Written by Macey Vaught

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September 12 has been recognized as the National Day of Encouragement since 2007 when a group of Harding students in the National Leadership Forum were asked about prominent issues high school students face and possible solutions to those issues. For years, male students from Harding Academy have led chapel at the university on that day, and this year was no different.

I am an avid Twitter user. I check my feed and notifications countless times throughout the day, and this day was like any other. As I scrolled through my feed, I came across a few tweets from girls who were upset about the fact that elementary-age boys are allowed to speak in chapel, but no woman of any age.

After reading a few more tweets similar to those, I decided to speak my mind on the matter. I wrote, “To the girls at Harding who get upset about not being able to speak in chapel: just because you can’t stand on stage and talk about Jesus in front of the whole school at once, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it at all. Go spread Jesus! Go tell your story! Be a light! Stop playing the victim.”

As a woman in the Harding community, I hold a somewhat unpopular opinion about this subject. While I do believe that women should play a bigger role in some areas of the church community, I hold to the scriptural view that men should lead in an assembly or corporate worship (1 Timothy 2:12; 1 Corinthians 14:34). Men and women are equal in God’s eyes; we just fulfill different roles. My intentions for my statement were not to discourage women from trying to make a difference in the community of faith, but to encourage them to do so in the capacity that we are given in scripture. Instead of dwelling on everything that we, as women, are not typically able to participate in, we should concentrate on the areas in which we are able to have the greatest influence. I believe we should focus our energy and efforts toward doing as much as we can where we are for the Kingdom — a “bloom where you’re planted” type of perspective.

I do believe that some of those who fight for more opportunities for women to serve do so with humble hearts, and with the sole desire to serve God. On the other hand, I do believe that others do so with prideful motives. My argument is that, whatever a woman would say on stage in chapel, she could say the very same thing throughout the Harding community in personal conversations. Real change happens through deep, personal relationships and conversation, not on a stage. Therefore, my question is what are those women really fighting for?

We should be content to serve where we are needed because we are called to glorify God. The stage is not the only place to make a difference.

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