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W̶e̶s̶t̶ S̶i̶d̶e̶
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Faith, buried and dug up.
I refused to sign the “True Love Waits” pledge. I was sitting in the 250-member tabernacle choir at Falls Creek, the Southern Baptist church camp, nestled in the Arbuckle Mountains, in the heart of Oklahoma. It’s one of the largest Southern Baptist youth camps in the United States serving over 50,000 youth each summer.
In the summer of 1995, the camp passed out cards with the pledge that teens would wait until marriage to have sex. At 16, I knew that I wanted to wait until I was married, but I didn’t plan to get married until after I had a master’s degree and 8 years seemed like an eternity to me. I just couldn’t promise something that I knew I might break. So I held on to my pledge and stuffed it in my jeans pocket and stuffed a piece of my religion away deep in my heart.
We’d been told that summer, and every summer since I was 8 years old, that we were to wear skirts or shorts that reached below our knees to camp. We’d been told to wear sleeves, even in the 100 degree weather, in a covered outdoor ampitheater where services were held...people took personal fans with water-spray attachments and each year fellow campers passed out in the Oklahoma heat.
This week I was given a dress code for the worship team of my relatively small United Methodist Church. I only sing for around 250 congregants instead of 5,000 now, but the code felt much the same.
Dresses or pants must reach to or below the knees, shoulders must be covered, and no flip flops on stage. I was taken back to a time when I felt repressed and forced into a box which seemed too small to hold me. I don’t dress provocatively and would certainly never want to be a distraction, but to force a choice too severe for my Southern Baptist roots made me speak out this week.
I spoke against a history that left girls feeling ashamed if they attracted or failed to attract a boy’s eye. I spoke against the right of male minister to treat young women like they didn’t have the right to lead, or decide what to wear. I spoke against the idea that women are responsible for the “stumble of men” who make a choice to look at a female form instead of bowing to pray or worshiping God.
I don’t want to contribute to sin, in fact I often dress more conservatively than my husband thinks is necessary, but I will not allow spiritual leaders to place blame on me or other women and girls for the actions of others.
Yes, we need to be spiritual leaders as worship team leaders, but we can do that with our knees and the tips of our shoulders showing.
1 Timothy 2:9 states, “Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire...”
According to Paul, it’s so much more important to humble ourselves in the way we dress than to wear things that are costly or attention-attracting. It’s dressing with a humble spirit that Jesus asks of us, whether that’s not buying costly jewelry or not wearing the most expensive fashions.
Speaking up is hard. Speaking up can make you feel alone. I started by speaking with a group of 5 women on the worship team who all agreed, but said they couldn’t speak up as a leader for our group....I’m the least likely speaker as I am likely to cry in moments of stress and I dislike conflict with a passion. Only 1 other woman ended up standing with me in the meeting with our pastors. I am grateful for her and the healing balm her words brought to the discussion.
The discussion was worth the stress. My hope is that my distress will lead to more inclusive conversations regarding the role of men and women in the church and in relationships with one another going forward.
We shouldn’t stay silent, wadding our dissent into stuffed back pockets. It’s important for women to express our thoughts and feelings in church. This August, I dug out that wadded up feeling of distress, over decisions being taken out of my hand, and smoothed it out in the open for my church leadership to see. I tried to express my personal responsibility, while maintaining my faith toward the One who saved me, even when He knew I didn’t deserve grace.
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