Yay! The new sermon about women in ministry is up, and you can listen by clicking here. Here’s what Pastor Darrell has to say about this message:

This week we start our sermon series “Called and Gifted – In It Together” by looking at John 4:1-42.  The story of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at the well.  In this account, Jesus breaks from many Judean first century practices as well as patriarchal practices of numerous cultures of that time.  To interact with a Samaritan, a woman, a woman with a bad past, to do it all alone and then to allow her to be an ambassador of the Christ (Messiah) would have been deemed out of bounds.  But not for the one who is Spirit and Truth and who gives living water so that no one may thirst.

Unfortunately churches throughout the years have been good at erecting fences and only allowing people in if they hold certain views.  For some the gate swings open if you believe in the King James only versions of the English Bible.  In earlier days it swung open for those who believed in a flat earth or who believed that slavery was Biblical.  For others, membership was restricted to those who spoke in tongues or were Sabbitarians (believing in Saturday only worship).  Yet for others modes of Baptism, the Lord’s Table, and even church traditions required the erection of fences.  One of the big fences for people in church history has been the restriction of “Women in Ministry,” where the gates only open to membership participation for those who believe that women are not to preach, be elders or have leadership roles in the church.

Jesus is all about wells and drawing people to himself, the one who gives living water.  Those who drink from His well will never thirst again.  If Jesus were about erecting fences He clearly would not have allowed a Samaritan woman to evangelize her people.  God is clearly more hung up on the message than the messenger, thus the Samaritan woman became an ambassador of the Gospel to the Samaritans.

Psalm 68:11, “the Lord announces the Word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng.”

In Christ’s Love,

Pastor Darrell L. Nelson

Click here to listen to the sermon!