Podcast Transcript: Episode 9

INTRO 

COURTNEY: Welcome to the Women & Work podcast, the show that inspires you to confidently step into your God-given calling & view your work as meaningful to the Kingdom of God. 

I’m Courtney Moore.

MISSIE: And I’m Missie Branch. We want to introduce you to women who through their own unique vocations are seeing what they do make an eternal difference.

COURTNEY: We pray these conversations will inspire you in your own calling to honor God, image Him to the world through your work, and leverage your potential for His glory. 

MISSIE: Thanks so much for joining us today.

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Thank you, Elevate!

GUEST INTRODUCTION: 

We are so happy to welcome to the podcast today, Jen Wilkin. Jen, we’re so glad you’re here.

JEN: I’m so glad to be on. Thanks for having me.

COURTNEY: We are thrilled. If you don’t know Jen, she is an author and a Bible teacher from Dallas, Texas. She has organized and led studies for women in her home, in the church, in a para church. She is a huge advocate for biblical literacy, and her passion is really to see others, especially women, become articulate and committed followers of Christ. She wants them to have a clear understanding of why they believe what they believe, and she wants that grounded in the Word. And so her latest book is called 10 words To Live By: Delighting In and doing what God Commands, and we hope all of our listeners will check that out. So Jen, oh my goodness, Missie and I are thrilled you’re here, and we always love chatting with you. Every time I hear you teach or just chat, I’m always so encouraged and edified, and I really just believe our women who listen to this today are gonna feel the exact same way. So thanks so much for being here.

JEN: Well, it feels like a reunion, I mainly just want us to chat and catch up on what’s going on in everybody’s lives, but I’m gonna resist. We’ll stay on topic.

MISSIE: Okay, well, Jen, we like to start off, what we call rapid fire questions, and I don’t know why we say rapid fire ’cause we take forever between all of them. But anyway, so we wanna start with these questions ’cause they’re a lot of fun, we get good crazy answers from these. So the first question is, as a kid, what did you wanna be when you grew up?

JEN: I wanted to be whatever meant I had money and power. So I was a super nice kid you can imagine. Yeah, so I wanted to be like a career girl, and I’ll tell you why I think… Here’s why I think- my mom was a single mom, and she came up through the education system at a time where women were not prepared to take care of a family if their marriage didn’t hold up, and so I watched her try to navigate being a single mom from a financial standpoint and from her time. And I just was like, Man, I don’t want that to happen to me. And so I think some of what was in my head was I’m gonna insulate myself from uncertainty by having money and power.

MISSIE: We have talked about this!

JEN: Isn’t that horrible? ! [laughter]

COURTNEY: Jen, Do you know your Enneagram number? I’m just wondering if, if the desire for money and power has anything to do with how God made you.

JEN: Look at the time. I wonder how many questions I have to get through today.

COURTNEY: Okay, alright, Jen, what was your first job?

JEN: My first job was being a hostess at an Italian restaurant in my hometown…

MISSIE: That sounds like fun.

JEN: I had to seat the people, I had to like the candle on the table, and sometimes I had to fill in for the dishwasher if the dishwasher didn’t show up.

MISSIE: OK and that paid!

JEN: Money and power. That was a big money in power move there.

MISSIE: What kind of work would you love to see yourself doing when you’re 80 years old?

JEN: Oh, I hope- you know, I’m accidentally a writer, and so I really, I realized though, that writing is something you can hang on to even into your twilight years, and so I’m really hoping that my latter years will be spent writing things that I’ve thought a lot about and taught a lot about…

MISSIE: That’s exciting. Exciting.

MISSIE: Well, I would love to dive into some of your work story, like you’re saying you’re an accidental writer is wonderful because I know a lot of us have stumbled into what it is that God has us to do, so… So one of our questions is, How did you even become interested in the Bible? WHEN was the first time it gripped you and then take us on that journey from loving the Bible personally to teaching it to women, and then writing about it.

JEN: Yeah, when I was growing up, I mentioned my mom was a single mom, and so we didn’t really fit in the church very well, she was always kind of the odd woman out in a lot of the typical scenarios of church Sunday school classes or whatever, so we kind of moved around between a bunch of different churches in my hometown. But one of my earliest exposures was in a Bible Church. It was a church that was an off-shoot of Dallas Theological seminary’s work- the pastors had graduated from there, and so just really great line by line, teaching in the Bible. And I remember being in late elementary and middle school and being given- they treated you as though you could do it! Here are some tools, and we’re gonna help you learn how to read the Bible, and that appealed to me, and then spent time in a bunch of other different denominations, which raised the question, Why are we all holding the same book and saying different things? A pastor with a lot of authority is standing behind a pulpit in each of these spaces, but they’re not all saying the same thing. And so I became increasingly convicted that first-hand knowledge of the Bible was going to be important if I was going to have my own vantage point on things and not simply be taking someone else’s word for it. Mixed into some of those denominational travels was some really bad teaching that had very real negative consequences in the life of my family, and so it was a practical desire, not just a theoretical desire to have a pure theology.

MISSIE: Wow- And at what point did you decide that now that I’m studying this and I’m absorbing it, it’s a thing I love to do. That that would be something I would love to teach.

JEN: So that’s… I mentioned the whole craving for money and power, let’s just keep saying that ’cause it makes me sound like such a nice person. I went to college and got an English degree, which is really not the pathway to money and power for anyone who’s curious. But I loved it, and then I ended up getting a Master’s in business so that I could get a job that was more in line with my idea who I was… Yeah, basically. And I told my husband, “I don’t wanna be a teacher. ’cause teachers don’t make any money.” I come from a family full of teachers who this was incredibly disrespectful to and also again, an indicator of my maturity level. So the joke around the Wilkin household is that I then proceeded to teach for nothing for 20 years. I got paid no dollars-none. So Jeff’s like “I love how your plan is working out!”- basically, he’s funding all of my teaching dreams by going to work every day, so… Yeah, I got involved in a women’s Bible study at my church in Houston because I had just had my first child and had quit my job that was gonna make all my dreams of power and success come true. And I just needed a reason to get out of the house, and then I got there and it was actually Beth Moore’s first study was what they were doing in the church. So I get there and I see her head on the screen and she is doing this thing that I did not know was an option…

COURTNEY: Interesting. I love that. Beth Moore gave you inspiration.

JEN: Fascinating. And so then, so I’m leading a small group within about six months and I start to have disagreements with what her Bible studies are teaching, and I don’t mean like she was teaching heresy or anything like that. A lot of it for me was I was not aware yet that I was coming from a different theological vantage point on some things on second and third level issues, so I would say… Gosh, I wouldn’t have taught it that way or Oh, I would have said this differently… Well, you don’t say that in a room full of Beth Moore fans. You just need to tamp that down. And so I began to realize that I was probably never gonna be content to be a small group leader in someone else’s Bible study because I had so much that was stirring inside of me, so I started writing my own curricula mainly because… Well, actually, I used some other peoples for a while, but still felt that just, Oh, I want it to do exactly what I wanted to do, and it wasn’t that those curricula were bad, it’s just that when you have that teacher brain, you’re always thinking about a learning outcome and how you’re gonna get them there.

I wouldn’t have had words for that at this point, but I know that’s always driving it, so that’s kind of how it all started was when I was in my mid to late 20s, so when I was not old enough for anyone to really need to listen to anything I had to say.

MISSIE: I love it.

COURTNEY: So you’re in your mid to late 20s, you’re writing your own brand new curricula at this point, how many children did you have? I’m sure they were tiny. And of course, all of our women always wanna know how are you making it work, how are you being faithful in the home raising your children and then also pursuing what God has called you to. How did you do it?

JEN: I did have four children in 4 years. Actually, the church offered me a job, a part-time job as the Women’s Ministry Director because I wrote a spicy letter saying how we needed to hire someone. #writer. And they were like, Well, how about you? And I remember just wanting to howl with laughter, I’m sitting in the sweet man’s office and I said, My children are 4, 3, 2 and zero. You have never met a less employable person in your life, and he said, We think you’re the person and we wanna pay you for whatever hours you can give us. And I still think back to that day, and I think… What if he hadn’t said that? Like what if he had said, You know what, you’re right, and really, you should be at home with those kids because that’s really where your ministry is, and you know what- I believe that. That is where my ministry was. I also had a compulsion to teach the Bible and to help women in the local church, and so what I’ve often reflected on is that when it comes to women, and I know you guys talk about this a lot on this podcast-

We have an atrophied understanding of dual calling for women. We understand it for men, intuitively, but for women, we’re like, Oh no, that’s not a thing, because anything that you do that is not your primary calling will rob from your other calling. And I think the Lord just placed me in circumstances that it was like, Gosh, I could try this, and then I realized that those two things were actually not in competition with one another- if I and my husband were on the same page with things and having all the conversations, and if we were checking in on things at a regular basis. But no one asked Jeff Wilkin when he took a full-time job if it was gonna hurt his relationship with the kids… No one. And actually, he’s a great dad and super present, and so that has also impacted my ability to say yes to things like the church offering me that role. Jeff had a job where he didn’t travel, he was home pretty much every night at 5 o’clock, and he wanted to be with the kids. Helping with the kids. And so those are all factors. I can’t give a blanket recommendation to every single woman out there, but I can say my story has been that Jeff has been a huge partner and has always said you should go do the thing the Lord has given you to do. And my kids know that they got a mom who is not just their mom, she’s the Bible study mom, and so that meant that we were all on board with making sure that both mom and dad were able to do the work that was in front of them.

MISSIE: That’s beautiful. When you said that we are dealing with an atrophied understanding of women’s roles, I think alongside that, we’re also dealing with no theology for change. So once you open your eyes and realize that things are broken, we still are like, Oh man, things are broken. We are like, Oh no, what do we do?

JEN: I guess let’s just keep moving forward in the same way we always did. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

MISSIE: Wow, okay. So you and I have a similar life stage, my kids are older, out of home- well not all of them, but in college, and I think back to those years where you were writing, teaching, traveling, working with the church, you had these children and you have this marriage and one of the things you did say was that your husband was very present, but how did you balance that? I’m still gonna do all these things and be excellent, but I still want to be an excellent wife and an excellent mom, and I wanna make sure my marriage is staying fresh, and I want my husband to be okay with the fact that I’m running around the streets, not because… So that he knows that I haven’t just made this commitment to him as a wife, like tertiary, I still honor this commitment I’ve made.

JEN: Yeah, well, like I said, he was saying, You need to go do the thing that you do. He was not saying, Why are you leaving on the weekends? And honestly, when the kids were little, it wasn’t like I was traveling and speaking like I am now. I thank God, frankly, that I didn’t have any platform of any size until my kids were older, not because I don’t think you can do it. I’m just thankful I wasn’t asked to, frankly, ’cause I don’t know. I was the money and power girl, so who knows if I would have handled that well. The Lord, I think the Lord let me get the stuffing beat out of me before He gave me a platform where I could screw it up, frankly. Which is not to say that I don’t have to be careful even now, but… Yeah, so Jeff was always saying, Hey, I’ve got the kids, I can do this. And they enjoyed it, they thought it was fun when I was gone. The girls had crazy hair, ’cause he didn’t know how to fix her hair, and they ate horrible things. They would always go- They would go to Wings and More every time I would leave town and I’m like, You are poisoning my babies. With hot wings! Gross. And then I knew what they would do is they knew when I was gonna be home, and they would wait until 30 minutes before I got there, and then they would run around and clean up the whole house. So I have no idea what had transpired, but it was fun. They thought it was fun, and the kids are super close with Jeff. They got a lot of good time with him and then on Tuesday nights… 

So honestly, my prep time for teaching was happening at nap time at night time, because you know how it is when the kids are there, you’re all in. You’re focused on what they’re doing. So for the most part, it was nap time and night time, and then as they got older and they’re doing homework or whatever, obviously I could be doing my work side by side when you’re not in that stage where just trying to keep people alive anymore. Right. Yeah, but that’s kind of how it fleshed out, but frankly, I don’t have hobbies. This is my thing. So none of the kids have a scrap book… Sorry, kids! There are a lot of things I said no to because I said yes to this. But that’s the nature of all of us when it comes to finding or calling and pursuing it.

COURTNEY: That’s great. So you mentioned Jen, about how we really have a problem with the idea of dual callings as women, and so part of the reason I even started Women & Work was because of that. I was in a very narrow one-track lane of what I thought womanhood was and then the Lord really opened my eyes to, Oh my goodness, no, you can actually pursue things. Even though of course, I value motherhood and all of that, He’s called me to other things as well, so I’m just wondering… I felt like I grew up with hearing subtle tones of that, but really embraced it because I thought: This is how you please the Lord as a woman. And I wanted to please the Lord, but then you have some other popular voices that have been very explicit saying no, women here will not- should not work outside of the home. And so it’s very poignant. It’s just right there in your face like, No, this is not the way what the Lord would have for you. And I’m just wondering in your perspective, culturally. Like, how did we get here? And how did we get here? And women are confused, and then we hear verses like Titus 2:4-5, that we train these young women to love their husbands and their children and to be working at home, and how does all that play together? And then you’re just throwing complementarianism, which we is one of our values here at Women and Work.

JEN: So yeah, goodness, I know that’s a lot of time on at you there, but yeah, we’ll just sort all that out now in the next 30 seconds.

So that was me. I had Matt, and I left a high paying [job]. It was my path, money and power, and I left it convictionally, and I felt very strongly that I had made the one right choice. I remember thinking if these women would just get rid of their cable bill or stopped taking things to the dry cleaners, then they could stay at home too. Which was ironic because I knew that wasn’t true based on my own upbringing, but combined with that was the memory that my mom had only ever wanted to stay at home with her kids. That was all she ever wanted, and her sorrow when she had to go back to work as an economic necessity. But so much of my view on being a stay-at-home mom, I was not aware, was related to socio-economic realities that were not everyones. And I should have known better, but again, 23-year-old me was not thinking in some of the same channels that an older version of myself was.

So the problem, I think with that idea is that it communicates that selfishness is not a problem for the stay-at-home mom… Right, which is ludicrous, right? And so I remember thinking, I will leave selfishness in my briefcase and go home, and then I found out selfishness lived in my diaper bag. And so it’s a major over-simplification to say that our physical location, rectifies our spiritual location. That is not true. And for many women, it is not even possible for them to stay home with their children, and so we heap burdens upon them when we trumpet that. And my church was the same way. 10 years ago, 10 years ago, if a woman on staff got pregnant, the expectation was that she would stay at home. It wasn’t like a policy or anything like that, but everyone would be like, Oh well, okay, I guess you won’t be working here anymore, and 10 years ago, if a man on staff got promoted, everyone thought, Well, now his wife can stay at home if he wasn’t making enough money before. That really was in our ecosystem. And praise God, that’s not where we are now. At all. We have committed to being a place that can employ women no matter what their stage of life is, that if they choose to opt out, that’s one thing, but we will not set things up such a way that they have to opt out because we’ve made it so hard for them to stay employed. We want them to know your job is here for you, and we will make this as easy as possible for you, not as hard as possible.

0:20:37.6 MISSIE: It’s amazing that that is recent as only 10 years ago.

COURTNEY: Exactly what I was thinking.

MISSIE: So I’m in working in this space where we have employees- people who are working here who are still at churches where they’re still thinking that way. We have students coming in who are on both ends that spectrum because we’re seeing this 10-year kind of switch for all of us. Can you give us… What would you say this is a biblical vision for women and work, considering the creation mandate in considering… We all have theological differences and definitions. I have heard you walk through some of these things before, and If you were to- Obviously, this is overly simplified, I understand. But if you were to give, this is a biblical vision for women and their work, how would you say that?

JEN: Well, if you look at Genesis and the story that’s told in chapter one and two, there are bigger concerns there than just husband, wife relationships. We’re talking about male-female relationships, although I would argue that the main point of Genesis 1-2 is not that… Obviously, the main point of Genesis 1-2 is that God, God speaks everything in to being and that he brings order out of chaos. So those are the main takeaways, but then if you start looking at what specifically is happening with those he creates in his image, it is not good for the man to be alone. The image of God is not represented strictly in the male embodied experience, it is also shown in the female embodied experience of the world, and not only that, but in a very literal sense in Genesis chapter two, the command to be fruitful and multiply cannot go forward unless there is a woman, right? Like he doesn’t create an elder board as his second move for Adam- He creates the woman because you need men and women for fruitfulness to occur in a literal sense. [0:23:10.6] ____ But if you look forward to the new testament and where the great commission is given, it’s given in the same language as the cultural mandate to be fruitful and multiply. But the implication is that a spiritual truth is what is being spoken of the fruitfulness and multiplication is the charge of the church to go and make image bearers baptizing them into the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. So we would be foolish to assume that the primary work of that is reserved only for male image bearers. The fruitfulness of multiplication, it is not good for the man to be alone in a spiritual sense, as it was not good for him to be alone in a physical sense back in the garden. And so the work of the Church is manifestly the work of both men and women. Now, because our physiological state of being is telling us something that is true about the universe, we know that our roles are not interchangeable, which brings us back to a complementarian understanding of things. Although I would argue that complimentary and thought is a spectrum, not a dot on the line.

MISSIE: I agree.

JEN: So when we look at what it means for us to partner in the work of the church, at my church at least, we learned some painful lessons about it not being good for the man to be alone. When our decision-making rooms were populated entirely by men, we were driven often more by processes, by concern for processes than a concern for people. And it was costly, it was costly in particular to a lot of the women who were at my church, and so we had a very public and painful care case that went wrong back about… Gosh, I blocked out the day, but seven or eight years ago, which was a turning point for us. It was a turning point.

MISSIE: I’m often wondering, how did we get here? Like how did we get to the point that womanhood, particularly in the space that is supposed to… That honors the Imago Dei, and it’s supposed to be seeing all things as glorious. How do we get to this point? For example, the idea that when you talk to women as leaders in the Bible, we can downplay them as like “Well she’s only a leader because a guy couldn’t do it.” Or the guy failed- she’s not supposed to be leading- don’t use her as an example. You know what I’m saying? I’m always [like] How did we get here and what do we do with that?

JEN: Well, you know, probably about 20 years ago, maybe more like 30 years ago, there was a growing concern in the church about the threat of third-wave feminism to the way that we understand male-female relationships. And so third wave feminism became our buggaboo- it’s our F-word right? And so it’s like, look over to your left. Do you see that? We don’t want that, that’s very dangerous and very bad, so therefore, in order to avoid that thing that’s over there on the left, we are going to air on the side of caution at every decision point. But it’s important to know that If you err on the side of caution, you consistently air and you only air consistently in one direction, so it’s no surprise that we find ourselves now in many complementarian spaces where we actually have had a dangerous drift. Now, I know some people think this is not an actual statement- too far to the right… Okay, in other words, if you only perceive one slippery slope and it’s on the left, guess where you’re gonna get sucker punched from? The right. 

Yeah, so we have actually begun to guard and protect things that don’t need us to guard and protect them out of an over-abundance of caution. And so this is the big tension right now within complementarian communities is, can I call myself a complementarian and can someone in a more conservative space called themselves a complementarian-and can we both be right about it? Or do I have to be labeled as a secret feminist for advocating for the equal value and dignity of women in a way that translates into the way they serve within the body of believers. And again, just to be clear, I’m not saying women can or should be pastors/elders, I have never said that. I do not have a secret desire to preach on Sunday at The Village church. Matt Chandler is not keeping me in a box. We love each other, we are friends, and we want the best for each other, and so… But I think there’s this idea that, first of all, if you have a marriage like mine, my husband must be weak and I’m usurping his ability. And if you have a role like mine in the local church, then my leadership must be weak and I’m usurping authority there. The idea that a woman might actually have appropriate gifting for an appropriate role and be deployed by that in a loving space in her church or in her home is seen to many as, Oh, you’re sliding toward progressivism. Which is silly.

MISSIE: I do think there is a challenge for men in spaces like this who are married to women who are leaders naturally, because the challenge is not to let us lead more, but how to deal with the perception of themselves because we do lead.

JEN: I’m so grateful that Jeff is such a… He honestly is a humble guy, he doesn’t care. I’ll say “Hon, people think that you’re think… They gotta think you’re like a weak dude”, and he’s like, “I don’t care what they think.”

COURTNEY: Is he in ministry Jen or does he Work in some other field?

JEN: He has had a career in IT consulting, and he went to work for a non-profit about a year and a half ago. So he’s loving the non-profit world at this point.

COURTNEY: Hitting back on some of what you’re talking about here. Going back to what I felt like were subtle cues to me as a young woman growing up in conservative churches, you constantly… I constantly felt like I heard the message of wives submit to their husbands. You hear these things, women can’t do this or that. I’ve really, very rarely- I mean, when I say rarely- never, maybe? Never heard messages about the equality of the genders. And in your study of Genesis, I love how you shared how men and women, male and female are more alike than we’re different. And that was so freeing to me when I studied that because I feel like we’ve just been pitted against one another, and now the women are having a hard time, just like you’re saying. We feel like, Well, if we have a gift of leadership somewhere in there, first it’s never been encouraged. And I feel like there are probably women listening to this and they’ve never really been given a vision for… No, wait. This is your brother. We are equals. There are certain functions and roles that God has set in place in the Bible, but I don’t know, I would love for you to somehow encourage women that God can propel you forward in things maybe you haven’t thought of, you know…

JEN: Yeah, well, the church is the family of God. It’s meant to be the true and better family. And that means that we should regard one another not as sexual temptations or as someone who’s going to execute a power play against us, that instead we should regard each other as brothers and sisters. And we should regard older men and women as mothers and fathers in a beautiful sense, in the best sense of that relationship. And within the society at large, the message is men are from Mars, Women Are From Venus. What’s fascinating to me is the idea that we’re adversarial is actually a message that’s come from the outside in, or it’s been a problem that is symptomatic of many churches where they’re functional Bible starts in Genesis 3 instead of in Genesis 1. I’m borrowing that from Andy Crouch, if you thought that was profound. It starts in Genesis 3 and it ends in Revelation 20. It’s this idea where we forget to say, Okay, right, this is what it’s like right now, but what should it have been like, and what will it be like one day? And then as those who live praying: May it be on earth as it is in heaven, then how should I inhabit this space, this life? And it would be striving to live out the one and others in the New Testament.

And so I don’t mean to be dismissive of the conversations that have been had about headship and authority, but I do mean to raise my hand and say, Are we placing the empPHAsis on the wrong syllABle? Out of a fear and protective means to, again, air on the side of caution in every turn. And I think many women have only heard authority-submission talk to the point that it grieves me. I’ll just say this, it grieves me when someone posts about their anniversary and says, “I’m so thankful for this man, he leads our family so well.” I wanna say, Why did you choose lead instead of love? And why can’t you just say Love? But it’s that messaging where there’s a… I would say there’s a social reward for choosing one word over the other. You’re signaling that you’re a good complementarian woman, but in my mind, I’m like, Is she okay? Like the blink twice if you need help. Which is… That’s not fair either. Right, that’s not fair either. A lot of people are just, they’re using the language that has been provided to them.

MISSIE: That they’ve learned… Yes, yeah, yeah.

JEN: Yeah yeah Yeah. So please hear that in a spirit of humor. But it’s a real pickle, and then the pickle is even bigger because even if a woman, or let’s say a couple, begins to realize, oh gosh, I don’t… I think maybe I have over-emphasized one the authority-submission conversation over the one-another conversation, even if they commit to rectify that within their own home, they really don’t have a ton of control over how it looks in their local church. [0:32:42.7] ____ And so the local church can be a very painful place for women who understand that they’re treated actually with respect in the workplace, can volunteer roles they hold in their children’s school or in their community, and that the place where they are not treated as equal image bearers oftentimes is the place that should do so first and foremost. And it’s a local church, so it can require a great deal of forbearance and patience.

MISSIE: That is an incredible point that you made, that often we can go to work and feel very respected and very needed, and it can be like- I’m not even talking about being the lawyer or the CEO. It can be working- I worked in an insurance company and because I knew my stuff, they knew to come to me. So it felt great to go to a space where someone acknowledged me knowing something and could contribute. So it is interesting to go to church where your family is, and to almost be… I have never been told explicitly “don’t use your gift”- I praise God, I’ve never been in that space, but there is often this, but let somebody point it out and then let somebody lead you to it and let somebody give you a job and let somebody… Don’t feel the freedom to run hard in the thing that God has made you to be. And what has also been an interesting experience, Courtney, when you said that you had never heard a sermon on this, I remember reading a book recently about Eve, and it was a version of Eve I had never experienced. She was a woman with emotions and feelings and she did things right in her life…

COURTNEY: Wow-Never heard that.

MISSIE: So mind numbing to hear that- like what? !

COURTNEY: Right- poor Eve. She gets such a bad rap.

MISSIE: Yeah so the question in that Jen is, Can you give advice to women who are looking for opportunities to use their gifts in their local church or in their… Maybe even parachurch, how do they do that? How do they do that not being obviously over the top with discouragement or emotion, all those other things, but how do you find that balance of, I just wanna come in and tell my pastor: This is what I can do.

JEN: I think you gotta keep putting yourself out there. I think you have to remain open-hearted, but also realistic, right? And so you can go in and say, Hey, these are the skills that I have. Here is where I have a demonstrated track record of these things being useful, I would love to use them in the life of our church in a way that’s helpful. And I would be very specific. I think I can help you here, here and here, don’t say “I want to help in whatever way you think”, because that’s too vague. And they need to be like, Oh gosh, that is a need. And I haven’t been able to find someone to do that, so let’s give her a shot. Never underestimate the role desperation plays in you getting your foot in the door. I think just going to say, Hey, I just want… This is something that I’ve done elsewhere, and I would love to use my gifts here in the local church in these specific ways and then… But really more than going and having a meeting with someone, honestly, get on the ground volunteering somewhere and demonstrate what your gifting is. Let your actions speak louder than your words and find a way to make yourself indispensable.

COURTNEY: There you go.

JEN: And then when an opportunity comes up, you have much more of a basis for saying, “Hey, I’d love to step into this.” You may not even have to ask because they will… And I’m amazed at how often when there’s a legitimate need, it becomes way more pragmatic than philosophical, and so they’re going to get to do something, and I actually think that’s healthy. So please don’t hear that. I’m not saying toss your theology out the window. I’m saying you come to understand your theology from a healthier vantage point when the rubber hits the road. I do think you have to prepare your heart to be rebuffed and… And don’t be super crushed by that. Understand that that’s probably what you should have expected to happen, and then you know what, put yourself out there again in six months or a year, but I do think it’s important to keep taking the temperature of it in your local church and asking: Is it getting better or is it getting worse? Every three months or so, have that conversation. If you’re a single woman, have that conversation with yourself or with some other women who you know in the church, or whoever, men and women who you’re in community with. If you’re married, have it with your spouse. Ask the question, Is this getting better or is this getting worse now after three months? That doesn’t mean you cut bait, you say, okay, three months again, we’re gonna check in, we’re gonna see what’s the trajectory here? Is getting better, is it getting worse? And then you gotta make an informed decision on that. The reality of most of us is that we don’t have 45 local churches to pick between that we wanna be a part of. There’s usually one or two churches in your area where you could see yourself… And so we do tend to be committed to staying the course in the church that we’re in, but we can feel like maybe we’re enablers or maybe were sell-outs, and I would just urge you that if the Lord has placed you there, you may influence it either by your ability to serve within the church or by other means.

MISSIE: And you know one of those means can be prayer, really just devoting ourselves to “Lord, I can’t change the heart of the King but you can.”

JEN: Yeah, absolutely. I do think it’s telling how many women who are Christian leaders are involved in parachurch organizations. I think that says something about access points in the local church and that kind of breaks my heart. I think it’s also telling how many women are, single women in particular, are involved in overseas missions. I don’t even wanna contemplate what that says about the ease of serving the local church versus serving across the ocean.

COURTNEY: Well, shifting gears a little bit, Jen, thank you for all of that wonderful commentary it was very good, but I wanna shift gears. A lot of women who I… Who listen to the podcast, who love women and work, they love what they do. They are hustlers, they work hard, they are all in with the calling God is placed on their lives, and so for a lot of us, there is the temptation to really make our work and our calling an idol in our lives. We can easily easily become enslaved to it because maybe we love it and we just… What do you think it says about us that we do make our callings an idol? And how can… I mean it says something about us, right? But how can we move away from that and really love the Lord with all our heart, seek Him first, and then all these other things will come into play.

JEN: Yeah, I think that sometimes there’s a misunderstanding that we have to stop doing our work to be able to have it stop being an idol. And once again, this is not an issue of what our hands are doing, it’s an issue where hearts are. So I actually, with the whole stay-at-home mom gig, I know a lot of moms- really with being a mom in general- mommy guilt is tied up in all of this of like, I have to do this with every single bit of me, and therefore… Do I worship my kid?

COURTNEY: Right.

JEN: Well, I don’t know whether you worship your kids or not, that’s a question you have to ask yourself, because externally, a mom who is investing a ton of time in her kids may either be doing it because she loves the Lord, and it’s an expression of her love for the Lord or because she wants power like me. I would say money and power, but that gig doesn’t pay very well.

MISSIE: It doesn’t pay well at all.

JEN: But it does pay in certain ways. If you’re investing all of your energy and being a mom because you need something from your kids, yikes. But if you’re investing all of your time in it because you need… You’re seeking the Lord’s approval and His commendation, then knock yourself out! So I think the idea that we have to stop doing the job in order to fix the heart problem may be overly simplistic, and the idea that someone who is throwing heart and soul into a vocation has an idol may not be true, right? We don’t know people’s hearts, but I know my heart, right? You know your heart. And so we have to be about the business of asking, What is my motive for laboring? Am I laboring as unto the Lord, or am I laboring to self-elevate?

COURTNEY: Right.

MISSIE: That is a soapbox. We could have that conversation because I do think that we give people credit for things just by decisions they’ve made, but we do not know why people do them. And so not everybody is a stay-at-home mom because they’re excited about it, and not everybody’s at work because they hate being a mom… Right? So Courtney did a smart thing, she reached out to some of our listeners and she asked them for some questions, and that opens the flood gates.

JEN: This feels safe.

MISSIE: Right! One of the questions that came in, I thought was a good one. How do you handle criticism? How do you handle people’s external criticism of you personally, whether it’s people just taking ridiculous jabs, “I don’t like your hair cut this week” or “why do you have on those shoes” or even jabbing your marriage or your theology and all those things. How do you handle that kind of criticism as a person who’s public and people can constantly have the opportunity to throw things at you?

JEN: Yeah, the people who know me and love me the most are my truth tellers-the end. And so it doesn’t mean that I don’t pay attention to patterns, like if there’s something that keeps coming up, I’m gonna pay attention to that. I’m gonna ask, have I messaged something in a way that I could message it better? But I really think that the Lord has put me in a space that is good for my soul in the critique… The constant critique that I receive. Because my kryptonite is not, Do you like me or not, that’s not… That’s not an issue for me, and this probably relates to whatever that secret enneagram number is. So I’m not concerned about whether you like me or not- I like to be liked, don’t get me wrong. I’m concerned about whether you understood me or not. Because I’m a communicator, so when people misrepresent what I’ve said or misconstrue what I have said, or use what I’ve said- twist it and make a mockery of me, that is what’s hard for me. Because I wanna say, “That’s not what I said.” You’re telling a lie. And I straight up. It’s reviling, right? It’s breaking a commandment- its bearings witness against your neighbor. But I have to not let it get in my head. And so my husband is really great about saying, “Hey, you didn’t go out and look at that stuff again, did you?” And I’m like “Nope, sure, didn’t.” And he’s really good about giving me a level of accountability. Then if things are blowing up, if I’m aware, you always know, ’cause people will start to text you, “I’m praying for you today” and you’re like… Mm interesting, why? I’m not saying… Go ahead everybody and text me that- that’s awesome. But I’m like, uh-oh hey Jeff, can you go Google Jen Wilkin and see what comes up? And then he can filter it for me because honestly, you can’t have that in your head, you can’t… You can’t have it in your head, you just can’t…

COURTNEY: So you just don’t spend time on some of these things that are untrue about you, you just have to… You can’t look at it.

JEN: Well, the goal of all of it is to silence you or cancel you or whatever. I remember I had- my boss before I quit, which this is ironic- but before I quit to stay home with Matt, he said, the real secret is success in your career, it’s just longevity. Just stay. And so that’s what I just try to do- is just stay. And then I pray that over the course of a couple of decades, whether I was worth listening to or not, will play itself out.

MISSIE: Amen. Very true.

COURTNEY: That’s good.

MISSIE: I think one of the most beautiful things you said was, You have truth tellers. We can’t operate without community and we don’t need “yes” men. We don’t need the people who just love us and tell us everything is great, but having those people around us to be like, I mean, that probably was a bad haircut- she didn’t need to tell you.

JEN: [laughter] That’s right, you knew it in your soul before she said it.

JEN: I mean, honestly, I have been… The Lord has given me so much relational wholeness in my immediate family, which is just a massive, massive gift that not everyone gets. And it’s a huge offer for me, I think it helps me… My difficult relationship, my difficult marriage is not to Jeff, my difficult marriage has been to the local church many times. Not now- currently, the local church and I have gone through marriage therapy and are doing great. But there have been some years. And so I do think that’s another thing that at least in my situation, helps me to just keep going. The people who I know love me the most, they don’t believe those things are true about me.

COURTNEY: Alright, well, as we wrap up, Jen, this is a question we like to ask everyone who comes on as we close, what is just one last piece of advice or warning or encouragement that you would wanna leave with women who want to honor God with their vocational calling? One last thing.

JEN: Yeah, the Lord cares more about this issue than you do… He does, the Lord cares more about dignifying women’s vocation than you do. And so all of the swirling around inside of you that you feel when the work you’re doing is called into question, or when even you yourself are feeling all of the internal turmoil around it for whatever reason, just know that the Lord is more invested in this conversation that you will ever be. And ask Him for wisdom. It’s the unequivocal promise that we receive in the Scriptures, it’s the name it and claim it promise in James. “And if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask!” The problem with wisdom is it’s something you have to apply -so it’s not like He just tells you what to do, but you begin to grow in discernment by looking around and saying, Okay, if I do this, this is gonna happen, if I do that- that’s gonna happen. And then you understand you can trust the Lord with the outcomes of any decision that you make, and so then you just rest in the fear of the Lord, you rest in the right reverence and awe of the Lord and make your decisions from that framework, and you’re walking the path of wisdom. He does give it to us. So just know He’s more concerned with your sanctification than you are, whether that means that you’re working outside the home, whether you’re a stay at home mom- He’s committed to conforming you to the image of Christ by whatever means. And you can exhale a little bit knowing that…

COURTNEY: That’s good. That’s so good, it’s wonderful. Well, thank. Thank you.

JEN: Guys, we need to hang out, so this was not a hang time.

MISSIE: I know and I have a million things we need to chat about. Thank you for joining us and for sharing wisdom with us.

JEN: Thanks for the work you guys are doing here on the podcast. Grateful for you both.

.CONCLUSION

MISSIE: And thanks to our listeners for joining us today. Be sure to check out our website at women work.net for today’s show notes. There will be more information about today’s conversation there.

COURTNEY: While you’re there, take a look at the Women and Work podcast discussion questions. We’ve provided those so that you can lead your friends from work, your neighborhood, or your church into useful conversations that will encourage you as you take  *your* next step of faith into your calling. 

MISSIE: If you enjoyed today’s show and don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe in Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We’d also love for you to take a minute to rate and review our show so more listeners can find us.  

COURTNEY: And with that, we hope you’ve been inspired to more confidently step into your God-given calling and view your work as meaningful to the Kingdom of God. 

See you next time!