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Welcome to Book Review Monday!
Lime Green: Reshaping Our View of Women In the Church
It’s time again for Book Review Monday and another Giveaway!!
What is book review Monday all about?
I love to read! If you know me, you already know this to be true. If you don’t, well, one of my favorite things to do is read. I love it, but I don’t always feel like I have the time to do so. Being a pastor, an author, and a speaker, one of the questions I always get from people is, “What are you reading?” I suppose it’s because they want to know what I would recommend, what inspires me, or what I’m feeding on.
So, upon receiving an opportunity to giveaway some books, it got me thinking about my love for reading, but I never feel like I can make the time. Then it hit me – I came up with a brilliant idea – Book Review Monday!! Or at least I think it is brilliant. Plus it gives me a reason to read more!
Now, let’s get started with – – –
Book review Monday!
I was very excited when Icon Media gave me an opportunity to review a copy of Lime Green: Reshaping Our View of Women In the Church, which was just released in September 2015!!
What is Lime Green about? Just take a look at what Icon Media has to say about it:
Lime Green: Reshaping Our View of Women In the Church by Dr. Jackie Roese. Lime Green is a compelling story about one woman’s journey in an industry traditionally dominated by men – the preaching/teaching ministry. Lime Green will serve as an encouragement for women and a challenge for men who can benefit from a refreshed perspective on women in the church.
I have included a more in-depth description of what Icon Media sent me in a press release of Lime Green: Reshaping Our View of Women In the Church by Dr. Jackie Roese at the end of this post.
I have been looking forward to reading this book ever since I became aware of it. Maybe it’s because lime green really is my favorite color, or maybe it’s because the title intrigued me, or maybe it’s because this book address the ‘women in ministry’ issue. I know it really doesn’t matter what was pulling at me and pushing me to read it. The fact is, as soon as I started to read, I had a hard time putting it down. Honestly, it’s been a long time since I devoured a book like I did this one. I read into the wee hours of the morning – fell asleep, only to wake a few hours later and begin reading again.
This is a book that spoke to my heart. Dr. Jackie is a trailblazer for women everywhere who have been called to serve and minister in the church and not just to women and children. I grew up in a conservative denomination much like the one Dr. Jackie describes, yet at the time I never really concerned myself with the ‘issue of women’ in the church. However, much later, I would find that it did indeed concern me, since I am a woman, whom God has called to teach and preach to the body of Christ at large – not just to women and children.
I feel fortunate to belong to a denomination that releases women in ministry, and because of that I thankfully didn’t experience all the things that Dr. Jackie did. I have felt for a long time that the tension between men and women serving side by side in the church, is because of a lack of understanding and old mind sets about the way things should be. Some men believe that all women want control and to do their own thing, when in reality all women really want is to work side by side with others. Not all women want control, however sadly there is a small number where that is the case. The body of believers must get to a place where we are looking at Heaven’s perspective instead, which is: men and women are both equally as important.
I felt like Dr. Jackie did a great job of sharing a fresh new perspective through her own personal journey and with what Scripture has to say on the matter as well.
I highly you to read Lime Green. I don’t have a giveaway of this book, but there is still time to visit my book review from last week: Book Review Monday: Touching Heaven – By Dr. Chauncey Crandall
More of what Icon Media has to say about Lime Green:
‘LIME GREEN’ ADDRESSES CHALLENGES FACED BY WOMEN IN CONSERVATIVE FAITH COMMUNITIES; OFFERS NEW NARRATIVE FOR WOMEN IN THE CHURCH
“[Jackie] gives us a wonderful story of what it is really like for the woman who discovers she’s gifted to preach and teach in a church that isn’t so sure. All women gifted to teach will be encouraged by Jackie’s story; all churches wondering about women with such gifts will be challenged by this book; and all moms who have daughters will find this book thrilling and exciting of what God is doing in our time.”– Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary
AUSTIN, TX (August 2015) – Dr. Jackie Roese was the first woman preacher in the history of Irving Bible Church, preaching her first sermon from the pulpit in 2008 to a packed house of 2250 attendees, and one local Dallas news crew. It was an event that caused ripples throughout conservative evangelicalism, where it is commonly taught that a woman’s role in the church (and home) is submissive to a man, and the very idea of a woman teaching a man anything is sinful. In her new book, Lime Green: Reshaping Our View of Women in the Church (August), Dr. Roese shares her personal journey to discovering a new narrative for women in the church (one that her own church elders came to support); one that values and fearlessly develops and promotes the giftings of, what she calls, “lime green” women.
“We need to stop limiting women by our limited definitions of womanhood as ‘light pink’ only,” she writes. “We need light pink ladies who remind us that God is peace and beauty. But we also need every color, every shade of color and colors we haven’t even seen–yet–to remind us of everything else God is,” she writes.
Roese describes lime green women as those who “get in the foxhole” and “carry you on their shoulders to safety.” She writes, “These women are not afraid of the hard or the mess in life, and are not necessarily sweet or peaceful and many times not all that ‘polite.’” She compares lime green women to the Old Testament prophets, “saying the hard things when no one wants to hear them.”
Roese shares her childhood experiences to illustrate how God prepared her for her vocational calling–working diligently on the family farm provided the work ethic it would take to complete seminary and a doctoral program while raising small children; surviving an abusive family gave her strength in the face of opposition (of which she would receive plenty).
While attending Dallas Theological Seminary, Roese admits she was just another one of the program’s “received knowers”–-dependent upon authorities to tell her what was right or wrong, never questioning the prescribed textbooks (which only presented one viewpoint to students). It was in the pursuit of her doctoral degree when she began to feel there was a bigger truth to be uncovered regarding women in the church. She began to pull that thread, reading commentaries and other interpretations of Scripture on the issue, and diving into the Word with a new lens.
She writes, “How we interpret Scripture can be harmful, and sometimes downright dangerous for women.”
In her journey, Roese discovered that some of the church fathers, including Tertullian, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Saint Thomas Aquinas were misogynists – their derogatory views on women made evident in various writings. It is evident their beliefs colored their interpretation of Scriptures on the topic of women in the church.
“There are legitimate reasons to question, re-examine and at times change our theological position,” she writes. “Knowing their low view of women should make us question the influence of their teachings on interpretations today. There’s humility in admitting we see Scripture through our cultural lens and sometimes we just might not have gotten it right.”
As Roese progressed in her academic studies, her opportunities to speak and teach in her home church and around the country increased; her call to teach became more and more evident and the Lord developed her gifts. Ultimately she was named Teaching Pastor to Women at Irving Bible Church.
After a year and a half study, the elders of her church determined there was no biblical reason that a woman shouldn’t preach from the pulpit, as long as she, like other preachers, remained under the authority of the church elders. Dr. Roese was chosen to serve on the Sunday morning preaching team and remained until 2010. She went on to found the Marcella Project, a ministry committed to ennobling women through Scripture-focused teaching, training and dialogue.
Dr. Roese cites a 2011 Barna study, which notes the steady decrease in women’s church attendance over the past 20 years. She writes, “Perhaps women leave church because they can’t find their real life represented there.”
Today 51 percent of women in America live without a spouse, and 71 percent of women with children under the age of 18 work outside the home. Women own 30 percent of small businesses. And 40 percent of women say they have more opportunity to lead outside churches than within them.
“There are people outside and inside our churches [who are] drowning. Those people can’t afford for us Christians to stand on the shore fighting over dredging the lake with gaps in the line because we’re too busy arguing over who gets to do what,” she writes.
“As I followed my calling to teach the Word of God to those who desperately needed to hear it—to be saved by it—I realized just how many of my fellow believers didn’t mind these ‘gaps in the line’ of Kingdom work and who were willing to let people ‘drown’ rather than hear the Gospel from the wrong kind of preacher. A preacher like me.”
Lime Green deconstructs the notion that all women must conform to the “all too elusive” concept of the “ideal biblical woman.” Roese writes, “Too many of us already know that we aren’t that woman, but we pretend. We put on our light pink sheepskin.”
She continues, “When we try to tint ourselves a shade or color that doesn’t suit us, we deny God’s creativity. We deny his creativity and we ignore his Word. When we become humbly confident in our knowledge, skill and God’s vision, we start to live in new narrative.”
Dr. Jackie Roese is the Founder and President of The Marcella Project, a ministry committed to ennobling women through Scripture-focused teaching, training and dialogue. She has a Masters in Christian Education from Dallas Theological Seminary and a DM in Preaching from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Jackie spent eight years serving in a megachurch as Teaching Pastor to Women as well as serving on the Sunday morning preaching team. She has written more than fifteen Bible studies, taught at women’s conferences in African and at home in the U.S., and trained women here and abroad to preach through her She Can Teach course.
Touching Heaven – GIVEAWAY
I just LOVE gifts, and I love free stuff too. So, as promised, one blessed person will win their very own copy of the book Touching Heaven. Keep it for yourself or give it as a gift to someone else – Christmas is only 8 weekends away!!!
A HUGE Thank You to Hachette Book Group who has generously offered a FREE copy of the book to one of my readers. To enter utilize the Raffle-Copter below. Also for an extra entry leave a comment on this post. I will announce the winner in two weeks on November 9th You can enter every day, so make sure to do so, and come back and see if you won.
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This is nice. It sounds like a great book to read! Would love to read it! – Thanks for sharing this review, I will take this book in consideration. I’m visiting you from Women With Intention Link Up, i’m right next to you! Blessings