Female Director of Christian Education

My family and I are new members of an LCMS church. Our congregation recently voted to call a female Director of Christian Education (DCE). This decision has angered my wife and me because this allows a young unmarried woman to lead and teach our confirmed teenage boys, young adult men, and adult small groups. My wife and I don’t believe this is faithful to Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians forbidding a woman to “teach or hold authority over a man”. And yet the LCMS has maintained this practice for about 50 years. What is WELS' position on female lay teachers? Does WELS have a position concerning the practice of female “DCEs”?

Elsewhere on the WELS web site you will find the document “This We Believe,” a statement of belief of our church body.  In the chapter on “Church and Ministry” there is this statement:  “We believe that women may participate in offices and activities of the public ministry except where that work involves authority over men (1 Timothy 2:11,12).  This means that women may not serve as pastors nor participate in assemblies of the church in ways that exercise authority over men (1 Corinthians 11:3; 14:33-35).”  You can read the statement in its context via this link.

In our church body, whether we are speaking of female lay teachers in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School, female teachers in a Lutheran elementary school or female staff ministers in our congregations, their service will be directed to youth and women.