The Pentecostals have always had more open policies towards women. You have to be careful, though, to differentiate between ordination to the pastorate, and ordination to a specific calling that is not the pastorate. In Evangelical Protestant churches of all denominations, there is usually a “Senior Pastor” who is “in charge” of everything that happens in the church–the “head shepherd,” and there are many “Associate Pastors” serving under his leadership. Often, these “associate pastors” are not ordained, but have training and education appropriate for their very specific duties in the church.
True that. In general, most Pentecostal senior pastors and even senior denominational officials are men. However, being “ordained” by a denomination is a different thing from being hired to “pastor” or “shepherd” a congregation. There are many Pentecostal ministers who are licensed and ordained ministers and are thus qualified to pastor a church who nevertheless are not pastors of a church. Some ordained ministers are teachers in Bible colleges and seminaries and others are officially recognized evangelists or missionaries. Whether or not they pastor a church, however, they have been ordained to the ministry and gone through the same process as pastors have. They are all ordained but some are not shepherding a church.
I think everyone needs to keep that in mind. In evangelical churches, “ordained minister” is not synonymous with “pastor.” An ordained minister could be an evangelist or a teacher or both pastor-teacher-evangelist. Billy Graham, for example, is an ordained minister who has been both a full time pastor and a full time evangelist at different stages of his ministry.
Other examples of “pastors” who are not ordained would be “Outreach Pastor,” “Children’s Pastor,” Women’s Pastor," “Business Pastor,” “Youth Pastor,” “Senior Citizen’s Pastor,” “Christian Education Pastor,” “Missions Pastor,” etc.
Sometimes these people are ordained by their denominations, but often they are not. They usually have a degree from a Christian college that is associated with their denomination (or closely related in beliefs), and they are trained in the specific needs of their ministry. E.g., youth pastors have extensive training and education in the needs of teenagers.
Yes, our current youth pastor is actually an ordained minister. But our old youth pastor was the pastor’s wife, whose sole qualification was that she was passionate about youth.
Another thing. In many churches, the pastor will “co-pastor” with his wife, even though she is not ordained nor was she elected or called to be pastor. The idea being that the husband and wife are a unit and that she shares in his ministry.
A visiting evangelist made some waves years ago when he told our church that we HAD to address the pastor’s wife as “Pastor so and so.” Some people got mad, not because they doubted that the lady in question could co-pastor with her husband but that the VISITING evangelist commanded us to give her a courtesy title.
Again, there are always exceptions, but my husband and I (he grew up in the Assemblies of God denomination) have yet to see any Senior Pastor in any Pentecostal church.
There have been notable exceptions. Aimee Semple McPherson pastored a mega-church in Los Angeles in the 1930s. She left the AG and started the Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Another name that readily comes to mind is Maria Woodworth-Etter. She was an evangelist who eventually planted a church that is today affiliated with the Assemblies of God.
It’s possible that the African American Pentecostal churches might have women who are Senior Pastors or Senior Elders. ??
It depends. There was an African-American Pentecostal denomination that was founded by a woman specifically because larger denominations like the Church of God in Christ only wanted women to be used in evangelism, missions and charity work.
I believe (but could be wrong) the Church of God in Christ still does not allow women to pastor churches, but they still do a lot of “ministry” under different labels.
