Evening Prayer: Women and Church Leadership

Gracious God, let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, as Paul urged the church at Colossae — that same church where Nympha opened her home so the gospel could take root in living rooms before it ever filled cathedrals.

Tonight I think of Phoebe, carrying Paul's letter to Rome in her hands — the entire epistle entrusted to a woman's faithfulness. I think of Junia, whom Paul called "outstanding among the apostles," and of Priscilla, who took Apollos aside and taught him the fuller way of Jesus. These were not exceptions, Lord. They were the pattern you were weaving from the beginning, when you chose women as the first witnesses of the empty tomb — the first preachers of the resurrection in a world that would not accept a woman's testimony in court.

The Anglican tradition has wrestled honestly with this inheritance. We have not always listened well. But your Spirit has been patient with us, drawing us back to Colossians 3:15 — back to the peace that judges rightly, the peace that refuses to let half your children sit silent when they have been given voices forged in fire and tenderness alike.

So form us, Lord, into the kind of community where every gift you have distributed finds its proper place at the table. Where leadership flows not from privilege but from calling. Where the Body of Christ is finally, fully, itself.