Christian Piatt writes at On Faith:
My wife has been a senior pastor for the past 10 years. In that time, I’ve seen plenty of situations in which her gender worked against her. There was the man at the church where she guest-preached who, with a straight face, told her she did a pretty good job “for a girl.”
There were the times when people got up and walked out when she took the pulpit to preach. There was even one man who left the church because he couldn’t watch her preach without fantasizing about her having sex because she was visibly pregnant.In comparison to their male counterparts, female pastors have limited opportunities and face serious pay discrepancies. Never mind that half of people in mainline seminaries today are women – so if many churches are to survive in the future, it may be with a woman at the helm. But too many congregations are not willing to accept this reality.
There are some real advantages a female leader can bring to a congregation that most — if not all — men lack. I don’t mean this in a sycophantic “girls rule, boys drool” kind of way. There are some key characteristics women possess that are much needed in many of our churches today.
Read his list and come on back and talk about it. What do you see as the advantages or disadvantages of having a female rector? Or do you think the sex of the rector is unimportant?