Truston Baba & Whitney Barth on Women in Ministry [VIDEO]

A few weeks ago, Truston Baba, a childhood friend of mine who now pastors Living Church in Mansfield, TX, preached a message clarifying his and his church’s stance on women and ministry. In this sermon, he outlines a faithful account of the exegetical reasons why he actively and ardently supports the flourishing of female clergy in their callings.

He and I dialogued briefly offline about it and he pointed me to a two part video podcast Truston did with his Executive Pastor, Whitney Barth, detailing some of the practical outworking of how they operate in their egalitarian staff as well as some of the challenges through which they’ve walked in attempting to carve out a church culture that is truly empowering of women and eliminates patriarchy.

Anyone who knows me knows that this subject is close to my heart. Inasmuch as I’m a pastor, I’m also a pastor’s husband. I’ve also witnessed how much of what Truston and Whitney discuss are real difficulties through which egalitarian churches often wrestle, but sometimes don’t do so with the transparency and forthrightness that these two do.

In the sermon, I appreciate Truston’s thoughtful treatment of why egalitarians support women in ministry…not in spite of Scripture (as our critics often claim) but because of Scripture. I’ve respected Truston for many years, but I found his and his brilliant XP’s treatment of this subject so compelling, so authentic, and so life-giving, that I wanted to share it here. I encourage you to take the time to watch it all and, if you’re in the Mansfield area, make sure to check out their church.