On The Role of Women in Church Leadership
"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God."-The Apostle Paul, Letter to the Corinthians (1.11.3)

Churches of Christ understand the Bible to teach that God has tasked men with the leadership of the church. Jesus picked 12 men to be apostles. The church was to look among itself and pick seven men to feed the widows (Acts 6.3). Paul instructed Timothy and Titus to choose men to be elders (1 Timothy 3.2; Titus 1.6). Paul wrote to the church at Corinth and said (at least in Corinth, depending on which statement the phrase "as in all the congregations of the saints" modifies) women "should remain silent in the church." To the church at Ephesus, he instructed Timothy to make sure that women did not teach or have authority over men (1 Timothy 2.11-12).
Whatever else one might say about the above, the fact remains that God has tasked men with leading the church. They are not independent operators (1 Cor 11.3, 11). They must give an account to Christ for their leadership. No matter what our culture says, men cannot abdicate their responsibility to lead.
However, we cannot overlook or ignore the Scriptures which let us see women of the early church who played prominent roles in the church. There were the women who funded Jesus' ministry (Luke 8.3). There was Anna, Tabitha, Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe, Mary, Junia, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Persis, and Julia. Philip, one of the Seven (Acts 6), had four daughters blessed with the gift of prophecy (Acts 21.9). Paul also gave instructions to the Corinthian church about praying in the assembly-as long as women had their heads covered, they could pray out loud (1 Cor 11.13). In fact Paul said in Galatians, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (3.28)"
Throughout the centuries, the church has wrestled with understanding how to balance these two sets of Scripture. If you lean too far to one side, women find themselves feeling lucky the men even let them in the church building. If you lean to far the other way, women find themselves running the church and what few men are present sitting in the pews like bumps on a log.
Remember-leadership is exerting influence. Fulfilling the role of preacher or elder is a task or ministry. In a sense, then, women can be leaders. In fact, sometimes they must be leaders. It is a stupid man who thinks he knows everything or has all the answers. Our women often help us see better spiritually. Sometimes preachers and elders are not leaders even though they are fulfilling tasks or ministries.
So at Northside, we will continue to appoint men to the ministry positions of preaching, eldering, and leading prayer and singing in public worship assemblies. Men and women can co-teach co-ed classes. Our women can teach skill-based classes. Our women can make reports and presentations in the general assembly on issues concerning the church if they are the ones best qualified to make those reports. Women can pray aloud in other mixed groups, although we would like men to begin and end the prayers. Women can certainly be ministry leaders.
We also understand that there a lot of different issues not addressed above, but our main focus has been to be faithful to all the biblical texts and not just to some of them. We want to consider history and interpretational questions as we read the texts. And we also want to acknowledge that there are some issues that we don't know exactly how to answer. It matters to us, though, to be a church where God is honored by our respect and obedience to His word and to the gifts His Spirit has given our church family.

~The Elders