WELS World Missions now has three women serving in full-time missionary positions. For the first time, we are using that title for called workers who are not men. I understand why some people will want to know exactly what that means.

It does not mean that WELS is changing what it believes about God’s order for men and women. We confess that men and women are equally created by God, redeemed by Christ, members of the priesthood of all believers, and entrusted with opportunities to speak the gospel. We also confess that God has established an order of headship in the church and that women are not called to exercise authority over men in the public ministry.

So what do we mean by missionary positions? We mean full-time mission work under the oversight of our mission teams. These women are not being called to exercise authority over men in the public ministry or to replace the work entrusted to pastors and male missionaries. They are being called to strengthen the church’s mission by discipling women, encouraging Christian sisters, helping women grow in Scripture, and opening gospel conversations that men often cannot reach.

Scripture itself shows women actively serving in the church’s mission. Romans chapter 16 names Phoebe, Priscilla, Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis among those laboring in the Lord. That does not erase God’s order. It does remind us that Christ uses all the members of his body in kingdom work.

This fits the way WELS World Missions has always assigned missionaries. Their work is not only to arrive with a message but also to learn the local language, understand the local culture, listen carefully, and provide encouragement without forcing assumptions onto other people. That includes understanding family expectations, public conversation, community relationships, and the way people understand the roles of men and women.

Christ uses all the members of his body in kingdom work.

If we assign missionaries to do that cultural work, it should not surprise us that some parts of that work may be better assigned to women. In some places, a man cannot appropriately sit with a woman and ask careful questions about her fears, her marriage, her children, or what she has been taught about God. In some places, a woman would never speak honestly in a mixed setting. In some places, cultural layers are so deep that even faithful local Christian men may not see all that women are carrying. Christian women can hear what men may never hear. They can enter conversations men cannot enter. They can help mission teams understand opportunities and obstacles that would otherwise remain hidden.

That is not a separate mission for women. It is the mission of Christ’s church making use of the gifts Christ gives to all his people. It is not a concession to culture either. Culture never gets to overrule Scripture. But we also do not want US culture to overrule Scripture by assuming that our patterns of access, conversation, and community life are the same everywhere else. Faithfulness requires doctrinal clarity and missionary humility.

The Lord of the church is still placing his people in many “Romes,” places of religious confusion, false teaching, fear, and spiritual need. So we move forward carefully and gratefully: carefully, because God’s Word governs us, and gratefully, because the same Savior who used sisters like Phoebe in Rome is still using sisters today to make Christ known among the nations.

Learn more about women in missions in the October WELS Connection and at wels.net/women-in-world-missions. Meet one of the women serving full time in WELS World Missions.