the most influential books when I was a young leader

was Jim Collins Good to Great and Built to Last.

You probably remember those.

One of the concepts I loved in the Built to Last book

was the concept of moving from the tyranny of the ore

to the genius of the ant.

And it was this idea that coming out of the modern movement

and sort of moving into postmodern culture,

modern movement was very either ore, very black and white,

very kind of like this or that.

And when you're a leader, if all you do is look at decisions

as yes or no, right or wrong, it's really limiting.

And so he was making a case, very good case.

This is the mid 90s to look at the ant.

Is there something good in this solution

and this solution to make a third way

that actually is where the real genius is?

That's the genius of the ant.

I think our culture has taken another step.

I think we should not be thinking either

or I think both ant is limiting.

I think we need to be moving to the calling of integration.

And I see this a lot in multi-site

then I'll bring it back to men and women.

So in the multi-site movement, which is really one of the areas

I work with churches on the most,

we tend to still think of church as brick and mortar

or onsite and online.

And we categorize people in our mind that way.

And so we're like, oh, that's an online person.

We do this for online people.

And we do this for people in person.

But in reality, I shop at Target a lot

and I shop at Target in person.

I go home and pull it up on my laptop and shop

and have things that I can pick up in the store

and get delivered to my home.

Sometimes I'm in Target looking for something.

They don't have my size.

So I pull up the app on my phone, order it.

It gets shipped to my house.

I do not think of myself as an in-person chopper

or an online person chopper.

I'm just a Target customer.

And in our churches, people feel the same way.

They come to church on one Sunday.

They watch it in their car on the way

to the soccer meet another Sunday.

They're on vacation.

It's just easier.

They're back in service.

They may jump around to different campuses

depending on where they are at on a Sunday morning.

They don't think of themselves in the boxes

that we put them in.

And so I think the challenge for us

is to move for are you both and,

or are you actually an integrated consumer,

an integrated member of the church?

You show up everywhere.

You show up in small groups and you show up on missions

and you show up in women's ministry

and you show up on Sunday morning.

We're integrated.

And that kind of thinking more holistic,

more collaborative, more cooperative

is how we need to be moving forward in our ministry mindsets

but also because this next generation

thinks in those terms.

They don't think in terms of girls and boys teams.

They don't think in terms of men's and women's ministry.

They don't even think in terms of age group.

They don't even think in terms of,

I live in this part of the country.

Like my son, he's got friends all over the world

that he's never met in person

that he's done through online or through video games

or he meant one time because his girlfriend was in Japan

and she met them.

Now they've all stayed connected through Instagram

and they're going to get together next year.

Like their world is integrated

and we have to also be thinking about that.

So as we reinvent some of ourselves

because the church is in the middle of a reinvention,

I hope we realize that.

We have to rethink our strategies.

So as you experiment particularly,

if you are experimenting and launching young adult ministries,

launch it differently than you've launched all the other things.

Think of it more integrated.

A young adult does not just need other young adults.

They're hungry for people older than them.

They long for parents and grandparents.

Spiritual parents and grandparents.

And so if they get married, please don't bump them.

Singleness is not just like the waiting room for married life.

It's all integrated.

We need people in our lives who are single,

people who are married.

I need male friendships.

I need female friendships.

I need mentors who are both male and female older than me.

I need to be reverse mentored from people younger than me.

I need the whole body.

I need the whole church to help me.

That's the power of the local church.

You walk in and there's a little bit of everyone.

But if we walk in and there's not a little bit of everyone,

there's just a lot of people who look like that.

This next generation notices that.

That's not going to work for them.

And so as we move forward,

I think we need to think about this idea of integration.

So in terms of men and women and church leadership,

how do we make sure women and men are integrated

in all of our main pathways?

Is our discipleship strategies for spiritual formation?

Are they integrated?

Can we not segregate based on gender or based on age?

Are our leadership development systems integrated?

I'm not a fan of women get trained over here

and men get trained over here.

We actually have to work together

and learn together in order to lead together.

So integrating those things.

So when I think of like a scripture of John 17,

when Jesus looks into the future

and he sees us, the disciples yet to come,

he prays for unity, he prays for oneness,

he prays for integration.

And I think that's the precipice that we're on.

I think this next generation knows how to do it fluently.

I think if we invite them to the table,

they'll teach us about it.

I think if we have more women at the leadership table,

we'll solve issues of community and people feeling known

and how to care for people,

because women naturally bring those skills to the table.

That's the piece that we haven't opened ourselves up to.

Even if your theology prevents your high-level leaders

from being women, that I'm not going to take on that battle.

But I'm like the other 95% of the leadership roles you have,

probably can have a woman bring her gifting and her ability

as well as other ages and all sorts of diversity to the table.

Those are the things we need to be focused on.

And if we can do that in small wins in every church,

I think we will see greater movement

than a few big churches doing big wins that don't last.

So you may have already just answered this question

in full-earned part, but in case not,

you've worked with churches that have been a great job,

complimentary and egalitarian of integrating women

in the ministry over the last 20, 25 years.

What are churches who are having success

in engaging women doing that everyone else could learn from?

I think that's a great question.

Yes, I definitely think this idea prioritizing

emotional intelligence and relational leadership

as a core competency of pastoral leadership

is really critical.

And part of that is being honest that we have leaders

who are great at that that might be women,

that we are not elevating into leadership,

but we also have men who are bad at this.

And we're keeping them in leadership

even though they're incompetent.

And the incompetence of some male pastors

that are causing havoc in their ministry,

derailing what the church is really about,

hurting people along the way.

And usually there's women underneath them

trying to make it work,

but not being promoted into the role of influence.

That is a major piece that when we start to really talk

about that competency and hold people to it,

it brings men up in their competency,

but it also makes space for women to excel at greater levels.

So that piece is a big one.

I think this idea of integrating women

into our developmental pathways

really intentionally,

particularly leadership development

makes a really huge difference.

And with that comes elevating women into roles,

making sure you have two women on your leadership team,

using women on the platform, again,

not in violation of your theology,

but allowing the congregation to see women lead.

And Sunday morning is where we communicate our culture

more than any other time in the church.

And when you give her a microphone,

even for the announcements,

it changes what the congregation thinks about women

and what they think about themselves.

I think third, this idea of being highly transparent

around how power, accountability,

and sin work in the church.

This will be a commodity of faithful,

trusted churches of the future.

And we've shifted.

I've been in church a long time, pre-COVID.

We dealt with sin pretty hush, hush.

Like we didn't want to disperge the church.

We didn't want to harm the families of the people involved

or the kids that are the innocent bystanders

of their dad who did something bad.

Like we were very protective,

but that is not the way that we handle that anymore.

I walked several churches since COVID through moral failings.

And I, too in particular that we're very excellent at

being upfront about the transgression,

being clear on who it was,

making the circle wide, not small,

on who knew that something had happened.

Didn't mean that it needed a Sunday announcement,

but the people who are involved or could have been involved

or investigating, is there more here than what we know about?

And we actually want to know

if this has happened to someone else.

Those wide nets, those very transparent conversations

actually build trust.

They don't derail it in today's culture.

They had people come back

and their attendance went up.

They had people come back and email, thank you for that.

Now I know I can trust my church

because if you handle this kind of thing well,

I know you'll handle bigger things well.

So how we handle that really matters

and being really clear about authority and power

and accountability and upfront with it.

People knowing how to access,

if they know something's wrong, all of that really matters.

And then I think the last one is just casting a vision

for women.

I think one of the things we're seeing

in this research for young men,

which I am so thrilled about by the way,

I'm thrilled.

Yeah, you're the mom of a son.

For everyone.

Yes, I have a young adult son.

I want this to be true.

But it kind of brings me back to the days

of my growing up years, my 20s,

where we had promise keepers and women of faith.

And I saw these men come back from promise keepers

and they're like, we're on fire.

We went down to the front.

We all have a baton that they gave us

and we're passing it on to the next generation.

They are fired up and our church changed

after we took 100 men there.

So when women of faith came along, I'm like, I am in.

And it was a very different experience.

I was like, I learned about how my emotions control my life

and I was given a candle and a picture frame

and there was not a lot of vision.

There was not a lot of call up,

especially for someone with leadership gifts

and I mean my 20s, I'm completely idealistic

about the kingdom.

Like women long for that also.

And so I think some churches are like,

we're giving a heavy-handed vision cast to young men.

We're calling them to discipline.

We're calling them to sacrifice.

We're calling them to obedience.

And I would just say, that's exactly the call

women should be having.

Jesus doesn't discriminate on gender to calling

as a disciple.

And so please just call everybody.

This is part of the integration conversation.

Can you just call every young person to discipline,

every young person to obedience,

every young person to sacrifice?

It's a call everyone's spirit will resonate with.

And even if you're insecure about it,

I would just say, go big.

I, women tend to shrink themselves down.

I often remind people I do not see a gender

specific calling in the Bible anywhere.

I can't find one.

I cannot find one person in scripture

that God calls to a single gender.

But we do this to ourselves all the time.

And I just challenge, you think you might be called

to speak to men about this,

but maybe you're called to speak to everybody about it.

Maybe you feel called just women,

but maybe God has your voice for more than just women.

Don't limit God's calling on a culturally imposed box.

Be open to how he might want to use you in the kingdom

for everyone who hears what he's given you to say.

You started by talking about emotional intelligence

and that there were probably some women listening

who would identify themselves,

yes, my lead pastor, my boss,

totally not emotionally intelligent,

doing things that are just shooting everybody in the foot.

And what are some red flags that someone

doesn't have the emotional intelligence

that is required to lead in our day and age?

I think when I'm going to talk particularly

about people in pastoral roles,

because I think that's,

that I'm not talking about the director of finance

or whoever on your team,

I'm going to carry the title pastor.

We're looking for someone who leans into people's pain,

knows how to hold space for doubt and questions

and even complaints.

Person who asks curious questions,

someone who's managing their own emotions,

well, that's probably the number one red flag,

is that when it's really hard to help other people,

it's really hard to practice emotional intelligence

and create space for other people

if you aren't managing your own emotions well.

And so emotional attunement to yourself,

the ability to calm and regulate your emotions,

connect with other people, navigate stress,

correct things when you've overstepped.

So I blew up in a meeting.

I know how to heal those relationships

and restore community among my team.

And they take emotions seriously.

Those are off the top of my head.

I'm sure there are scientific things.

No, that's great.

But it feels like it somehow related to culture,

like a healthy culture versus a toxic culture.

Is it somewhat related to that?

Oh, definitely.

I think emotions play a much bigger role

than many of us realize.

I think sometimes we separate emotions

and spirituality.

They're very integrated.

And so emotions are often,

I usually like to say every emotion matters.

We should listen to every feeling.

You just can't trust the volume.

So sometimes you might be really upset about something.

It's a very big volume in your heart.

But in reality, it's a very small thing.

And other times you have a very small,

very quiet, very whisper emotion

or feeling or reaction.

And it actually means something really big.

And so everything needs to be attuned for.

We just have to decipher through what's actually important

and not and what kind of ways do we address it.

Katie, if somebody came to a church leader a pastor,

let's say it's a male pastor and said,

okay, I want to get better at this.

I want to make this church that ministers

to the whole body of Christ

where complementarian or egalitarian

doesn't really matter.

But I just want to honor the women

that God has in our midst.

What would be one question or one piece of advice

you would give that pastor to make their church

a more receptive and safe place for women?

That's a great question.

I think there's a lot of things that come to mind.

I probably have two thoughts.

I think the one thought is to,

one requires very little change.

So whatever you're doing, do an analysis of it

and make sure you're being equitable

in your leadership to both men and women.

So if you are, if you're the preacher

and you love to use real life stories

from the congregation, challenge yourself

to use just as many stories about women leaders

as male leaders.

So always use stories.

It doesn't have to be all women,

but just make sure you're representing both really well.

If you're teaching from scripture

and you're doing sermon series,

making sure you're teaching about women from the Bible also.

I grew up in a church where I never heard one sermon

about women unless you were a mom or a prostitute.

I kind of thought those were the only options.

So there's a lot more women in scripture.

And so just make sure you're giving

a full gender diet in your ministry.

So as you're meeting with leaders one on one

and doing leadership development,

making sure you're having lunch with men and women.

Now you may have some professional guidelines about that.

So if you can't go out to lunch with women,

don't go out to lunch with men.

Just make it the same.

Just make sure you're consistently leading

and being equitable.

Just that one challenge could change a lot

for the women in your church.

And it would teach men to think differently

about the women in your church also.

And then I think the second piece is to really think

about this world of safety for women.

I think it's really hard for most men

to understand the core need for safety

that God has put in women because we are more vulnerable

in more ways.

And in all the marriage research, you find that

women's need for safety is one of the top needs in marriage.

But it's actually just a top need as a woman.

And I didn't really realize how hard this was for men

to understand till I had a young adult son.

He's like 18 and I'm like, all right,

when you go on your first flight by yourself,

you want to park in the parking garage near the elevator

under a light and he's like, why?

And I'm like, because if there's anyone in the garage waiting

for you, you want to have a short distance.

He's like, mom, I don't need to worry about,

do you worry about that?

And I'm like, I worry about that every time I park anywhere.

I'm thinking about that.

And so that kind of ability to create safety in your environments

and be aware of what women live with

and the number of women who have experienced abuse.

And now that abuse has infected the church,

whether it's happened at your church

or under your leadership or not, we all know it.

And we're all on high alert.

We're on high alert about our kids.

We are on high alert about walking out

in the church parking lot late because I stayed

in stuffed turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner.

We're on high alert about all those things.

And so that safety around physical safety,

but also emotional safety, spiritual safety,

all of those pieces are a huge commodity

and the churches that are leading

than that are creating places where people feel safe

to also explore their faith.

What is one question about women in ministry

that needs to be asked that we haven't asked?

Ha, ha, ha.

I think, oh gosh.

Honestly, I think if every leader could just stop for a minute

and imagine their church with even just 50%

more amazing leaders in your ranks,

wherever you want to put them.

If you want to put them in small groups,

you want to put them in kids ministry,

if you want to put them on the worship team,

if you want to put them on the leadership team,

if you want to have them launch new campuses

and plant new churches,

but just imagine yourself with 50% more leaders

who are godly and faithful and want to follow you

and believe in the vision and the mission of your church

and want to give sacrificially

and want to bring all that they have

to the kingdom three year local church.

What would that change in your church

in the next 12 months or three years?

What would be different?

That's the vision that I think if we could capture something

like that, we would open up doors for women

that we just haven't even thought of right now.

Katie, I can't thank you enough.

This is part of an ongoing question.

We're going to keep asking over the next little while.

I think you framed it really, really well.

And hopefully people are engaging this at a level,

at a human level, at a theological level,

to realize we can do better in the church.

We can do better.

By the way, highly recommend developing female leaders, Katie.

Was that your first book?

It was.

It was a great book, man.

You could retire after that.

I know you didn't, but it's a great book.

Highly recommend it.

And again, you have that respectful,

if you're complimentarian, if you're a egalitarian,

we all have stuff to learn.

So I really appreciate about you.

So we'll definitely link to that in the show notes.

If there's, you've got a brand new podcast too.

So tell us about that.

I do.

Launched a new ministry called Female Church Leaders.

And we have a podcast called the Female Church Leaders

podcast and a cohort that we really focus on helping women

who are leading in church ministry

close their leadership gap and catch up

to some of the things they've probably been left out of.

To make them more effective for the kingdom.

So we're excited about that.

We've seen some really dramatic results.

So I'm really excited to be pouring into women more.

Also, do you have a link to that?

I get closing the leadership gap.com

and you can find us on Instagram at Female Church Leaders.

Awesome.

Katie, I can't thank you enough.

Thank you, Kerry.

I really appreciate it.

I really appreciate you taking the time

to open up this conversation for all of us.

That's a big one.

It's an important one.

And you've, you've made it a lot.

You've illumined a lot.

I have stuff to think about as well.

So thank you.

Thanks so much.

Well, I hope that was helpful to you.

It was really helpful to me.

And we're not going to finish the conversation here.

We'll pick this up in future episodes.

I hope you'll check out Katie's resources

going to be really interested to see hopefully

what constructively people are talking about in the comments.

And speaking of constructive conversation,

if you haven't yet joined my Art of Leadership Academy,

there's over 17, 18,000 leaders in the Academy

would love to have you join us

and go to the Art of Leadership Academy.com.

There you're going to find the show notes.

You'll find some really respectful conversation

from people on every side of an issue.

I think you're really going to enjoy it there.

Next up, we have got coming up on future additions

of the podcast, JJ and Kate Tomlin,

talking about dating advice

and why so much of what we say no longer applies.

Jenny Allen, Mark Lutz, Arthur Brooks,

excited for that near AL, Christine Kane

and a whole lot more.

When you subscribe, you get it all absolutely free.

Thank you so much for listening.

And if this conversation was helpful,

it means the world to us if you leave a rating or review.

Because when you talk about the show online, guess what?

We have more listeners, we have more listeners,

we get more guests you guys do an incredible job of that.

Don't forget to share it with a friend.

And I hope our time together today helped you identify

and break a church growth barrier you're facing.

Thank you so much.