a "too soft" church?

I opened up this article today:  Prof says boys raised to be 'too soft' will be ineffective men.  I have so many problems with this, I don't even know where to begin.

Why do I read these things?  Really, why?  When I know it's just going to make me mad.  But most of the news makes me mad or sad.  I have to put myself on a news hiatus occasionally just to keep from going mad.  But I don't want to be uninformed, either.  I want to be a good global citizen, though it seems like that should entail more than shaking my head.  And I want to be an informed Christian citizen, though it seems like that should entail more than shaking my fists.

And it does.  I read other things about church leaders, too.  Things which are encouraging and hopeful.  For a long while, I stopped paying much attention to Baptist politics, particularly SBC politics since that just wasn't part of my world anymore (thankfully).  But now that I'm a secretary at an SBC church, I find it more difficult to ignore it all.  Though I genuinely like the people I work with for, I struggle with staying in my place.  This church is not my church.  It's just my workplace.  It's not my job to determine direction or enact ideas or dream about the future here.  But I struggle with always being on the outside of these conversations, when for so many years my dream was to be a minister myself. 

And so when I read articles like the above (from an SBC leader), I want to scream, "What world are you talking about?"  In what way are your SBC churches becoming too soft and feminized?  Because when I look at this church where I work, and frankly, when I look at most so-called moderate churches, I see men.  Lots and lots of men.  Yes, women often do much of the work behind the scenes.  But up front on Sunday morning - it's mostly men.  And when I see secular media reports about what religious leaders are doing/saying, again, it's almost all men.  And there's plenty of war-like talk (in the article, one of his assertions is that we need to bring back war imagery ?!? ).  Do we really need more macho posturing?  How is that like Jesus? 

There are lots of individual points I would like to pick apart in that article, but ranting is not supposed to be the point of this blog :).  Instead, I will look to yesterday, when I had a lovely lunch with a woman pastor in my town.  And I will look to my previous job, where I worked with a great friend who is also a woman pastor.  And I will look to my friends around the country who serve the church in many varied ways.  And I will look to the many blogs and books I read, written by ministers (men and women) who do not subscribe to the idea that women should be weak.  I will look to the women and men who give me hope for the future, hope for a time when being a woman isn't detrimental to a church vocational calling.  And hope for a time when men who are kind and generous and open are not considered weak.  This is the world I dream about for my children.  This is the world I dream about for myself. 

But for now, I will be quiet at work and look for other opportunities to speak and serve.  What will those opportunities be?  Right now, I have no idea.  I feel like I'm in a holding pattern, waiting for some kind of direction.  Am I being pro-active enough in this?  I'm not sure.  I'm really not sure.  But in the uncertainty, I will strive to be faithful to who I am created to be one day at a time.   And I will strive to be hopeful rather than just critical, remembering the good and the bright and the life-giving.