Carolyn Custis James

“God never envisioned a world where his image bearers would do life in low gear or be encouraged to hold back, especially when suffering is rampant, people are lost, and there is so much kingdom work to do. He wants his daughters to thrive, mature, gain wisdom, hone their gifts, and contribute to his vast purposes in our world. We should be the first to celebrate the news that doors of education and opportunity are opening to young girls who are emerging as leaders and who are blessing their communities and improving national economies. Isn’t this at least part of what it means for God’s will to be done on earth?”

 
“Professional ambition is expected of men but is optional—or worse, sometimes even a negative—for women.”

We’re about to dive into chapter 1 in a series of online discussions through Sheryl Sandberg’s bestseller, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead—an especially relevant topic for Christian women in the workplace.

If you don’t yet have a copy, forget the public library. A friend emailed me yesterday to say, “I reserved Lean In at the library, but I’m 159th in line. And they have lots of copies!!”

Did I say “bestseller”?

So here goes … and please feel free to join in!

Sandberg’s Take

The subject of ambition sits squarely on the table in the opening chapter of Lean In, where Sandberg notes a disappointing trend in the low numbers of women compared to men who are reaching the highest leadership levels in the workplace. The culprit, as she sees it, is not the lack of opportunity or women’s ability to lead, but is rather a “leadership ambition gap” between women and men.

“Ambition” is defined as a strong desire to achieve a particular goal—anything from good grades to losing weight to a leadership post. Sandberg doesn’t exactly offer a formal definition of ambition, but she observes that despite the fact that women are “earning about 57 percent of the undergraduate and 60 percent of the master’s degrees in the United States” leadership positions in business remain “overwhelmingly stocked with men.” (p.15).

And why is this? According to Sandberg, it is a lack of ambition in women.

She observes several reasons why women hold back instead of climbing the corporate ladder in significant numbers. There is the perception that ambition is not a virtue for women and is therefore inappropriate. Social pressures make marriage a more important goal for young women. The constant need to juggle personal and professional priorities diminishes the desire for advancement and more responsibility on the job. And girls are typically conditioned differently than boys.

In all of these, she sees fear as the root cause—“fear of not being liked … of making the wrong choice… of drawing negative attention … of overreaching … of being judged … of failure… of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.” (p.24)

At the 2011 Barnard College commencement, Sandberg sounded her mantra by calling female graduates to “lean way in to your career. . . . find something you love doing and you will do it with gusto. Find the right career for you and go all the way to the top.” (p.25)

My Take 

In her review, Rebecca Lyons pushed back on Sandberg.

“Ambition has a tendency to bend a good thing—bravery—into a selfish thing. And the world doesn’t need more selfish women. It needs more women who are empowered to use their talents to renew their workplaces, as well as their families, neighborhoods and communities. If we lean in to a corporate culture that insists we climb our way to the top, we will miss a greater call to bravery: to transforming our surroundings, instead of conforming to them.”

I’m all for more bravery. But I’m not willing to set aside ambition so easily. Displacing it with “bravery” or some other more palatable attribute plays right into the mentality that ambition is inappropriate for women—thinking that is unfortunately even more entrenched in Christian circles.

I think we need to tackle this issue head on.

Isn’t the problem that we are caught on the horns of a double standard—one definition of ambition for men and another for women? Men are criticized for “lacking ambition”; women are disparaged for having it.

Ambition for men means working for professional success as a benefit to them personally, to their organization, and to their family. Ambition for women is linked with a me-first selfishness, cut-throat aggression, a power-grab, a determined get-out-of-my way fight to the top no matter what it takes or who it takes out in the process—all at the expense of marriage, family, and femininity or, in Christian circles, godly womanhood.

But like many other attributes, ambition can be and is used for good or for ill by both men and women.

I grew up believing work for a woman was temporary—confined to single years and on the front end of marriage (before kids and/or whenever your husband finished his academic training). After that, home and family became a woman’s career. So I didn’t flinch when the role of breadwinner fell on me while Frank pursued his studies. I landed a great job as a hospital administrator’s secretary expecting to work there for three years max. I gave no thought to moving up until my game plan failed.

Four years in, I was bored with no end in sight. I hadn’t counted on Frank earning two doctorates. But then I was married to an ambitious man.

A conversation between us marked a turning point for me. I came into marriage with a recipe for how things were supposed to work. He came in with the expectation that we’d be a team—tackling life together, seeing where God was leading, and both of us doing whatever it took to move forward together—what I now call a Blessed Alliance.

In that conversation, I realized I was (and always had been) working for the wrong reason: because I “had to,” not because I was called to work. Big difference. I went back to work with a deeper sense of purpose and … as it turned out a newfound sense of ambition.

Subsequently, Frank bought me a book entitled Secretary to Manager that explained strategies for moving up. I was inspired and began looking for ways to do more with my job. The change in me eventually led to my appointment as Manager of Automated Office Systems for the hospital and ultimately to my own software development business.

I didn’t use the word “ambitious” in Half the Church, but what I wrote about being God’s image bearer applies.

“God … didn’t create a flat earth. God’s world has mountains that awaken in us the need to climb, to test our limits and find out firsthand what it’s like to stand atop a snowy peak. He created a world that is packed with endless treasure, raw material, and unexplored frontiers designed to stir up in us the artist, the scientist, the explorer-adventurer, the athlete, the mathematician, the botanist, the entrepreneur, and much more…. The world seemingly was waiting for God’s image bearers to put their creative powers to work—to create culture and civilization, the arts, sciences, and technology…. God has put within reach everything we need … to thrive and grow and develop the potential for which he created us.” (p.73-74)

And what about Jesus parable of the stewards and the talents (Matthew 25:12-30)? Does that apply to women?

So What’s Your Take?

Are you ambitious? Why or why not? Is ambition an asset or a liability for Christian women in the workplace? Does your church affirm that women have a “calling” in the same way men do or does it confine a women’s calling to home and family? Can a wife have a different “calling” than her husband’s “calling”?

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Lean in with your comments!

Next Wednesday, May 8: Chapter 2—Sit at the Table 

Previous Post …

• Lean In: Women, Work and the Church

When my copy of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead arrived, I couldn’t help noticing how much her cover resembles the cover to my Half the Church. My first thought was: “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” My second thought was: I hope the similarity will cause shoppers to mistake my book for hers.

As I started reading I noticed a genuine and intriguing connection between the subject matter of both books. Written to different audiences from completely different perspectives, still the overlap of issues is striking. Both books challenge women to take themselves seriously and to deal with internal obstacles that prevent us from bringing our full selves to the mission at hand and from engaging with the men in our lives.

As former U.S. Treasury Department chief of staff, Google vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations, and current Facebook COO, Sandberg’s speaks from an impressive wealth of experience. She’s married with two children, so also faces the challenges of juggling career and home. Christian women juggle too (although most of us do not enjoy her salary).

While acknowledging both the enormous blessings and continuing challenges for women in the workplace, her main concern is with what women do with the opportunities that are opening up to us. She notes that since the 80s women have been earning more college degrees than men, but laments the fact that those numbers aren’t reflected in the number of women in leadership.

“Today and in the United States and the developed world, women are better off than ever. . . . Despite these gains, the percentage of women at the top of corporate America has barely budged over the past decade. A meager twenty-one of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Women hold about 14 percent of executive officer positions, 17 percent of board seats, and constitute 18 percent of our elected congressional officials.” (p5) 

She points to ways women get in our own way as at least part of the problem and challenges women to lean in.

“We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives—the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our own expectations of what we can achieve. We continue to do the majority of the housework and child care. We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet. Compared to our male colleagues, fewer of us aspire to senior positions. This is not a list of things other women have done. I have made every mistake on this list. At times, I still do.”(p8) 

Having spent over half of my adult life in the business world (a bank systems writer, manager of automated office systems for a hospital, and ultimately with my own business as a software developer in the U.S. and England), I can relate to Sandberg’s concerns. Indeed, what I articulated in Half the Church throws open the door for us to explore how being God’s image bearer applies to our careers, what happens when the ezer enters the workplace, and how the Blessed Alliance shows up there.

Admittedly the situation can be more complex for Christian women. Skill sets required to succeed in our jobs are not qualities the church often encourages or values in women. This leads to an oddly schizophrenic existence—developing strengths, expertise, and leadership skills for our careers, then downsizing ourselves when we cross the threshold of the church. Inside, we’ll typically hear a lot about marriage, motherhood, ministry, and our devotional pursuits—concerns that matter deeply to us. But who’s talking about our careers, not merely as a means of putting bread on the table, but as significant efforts to fulfill our callings as God’s image bearers to rule and subdue and to live fruitful, productive, creative lives? What we do with 40+ hours of the week is not a sidebar to the “real” concerns of women’s lives.

Even diehard complementarian spokesmen John Piper and Wayne Grudem concede that in the public sphere a woman may well be in a position of authority and leadership over men. They write, “when it comes to all the thousands of occupations and professions, with their endlessly varied structures of management, God has chosen not to be specific about which roles men and women should fill.”

Furthermore, in today’s American church the career woman belongs to one of the most rapidly growing and habitually ignored demographics. Yet a huge segment of our lives—40+ hours a week for most of us—is disregarded in discussions about kingdom work. Just recently a Boston attorney expressed bewilderment over “the church’s ambivalence toward my professional life” and the need to leave her “educational pursuits and professional ambition at the [church] door.”

Conversation is needed (and I daresay a lot of men would value this too) to integrate our careers and professional lives into a holistic vision of how Christians live for God in a vast variety of callings. Sandberg affords us that opportunity. The intersection between our concerns and hers shows up right away. According to Sandberg, this isn’t just about women. She writes,

“The laws of economics and many studies of diversity tell us that if we tapped the entire pool of human resources and talent, our collective performance would improve” (p7). 

Sounds like the Blessed Alliance to me!

So beginning next week, I’m going to start blogging through Lean In, a chapter a week.

Wednesday, May 1: Chapter 1—”The Leadership Ambition Gap “

Pick up a copy of the book and let’s engage this discussion. No matter where you work or what you do, you’re welcome to participate. Even if you’re at the starting line contemplating a career and entering the workforce or thinking through these issues for someone you love, feel free to join in. One way or another, these issues touch all of our lives.

In the meantime, to give you a preview, here’s the TED talk that gave Sheryl the platform that eventually turned into a book:

These women are my heroes!

I’ve gone on so-called “moderate” hikes with them in Colorado. Obviously “moderate” is a relative term. But in anyone’s book, climbing to Mount Everest base camp is in a different category altogether.

But they did summit! and made the three-day return down the mountain. All safe, exhausted, and justifiably exhilarated.

“The same day that we summited, in Kathmandu, the newspaper reported that that day ten traffickers were arrested. The article listed the traffickers’ names, and the prayer team talked about how they wrote down those names and prayed over each individual who was arrested to break their chains because the same bondage that holds these children and women is the same bondage that the enemy, who holds these sick people in bondage, uses. So our prayer team reacted in love towards these people, in prayer for these people, and in intercession for these ten people that they would be delivered.”  

—Tina Yeager, Director, Freedom Climb USA

Check out their blog for more photos and details. Pretty amazing! http://thefreedomclimb.wordpress.com/

Well, actually not so new. Both Amy Simpson and Sarah Thebarge have been writing a lot of blogs and articles—enough to build up the kind of head of steam it takes to write that first book. Both of them have courageously tackled subjects that are not so easy to talk about. Amy writes about mental illness; Sarah about cancer. Both authors connect the dots between physical and/mental suffering and their own journey of faith.  These are not triumphalistic stories, but redemptive stories of of real hope in a God who is present and doing deep work in our darkest struggles and brokenness.

I met Amy for the first time at Synergy2007 in Orlando. Based on a couple of emails we’d exchanged before that, I already knew she was a kindred spirit. You may recognize her as the driving force behind Christianity Today’s Gifted for Leadership blog. What I didn’t know about Amy until later was how her whole family has struggled through her mother’s mental illness which Amy says “has presented the single greatest test to my personal faith.”

Her first book, Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission, opens a discussion about mental illness that couldn’t be more timely, yet sadly remains neglected within Christian circles even though mental illness is a reality among us. My copy just arrived, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

I don’t have to think twice about recommending this book.

“In Troubled Minds Amy Simpson opens the door into the hidden struggles of those caring for a mentally ill loved one. Between descriptions of her own real-life experiences she eloquently presents information that every Christian should have on how to recognize and appropriately respond to those living with mental illness. This book will prompt you (and your church) to action among a suffering people.”

—Matthew S. Stanford, Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience,
Baylor University

I first met Sarah Thebarge online when my niece sent me an email containing a link to Sarah’s blog—My Tropic of Cancer—followed by two words: “Read this!”

I did.

Later in Portland, Oregon, where I grew up and where Sarah resides, our paths crossed and we met face-to-face. 

The blog, which was the warm-up to Sarah’s new book, chronicled Sarah’s journey following her diagnosis at 27 with aggressive breast cancer and the life-altering battle that ensued to save her life that took her into Job territory. It’s hard to read Sarah’s vulnerably honest writing about her physical ordeal and her wrestlings with God and maintain a dry eye. I couldn’t. My eyes clouded over repeatedly as I read her blog.

Sarah’s refreshing and fearlessly honest writing reminds me a lot of Lauren Winner.

In The Invisible Girls Sarah weaves her own story with her life-changing encounter and friendship with a Somali refugee mother and her five young daughters. This is a book readers won’t want to put down.

Here’s my endorsement for The Invisible Girls:

“Sarah Thebarge’s story is a double gift because her raw, honest wrestlings with God free us to be honest with God ourselves and because her generous passion for The Invisible Girls reveals the healing that comes from pouring our broken selves out for others. I loved this wonderful book!”

—Carolyn Custis James 

Here’s hoping we’ll be hearing a lot more from these two gifted writers. To order their books go to:

Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission, 
The Invisible Girls: A Memoir

Freedom Climb Visionary, Cathey Anderson

This year’s Freedom Climb is tougher, if for no other reason than the cold. The climbers have taken a day for a scheduled rest to adjust to the altitude before moving forward.

If they were just doing this for themselves, they’d surely prefer the warmth and comfort of home. But their efforts are giving voice to the voiceless and freedom to the oppressed. That motivates them to keep going.

Here’s today’s update from Mount Everest:

“Since preparing to leave for the trail, the Freedom Climb has not been easy on the climbers. They were still able to climb despite falling ill right before their departure to Lukla, and the past few days have gone well and been encouraging. But there are still some on the team who are really struggling. Despite these struggles and things not going as planned, the team had a special moment today when they reflected on the reason they were climbing.”

“As we have started our journey with great difficulty, the Lord has prevailed, and we are heading up the mountain. And just as the children don’t oftentimes have a choice in what transpires in their lives when they’re born or what caste system they’re born into, God will be glorified. And in this climb, he will be glorified in helping to bring that freedom to them so that they will have those choices.”

For photos and to track their progress, go to http://thefreedomclimb.wordpress.com/

“My life is a witness to vulgar grace—a grace that amazes as it offends. A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wage as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party, no ifs, ands, or buts. A grace that raises bloodshot eyes to a dying thief’s request—‘Please, remember me’—and assures him, ‘You bet!’…This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us. It’s not cheap. It’s free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility. Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try and find something or someone that it cannot cover. Grace is enough…

Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that’s really worth following in this world or the one that’s coming. Some may be offended by this ragamuffin memoir, a tale told by quite possibly the repeat of all repeat prodigals. Some might even go so far as to call it ugly. But you see that doesn’t matter, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand…that yes, all is grace. It is enough. And it’s beautiful.”

Last year’s climb up Mount Kilimanjaro was a warm-up for this year’s Freedom Climb up to the Mount Everest Base Camp.

Today, 45 women from around the world are in Nepal, beginning their trek up Mount Everest. Their purpose?  To be a voice for the voiceless by raising awareness of the oppression, exploitation, and human trafficking of women and children and by raising funds for Operation Mobilization projects that address these issues. Last year they raised $300,000.

You can read more about each climber here.

Obviously this climb will take all the courage, stamina, and strength these ezer-warriors have to give. On Kilimanjaro they set Guinness World Records for the largest group attempting to summit and the highest percentage who succeeded. I met with some of them several times since  and heard stories about their experience—more precisely, their “ordeal.” What kept them going despite nausea, overwhelming fatigue, oxygen deprivation,and for some hallucinations was the fact that they weren’t doing this for themselves.

That’s something to ponder!

They will climb to Everest Base Camp (17,598’) and then summit Kalaphatar (18,192’). Their time in Nepal is from April 9-25, 2013—16 nights/17 days.

They’re asking for prayer. That’s the least we can do!

You can track their progress, here.

U.S. Freedom Climb Team

“The resurrection of Jesus means that the present time is shot through with great significance….Acts of justice and mercy, the creation of beauty and the celebration of truth, deeds of love and the creation of communities of kindness and forgiveness—these all matter, and they matter forever.  Take away the resurrection, and these things are important for the present but irrelevant for the future and hence not all that important after all even now. Enfolded in this vocation to build now, with gold, silver, and precious stones, the things that will last into God’s new age, is the vocation to holiness: to the fully human life, reflecting the image of God, that is made possible by Jesus’ victory on the cross and that is energized by the Spirit of the risen Jesus present within communities and persons.”

No matter how hard we try, it’s difficult to dislodge Mary of Nazareth from her traditional December spot on the calendar or from our fairy tale notions of the halo-crowned woman on Christmas cards. Even though the Protestant Reformers maintained a high view of Mary post-Reformation, their spiritual progeny haven’t fared as well. We’ve lost a lot because of our unease with and false impressions of the mother of Jesus when she deserves our admiration and has a lot to teach us.

It’s also difficult to dislodge the story of any woman in the Bible from being “just for women” when, contrary to such false perceptions, the Bible isn’t divided up into men’s and women’s sections. All of it is for all of us.

LOGOS has managed to do both in their new series Mary: Devoted to God’s Plan. Not only do they break Mary loose from traditional perceptions, seasonal restrictions, and holiday caricatures, they bring her forward into the present with surprising year-round relevance, re-establishing her as a wise mentor for both women and men on the journey with God.

The series covers the full sweep of Mary’s story—from the moment the angel’s news of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy shatters the teenage Mary’s expectations of a simple life with Joseph to her becoming one of the resurrected Jesus’ disciples waiting in Jerusalem for the coming of God’s Spirit. In between, the study tracks the relentless adjustments Mary must make as Jesus transitions from a child to a man bent on doing his Father’s will and into her unspeakable suffering at the foot of his cross.

Instead of the unflappable and serene maiden in the manger scenes with whom we find it hard to relate, we encounter a real human being who wrestles with God’s purposes and ponders to understand Jesus, just like we do. Yet, young, vulnerable, and alone as she is when God calls, she responds with a risk-it-all brand of faith that raises the bar for all of us. The series highlights how God’s plan conflicts with Mary’s and how she repeatedly embraces his purposes, despite the cost.

Isn’t that precisely the same struggle we all face?

The Mary study is designed for small groups or for sermons. It has everything you need to lead or follow the series. It comes with introductory videos to pique a viewer’s interest, first class power-point slides, and well-written study material. (In the interest of full disclosure, as well as a matter of enormous pride, my nephew Miles Custis co-authored this series.)

I was personally challenged and encouraged by this study.  Here’s my endorsement:

The study of Mary: Devoted to God’s Plan is not for the faint of heart. Take this study seriously—embrace the young teenager Mary as your role model—and you have embarked on a journey that requires courage and self-sacrifice and may mean standing alone. An unflinching determination to follow Jesus comes at a price, so proceed at your own risk. But know for certain that when kingdom issues are at stake, holding back will cost you more.