God Conversations With Tania Harris

I was first asked this question while pioneering my church in Melbourne around fifteen years ago; “How does it feel to be a woman pastoring a church?” Back then I replied; “I don’t know - I’ve never pastored a church as a man!” It is perhaps an unusual topic for a podcast on hearing God’s voice, but I’m asked this question often so I thought I would take some time to answer it. In this podcast, we look at two issues affecting my journey as a woman in ministry: 1. Theology and 2. Identity, discussing what they mean for all of us, male and female, in the midst of sweeping changes to gender roles in the 21st Century. We start with the Australian context. In the denomination I am ordained in, the Australian Christian Churches, an egalitarian policy was set from the very beginning - in fact many of our earliest churches were pioneered by women. But that isn’t always the case for most of our Australian mainstream denominations. Usually there are some ceilings on women in leadership, although you will find varia