I've been reading The Good Girl Revolution over the weekend and will be posting a review of it in the coming days. Due to all the issues that young people face today, having to contend with an overly sexualized society and made to feel bad about being good, it's no wonder there is so much depression and despair among our youth. But I can't help but to probe a bit deeper into the disconnect between those who should be our role models and those who actually are--if this is a core issue with regard…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on February 15, 2009 at 1:54pm —
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At the 2008 VH1 music awards, singer Jordin Sparks challenged show host Russell Brand on his ridicule of promise rings, rings that signify a pledge to remain sexually pure until marriage. Standing up to the lies of 2nd and 3rd wave feminism, Sparks is one of many young women demanding a change in perspective. For them, the spirit of feminism is about opportunity and freedom, not rights at the expense of dignity and self-respect. This is the essence of what author Wendy Shalit calls The Good Girl…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on February 15, 2009 at 1:51pm —
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As an effect of sin, humans are deeply driven toward autonomy, preferring to live independent of God’s authority instead of within the shelter of his divine sovereignty. This is the temptation to which Eve would surrender. Instead of a life dependent on God, she evaluated on the basis of her self-appointed authority that the fruit of the forbidden tree was beautiful and an acceptable source for knowledge and sustenance. God was no longer necessary in her new view of the world because she chose i…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on February 9, 2009 at 3:23pm —
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The story about the woman from California who recently gave birth to 8 babies through IVF has stirred up what is, in my opinion, a very odd sense of moral outrage. "Who is she to have 14 kids, wasn't 6 enough?" "She still lives with her parents? With all those kids?" And my favorite, "It's not like she did it naturally" as if the method of accumulation should make any difference.
I am not suggesting that the use of ARTs (assisted reproductive technologies) hasn't proven to be a disastrous slipp…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on February 2, 2009 at 6:58pm —
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When the government seeks to influence the number of children born to a certain segment of the population as a means of saving tax dollars, one must realize that the motivation is not the preservation of women's rights, but literally the rejection of them. This portion of the stimulus bill, which may be removed today to ensure its passage, harkens back to the era of Margaret Sanger who sought birth control for an "undesirable" immigrant population. There is little difference between Pelosi and S…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on January 27, 2009 at 1:22pm —
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Last night the women at my church finished the 10 week Beth Moore study "Living Beyond Yourself." The women were very encouraged by the content of this study and I'm pleased by the way it was able to connect us to each other. This isn't the kind of study that teaches women how to study the Bible or the topics contained in the study on their own, but overall I believe it accomplished its goal.
The last video session addressed how women can lack self control as it relates to the body. Whether obs…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on December 16, 2008 at 4:25pm —
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I realize that the members of this network may not be in complete agreement with the Position Statement on Women in Ministry. But disagreement does not preclude engaging in discussion/debate on that topic and I hope that this network will serve to bring all kinds of Christian women's leaders into dialogue about that topic, but hopefully more conversation on more topics well beyond that debate. As a woman in ministry, I find myself weary of the complementarian/egalitarian debates, and have wanted…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on November 30, 2008 at 9:51pm —
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Please take the time to introduce yourself, your ministry, or your developing interest in ministry to women. We are all in different places in our ministry and lives, yet we have so much to learn from each other.
My interest in women's ministry began not before seminary, but during. I had no interest in ministry to women because I was so outside of the box. I didn't speak "the language" and I couldn't relate to most of the functions of the ministry. So then I realized that there were other wome…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on November 23, 2008 at 10:22am —
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I know I've written on this in various ways in the past, but this time of the year necessitates talking about it again. Believe it or not, it's the middle of March and a lot of young people are preparing to leave high school and enter into university campus life. For young Christian men pursuing higher education to serve the church, their options are many...more so than for young women. As the young men enter into college and seminary, they have the blessing to pursue various pastoral positions…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on November 21, 2008 at 9:28pm —
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We are in week 8 of the Beth Moore Bible study, "Living Beyond Yourself," at my church. It hasn't been an easy study for me to be involved in because it so frequently jumps around different books of the Bible, sometimes to the neglect of context. On page 139 of the study, question 1 asks the student to read Deuteronomy 7:6-9 and respond. "Which of the following represent reasons God chose Israel?" The possible answers are "Because they were a mighty nation; Because they were the fewest of all pe…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on November 19, 2008 at 10:39am —
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"...that we should be holy and blameless before him" (Eph 1:4) not only expresses God's purposes in electing us to salvation, but I believe it sums up the message of Ephesians and the goal of the Christian life. Ephesians 1:3-23 contains the words of a prayer from Paul indicating several theological truths foundational to the purpose of the rest of the letter.
In the past tense, Paul writes (Eph 1:5) that all believers were predestined for adoption (
huiothesia = huio/son, thesia/placed).…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on November 18, 2008 at 10:30am —
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Last night I spoke at a local church on the topic Indulging in God. Have you ever noticed that Mary of Bethany is the antithesis to Eve of Eden? Eve had her wants and needs taken care of by God. She had food, beautiful surroundings, and she had all the wisdom anyone could want for with her dwelled God. But that wasn't enough and she bought into the lies of the Serpent, not in order to have more of what she had, but to replace it with something "better." She'd be able to indulge all of her desire…
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Added by Sarah Flashing on November 15, 2008 at 4:47pm —
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