Egalitarian Church in Boise? Female Pastors? (yard, baptists, teaching)

[ManForBiblicalEquality]

Please help me if you can. Egalitarian means equality - regarding churches and theology, it means gender equality.

I'm trying to compile a list of churches in Boise that either teach biblical equality for men and women in leadership, or actually have women pastors. I don't mean churches that just have "Women's ministries" where the women can "teach other women", or be "Director of Children's ministries", or any other support role in the church. Those are great roles that are being done by many wonderful women, but I'm specifically asking which churches would teach my daughters that they can fulfill ANY calling God has given them - be it missions, teaching, family, work, or pastoring a church.

I'm sure there are a few. Please share your own experience or story along with the church you believe fits this egalitarian profile.

For more of an idea of what I'm talking about, check out the website for "Christians for Biblical Equality".

Thank!

[grmi66]

Just look at a list of mainline denominations and you will more than likely get your answer. But as someone who was involved in a mainline denomination, what I found is that while the denomination may have supported women as pastors, the network of churches in Idaho did not. So the American Baptists, Presbyterians & Lutherans at the national level recognize women as pastors, many churches within those denominations in Idaho do not.

Just off the top of my head the Methodists may be a good place to start. They are generally pretty liberal about such matters.

[ManForBiblicalEquality]

Thank you grmi66,

I realize that this issue often comes down to the local church level, which is why I asked. For example, the National Vineyard Church Organization has an egalitarian positional paper, but on the local level I know the Boise Vineyard pastor does not allow for women pastors.

I'll start looking into some of the Methodist churches. Thanks. Got any more?

[grmi66]

Not off the top of my head. Problem I ran into is that if you look for a church that treats women staff as equals or allows women to be pastors, chances are they are not too biblical or they are very liberal with their theology. There may be some out there that actually follow the Bible and treat women as equals, but I never found one in the Boise area.

[zedd]

I know that Southminster Presbyterian on Overland has a female pastor.

[ManForBiblicalEquality]

Thank you Zedd, I'll check them out.

Any others?

[ramenfan]

Not sure if this fits the bill, but this church is close to the downtown/North End area: First Congregational United Church of Christ