Men & Women Winter 1991

ARTICLE TOOLS

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The movie Legal Eagles features a scene in which two lawyers (a man and a woman) organize some shipping invoices. One of them put the invoices in piles according to the size of the shipment; the other organized the invoices according to the shipment's destination. They keep redoing each other's stacks to make the division more "logical."

In my experience, that's too typical! What seems logical to women seems illogical to men. What seems to be a natural and effective way of organizing work to a man looks confused and haphazard to a woman.

I've especially noticed that in the church, the differences between men and women sometimes clash and hinder us from fulfilling Christ's work. Only when I began to recognize and appreciate these differences did I see how men and women could, instead, become effective partners in ministry.

What follows are generalizations, I admit. Each of us possesses both masculine and feminine characteristics, and nothing is true for all men or all women. Yet in my ministry, I've noticed both masculine and feminine tendencies that can conflict or cooperate in Christ's mission.

Susan came to her first church board meeting knowing the main subject would be choosing Sunday school curriculum. She assumed the elders would look through each sample and discuss its strengths and weaknesses, finally conferring on which best suited their needs. Having taught Sunday school for many years, she felt qualified to contribute to the subject. Nonetheless, she made it a point to study the sample curricula before the meeting.

Early in the meeting, Susan discovered many of the elders had already formed their opinions about the curriculum. One man, in fact, quickly moved that his choice be adopted. To Susan, ...

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