Episode 19: Emboldening Women Toward Jesus
An interview with Kat Armstrong
Kat emboldens us to not shrink back, diminish our voices, or resist the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Are you struggling with envy/jealousy? Kat shares how she personally combats those feelings & keeps showing up in the lane God has given her.
The Seeds
Name: Kat Armstrong
Age: 40
Where do you call home: Dallas, TX
Relationship Status: Married
Season of Work: Preacher & Author
Hobbies: Reading and Barre3
Interesting Facts: Love studying women in the bible & narrative criticism
Jesus Journey: A choir teacher and cheer coach shared the gospel with me at 16
The Branches
On the front page of your website you have the phrase, “ Emboldening Women to be all in for Jesus.” What does that phrase mean and how are you currently doing this?
I think emboldening women is about giving us permission to use the gifts God has given us in any way that might be of service to the body of Christ. So often women approach me with a concern that they should temper their enthusiasm for Jesus or worse, they negotiate away their gifts because they are not sure where it would be “okay” to serve. Sometimes that is about upsetting the norm, or stepping out in faith or doing something that has never been done. But most of the time, it is women just like you and me trying to faithfully serve Jesus and be on mission.
For a really, really, long time (and still in some Christian places & spaces) women are discouraged from preaching and teaching the word of God. Who encouraged you to go to Seminary?
This is going to sound crazy, but Beth Moore encouraged me to go to seminary. I had been sneaking into her adult Sunday school class at First Baptist Houston while still in highschool and grew worried that when I moved to College Station to go to A&M University for college that I would miss out on her amazing bible teaching. She suggested I look into seminary. I’d never even heard the word! Once she explained seminary was grad school for bible nerds, I was in.
In your first book, “No More Holding Back,” you start the book off with what I call a “drop your jaw to the floor” REAL LIFE story. Tell us about the experience you had in Seminary with a male classmate that sent you to the bathroom in tears. How did this moment affect you?
Kat shares a passage from her book in response…
“Just stop!”
The conversation in my class at Dallas Theological Seminary came to a shocking halt. The professor had been leading a discussion on women learning about Jesus. Not women teaching about Jesus, which some find controversial, but women learning about Christ. I had been quick to join the lively discussion, because, after all, that’s why I was there—to learn. And if women in seminary classes can’t engage in a conversation about women in seminary, then where can we talk about it?
Raising my hand, I confessed to the professor, “I’m scared to learn too much about Jesus because I am a woman.”
Even as the words came out of my mouth, I’d started to process how ridiculous it must sound to hear a human—an image-bearer of God—say that she feared loving Jesus too much. Jesus’s Great Commandment, found in Mark 12:30, should compel all his followers, regardless of gender, to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, right?
That’s when one of my male classmates had started shouting at me: “Just stop!”
He wasn’t speaking to the professor or engaging in the class discussion. Instead, his whole body faced me, and he extended his arm, pointed his finger, and raised his voice to warn me: As a woman, I could learn too much about Jesus. In fact, when women learn too much about Jesus, he said, they become dangerous; a threat to the local church and a threat to marriage.
You could’ve heard a pin drop as we waited to see what the prof would say in response.
He slid his glasses off, leaned into his podium, and looked me square in the eye. Choking back tears, he thundered, “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. Keep going, sister of the faith.”
The tension in the room was palpable until the professor called for an unplanned break. Bolting as fast as possible to the women’s restroom, I rushed to hide my ugly-cry. Now, in addition to being scared, I was humiliated.
Would you believe that student followed me to the women’s restroom? He took one step inside and put a hand on the door to pry it open.
“I have one question for you,” he said. “Why are you even here?”
He didn’t speak with frustration or anger but with disgust. My desire to learn more about the Bible offended him.
With tears rolling down my face and stutter-filled conviction, I tried to communicate that I was a theology student for the same reasons he was, to learn about Jesus. Unsatisfied with my answer, he turned right around to leave. It took me several minutes to compose myself, wipe off the mascara smears, and return to class visibly shaken. Nevertheless, I returned.
To be clear, my encounter with this seminary student stood out as an exception to my overall experience at Dallas Theological Seminary. All my life I’ve received the gracious encouragement of godly men urging me to pursue God more. I dare say, I know what it’s like to have my brothers in Christ in my corner. They are cosigning on the spiritual gifts of women because they want to see everyone thrive. They remind me often that God designed Adam and Eve to co-rule together, co-subdue together, to be fruitful and multiply together.
You would think all this support from my brothers would silence any other voices tempting me to approach discipleship judiciously, but it doesn’t. Those annoying, sometimes hateful critics like the older gentleman in my class seem to use a megaphone in our lives, able to drown out a whole cheering section. Has anyone told you to ease up, slow down, or stop because you are a woman? If so, I hope I am not the first to tell you they were wrong.
The progress we’ve made to dignify women as image bearers of God is not enough. We may be breaking barriers and glass ceilings in the workplace, our communities of faith are finally starting to hear our voices, and institutional change continues across the board. But some people still caution women to stay in their places. Some women like me still wrestle with the tension of Jesus’s aspirational words in the Great Commandment and the harsh filter of reality. What would it look like to take a seat at the table without any mental space reserved for uncertainty?
The seminary student’s words held power over me for some time. They served as fuel to a fire already burning in my belief system. But he didn’t light the match. My nagging concerns were already smoldering by the time I arrived on campus. I worried that my wholehearted devotion to Jesus was a risk and that my education could potentially upset the powers that be. He served to confirm my suspicions and authenticate my doubts by voicing an all too common viewpoint: some aspects of our spiritual formation are delegated to the guys only.
Somewhere along the way, the church has participated in gendering the Great Commandment. And I’m so over it. We have made loving God with our heart and soul women’s work and loving God with our mind and strength men’s work, but the Bible tells a different story altogether: women matter to God as much as men do.
The Great Commandment of Mark 12:30—along with verse 31, which extols us to love our neighbors as ourselves—teaches that God expects the faithful to be all-in for Jesus. Nowhere in this passage do we find a reference to male or female. Yet I have been unconsciously reading gender into it as long as I can remember. God did not design half of his priorities for women and the other half for men. Jesus included both genders when he explained that the highest goal of all Christ-followers would be to give completely of oneself to God and then to others. Jesus has a more complete vision for us than we have for ourselves.
I shudder to think that women are shrinking back, diminishing their voices, and resisting the prompting of the Holy Spirit because we feel too uneasy to be all in with our faith. And I’m convinced that even in spaces where leadership does champion women, many of us still allow seeds of doubt to hold us back from serving God in the home, at work, and everywhere in between.
So let me ask you, Why are you here? Have you identified your life’s goal? Does the Great Commandment pop into your brain when you have to give an account of your identity and calling? It takes different shapes based on how God has wired you, but at your core, you are supposed to love God with reckless abandon.
Are you tempering your enthusiasm for God or resisting something he has called you to? Should you be raising your hand more at school, work, or church? I’ve been there. Women are rising into levels of leadership and influence only dreamed of by our grandmothers, but many of us still ask the question, Is it okay for me to do this? Christian women add another layer of insecurity, as we wonder if God affirms our advancement. What will our faith leaders think of our progress? How do the doors opening to women align with Christianity? Maybe doubt-filled questions about what we can and can’t do occupy our minds because we are not prepared to answer the real question: Why did God put me here?
How would you encourage the woman who is on the fence about going to Seminary, unsure about stepping up to lead a small group at her local church, or perhaps being told that she has no place teaching the word of God.
We have a choice to make. We can sit another one out on the sidelines, or we can welcome the opportunities afforded to us by Christ’s blood. Let’s choose to enlist in God’s army and ready ourselves for battle. Let’s shield ourselves from the remnant of the misogynistic ideologies silencing our voices and limiting our contributions. Let’s squash the insecurities scrutinizing our capabilities. And let’s do it all for the glory of God the Father, in the name of Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Where do we go from here, you may ask? The answer is simple: Anywhere God leads.
How do we as followers of Christ champion one another and run in our own lane? How do we keep the sins of envy & jealousy at bay and not let them derail us from mission?
First, I would start praying for anyone you feel jealous towards. It is a game changer! Once you side yourself with your sister as her prayer ally, God changes our heart from competition to cheerleader. Second, I would start to champion her ministry and her work. Again, before you know it you will see her ministry as a part of your own. Her wins are your wins. Her losses your losses. Because we are all serving the same God and every one of us has different gifts that are all valued equally by God.
In your first book,”No More Holding Back” you talk about various women in the Bible. What made you write your new book, “The In-Between Place” centered on the woman at the well?
Honestly? I’m struggling through some messy middles in my life. Stuckville feels more like home than Dallas. Ya know what I mean? I know where I think I’m suppose to go in ministry and life but detour after detour has me feeling insecure and doubting God’s plan. I know better but I’m trying to keep it real with you and the women of Olive Us. Studying the woman at the well’s conversation with Jesus showed me several ways that Jesus redeems our in-between places in life. I’m so very proud of this message because it changed me and I’m praying the Lord would use it in the lives of the readers to create inestimable hope!
The Olive Tree
Olive Us was created for women to share their experiences and their "Only God" moments, so that we can remember we are connected through Christ and not alone. Why is this important?
Even God was in community with himself. Father, Son and Holy Spirit communed together, one essence, three persons to enjoy each other. If God is in community, we should be too :)
Finish these statements:
God is.... a great listener
Emboldening women is important because... because we are half the church
"Olive Us" are better when........we champion our sisters
Thanks for having me “Olive Us”
I would love to connect! Also, would love to have you join Polished! A network that gathers working women to navigate the workplace and explore faith together in authentic community. If you decide to become a member you get a FREE signed copy of my book, “The In-Between Place”