10 Things Women in Ministry Have to Deal With (That Men Don’t)
Here we go – the first post in our new #WIMWednesdays (because on Wednesdays we wear pink). If you would like to submit a question or suggested topic, click here to be taken to the contact form!
10. The speaker at your ministers’ conference refers to ministers as brothers and tells everyone women are the weaker sex. Then, when you are struggling to get out the door with your arms full, the same speaker doesn’t open the door for you even though you are VERY WEAK because you are a woman.
9. You get up to preach in your knee length skirt and fleetingly remember you forgot to shave your legs. You spend the rest of the sermon doing mental gymnastics between being aware of your transitions and hoping the people on the front row can’t tell about your legs.
8. You are not introduced as a great speaker/pastor, but rather stand with an awkward smile through a lengthy diatribe about how “even girls can preach! See here is one now!” (Pro tip – usually people can tell we are women, you can just introduce us as a minister. Unless you also introduce male speakers as such and tell everyone how cute it is that men can put sentences together.)
7. You are herded into pastor’s wives events even if you’re not a wife at all, while the men have their brandy and smoke their pipes. (Is that what they do?? Idk I’m too weak to think about it.)
6. Being handed a wireless mic pack when you’re wearing a dress. And handing it back to the very young sound guy saying, “Dear I have nowhere to put this except one place and I don’t think you want my underwear falling down during the sermon.” And enjoying the very awkward look on his face.
5. Avoiding the creepy dudes after service. (Are male preachers regularly complimented on the shade of their eyeballs rather than the content of their sermon? Asking for a friend.)
4. Carefully strategizing your Sunday morning choices so that you can make sure you’re wearing the right thing for the right week of the month. (I won’t go further but lemme hear an AMEN from the ladies, boys you don’t even know).
3. Listening politely when men give you advice on things you are doing better than they are.
2. Not knowing if you’re smoking hot because you’re not the pastor’s wife.
1. Feeling your Spanx roll down in the middle of your sermon and hoping your body doesn’t look like a sausage coming out of its casing but definitely trying to focus on that third point in your message.
Girls: What are your other “WIM Problems”?