What should women expect from the church?

Last week I wrote about women and the church, and judging from my inbox, I hit a nerve.

Women responded with their own stories. Some were grateful for the church. Some were angry with it. Some had left. Some were still there but weren’t sure they wanted to be.

And several questions kept coming up:

What exactly is patriarchy, and how do I know when I’ve encountered it in the church?

Why do so many women talk about spiritual abuse?

Is the church actually a safe place for women?

Has feminism changed the way women relate to the church?

And maybe the hardest question:

If the church has hurt me, do I really need it to follow Jesus?

Those aren’t small questions, and I don’t think Christians help anyone by answering them defensively. But I also don’t think public opinion gets the final word.

So I want to ask a different question:

What does the Bible say women should be able to expect from the church?

Let’s start at the beginning.

“So God created man in his own image... male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

Before there were debates about gender roles or leadership structures, there was this: men and women were both created in the image of God.

Jesus reinforced that dignity everywhere He went. He spoke publicly with women. He taught women as disciples. Women supported His ministry, remained near the cross, and became the first witnesses to the resurrection.

Whatever Christians believe about gender and church leadership, we cannot escape the biblical reality that women matter profoundly to God and to His mission.

Which brings us to patriarchy.

The word gets used so broadly today that it can mean almost anything. But in the unhealthy sense we’re talking about here, patriarchy is a system in which power becomes centered around men in a way that diminishes, controls, silences, or devalues women.

A church can hold a traditional or complementarian understanding of certain leadership roles without treating women as inferior.

But a church can also use words like headship, authority, and submission to create a culture the Bible itself does not authorize.

One simple test is this:

Does the leadership of this church look like Jesus?

Jesus said worldly rulers “lord it over” people, but “it shall not be so among you.” (Matthew 20:25–26)

Biblical leadership isn’t about accumulating power. It’s about laying power down in service of others.

Spiritual abuse happens when spiritual authority, Scripture, fear, shame, or someone’s relationship with God is manipulated in order to control them.

It happens to men and women. But women can become particularly vulnerable when biblical ideas like submission, forgiveness, authority, marriage, or church unity are misused.

“Forgive” can become stop talking about what happened.

“Submit” can become do what he says even when what he says is sinful.

“Don’t gossip” can become don’t tell anyone.

“Protect the church” can become protect the institution.

None of those distortions reflect biblical Christianity.

So is the church a safe place for women?

It should be.

That doesn’t mean church will never confront us, disagree with us, or make us uncomfortable. Truth itself is sometimes uncomfortable.

But the church should absolutely be a place where women are not preyed upon, manipulated, sexually exploited, spiritually intimidated, or required to remain silent to preserve someone’s reputation.

A biblical church should be safe enough to tell the truth.

Some women have undoubtedly encountered unhealthy expressions of male power in the church.

At the same time, our culture increasingly tells women that autonomy is the highest good: Nobody gets to tell me what to do. My truth is mine. My body is mine. My life is mine.

Christianity challenges that.

But Christianity challenges it for men too.

The Christian message isn’t that women should submit while men get to be autonomous.

The Christian message is:

Nobody belongs to themselves.

“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)

Men belong to Jesus. Women belong to Jesus. Pastors belong to Jesus. All of us come under the authority of God’s Word.

So yes, feminism can influence the way women hear biblical teaching, just as individualism, ambition, greed, politics, and the hunger for power influence the way all of us hear biblical teaching.

The better question isn’t simply, Has culture influenced women?

It’s:

Where has culture influenced all of us more than Scripture has?

When I read the New Testament, I don’t see women as accessories to the mission of God.

I see Priscilla helping instruct Apollos. Lydia opening her home. Phoebe commended by Paul. Older women teaching younger women. Women praying, serving, giving, suffering, making disciples, and risking their lives for the gospel.

Which makes me wonder whether we have sometimes given women a smaller vision for their lives than the New Testament does.

Women don’t merely need programs designed for women.

Women need to know that the kingdom of God needs their obedience.

Their theological minds. Their spiritual gifts. Their courage. Their generosity. Their hospitality. Their evangelism. Their discipleship. Their willingness to go wherever Jesus calls.

Maybe the question shouldn’t simply be, How do we keep women attending church?

Maybe it should be:

Are we calling women into the full weight and wonder of following Jesus?

This may be the question I understand most personally.

There was a season in my own life when church hurt wasn’t theoretical. It was deeply personal. I’ve written an entire book about fractured faith and finding your way back to God after disillusionment.

And even now, though I attend church regularly and am part of a local body of believers, I still sometimes struggle with the feeling that I don’t quite fit.

So I don’t ask this question lightly.

But biblically, I can’t get around the answer.

Following Jesus was never designed to be a solo project.

The New Testament knows nothing of a Christianity where I love Jesus but permanently detach myself from His people.

We are called a body. A family. A flock. We are commanded to bear one another’s burdens, forgive one another, encourage one another, serve one another, and love one another.

You can’t do the “one anothers” alone.

That doesn’t mean you have to stay in an abusive church. Sometimes leaving is wisdom. Sometimes healing takes time.

But there is a difference between saying “I need to leave this church” and saying “I don’t need the church.”

The first may be necessary.

The second is very difficult to reconcile with the New Testament.

I keep thinking about the women who wrote to me this week.

Some of them aren’t rejecting Jesus. They’re trying to figure out whether there is still a place for them among His people.

I think there is.

And I don’t think the answer is asking women to lower their expectations of the church.

Maybe we need to raise them.

Expect leaders who look like Jesus. Expect Scripture to be taught faithfully rather than weaponized. Expect sin to be confronted whether the sinner is powerful or powerless. Expect women to be treated as image-bearers whose gifts matter to the mission of God. Expect authority to look like service rather than control.

And yes, expect to be challenged, corrected, inconvenienced, and asked to die to yourself—because that’s part of following Jesus too.

The church does not belong to men.

It does not belong to women.

The church belongs to Jesus.

Maybe that’s where this conversation ultimately has to lead us.

Not simply:

Does the church make women feel welcome?

But:

Does our church increasingly look like the One whose name it bears?

Because when it does, I have a feeling both women and men will be far more likely to flourish there.

I don’t think this conversation is over. In fact, most of this post came from the responses I received after last week’s piece.

So I’d love to hear from you again: What has helped you flourish as a woman in the church? What has made it harder? And what do you wish the church understood better about women?

Leave a comment or reply to this email. I really do read them—and clearly, sometimes they become the next post.

And if church hurt is part of your story, I wrote Fractured Faith: Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction out of my own painful experience with the church and my journey toward finding my way back to God without pretending the hurt didn’t happen. If that’s where you are right now, it might be a helpful companion along the way.

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