Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Malawi, East Africa, issued a statement earlier this month affirming that "women with the gift of preaching should be encouraged to preach and share the Word of God."
Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the East African country of Malawi issued a statement earlier this month affirming that “women with the gift of preaching should be encouraged to preach and share the Word of God.” The statement comes after two incidents in 2000 and 2001 where local Adventist churches in the region refused to allow women to preach. On both occasions, the incident and subsequent debates were reported in the national media.
These high-profile disagreements have caused considerable concern to church leaders, says Pardon Mwansa, president of the Adventist Church in Eastern Africa.
Mwansa and his leadership team invited all pastors in Malawi to attend a meeting February 6 to 8. He says the purpose of the meeting was to launch the five “focus issues” the church in Eastern Africa has made a priority for the five-year-period ending 2005. “One of those five focus issues is that of unity,” says Mwansa. “When we arrived in Malawi for this meeting, it was evident that the issue of women preaching needed to be clarified if the church in Malawi was to remain united.”
After discussion and counsel, the president of the church in Malawi, Harry Mtike, read an agreed statement, upholding the biblical principle that both men and women may have the “spiritual gift of preaching.” The statement affirmed that both men and women “have the right to exercise this gift anywhere the Lord leads, be it in the church or outside of the church.”
“And now, I would like to state that we in the Malawi Union, in order to keep the unity of the church, will uphold this position of the church and commit ourselves to educating our members to understand and follow this position,” concluded Mtike. “We believe that with this clarification and commitment, unity will be promoted in this union.”
“This statement was received with shouts of ‘Amen’ as it was read,” reports Mwansa, “and we hope it will help the church in Malawi to be more united.”
There are some 200,000 Adventist Church members in Malawi, worshiping in more than 718 churches.
