As for the story of “spiritual abuse” (your link seems to be dead), I did read that account a while ago, and suspect that there are two sides to the story. The truth is that there are occasional instances of heavy-handed leadership to be found in almost any denomination. From what I have seen, newfrontiers has managed to avoid the authoritarian “heavy shepherding” that blighted some parts of restorationism.

cndo – Wright is always profitable reading! I think an important observation though is that he comes from an episcopalian tradition, where the main issue was who got to administer the eucharist. Our (dare I say it) Presbyterian system is very different because the issue has always been that churches should be led by teams of elders; and who gets to serve communion was never an issue as we see it as a shared meal of remembrance, not a priestly function. Also, the point about Saul in Damascus is a bit of a red herring – if a persecutor came to my church and wanted to take out the key influencers there would be women as well as men in the number.

Mad – I think that would be typical of newfrontiers churches, but I don’t personally believe there should be an ideal split of 50/50 like many seem to want. I’ll perhaps post a bit more about this at another time, but it seems to me that even in the NT, the bulk of teaching was carried out by men (perhaps even all – many of the egalitarian “proof-texts” are tenuous to say the least).

When are things going to change.

BTW There is a typo in my comment, I meant “inappropriate” not “appropriate”

Matt, I tend to agree with you that the Bible puts the burden of teaching/preaching in the church onto the elders. In fact, I can only think of a few reasons why a local church would invite someone to preach who is not an elder: a visiting speaker, training up of future leaders, and perhaps if someone had particular expertise in a particular area (e.g. medical ethics). And I say that as someone who is not an elder, but who nevertheless appreciates occasional opportunities to preach both at my own church and further afield.

I remember hearing John Hosier at the Brighton conference a couple of years ago mention in passing that he felt there were contexts in which a woman could preach, but he never elucidated on the matter. I suspect he meant a similar thing – that the main preaching & teaching ministry of the church is normally and primarily carried out by the (male) eldership, but occasionally others will bring the Bible ministry for a variety of reasons.

From the complementarian perspective, I think the answer to your questions is found at least in part in the need to balance gift with order. What I mean by this is that we don’t assume gifted people should exercise particular gifts in certain contexts, simply on the basis of their gift. In the case of teaching, it may be that there are men with very strong teaching gifts who don’t get to exercise that gift in settings where the whole church is gathered – not because they are not gifted, but because other aspects of their character or call mean it would be inappropriate for them to do so.

I am increasingly convinced that in the local church the normal pattern of expositional, directional, week by week preaching should be handled by the elders; and that very clearly elders should be male, because of the responsibility of headship given in that role. So there may be men (as well as women) who are more gifted at teaching than the elders, but that doesn’t qualify them to hold a regular teaching office on a Sunday morning.

Having said that (and I realize this comment is already too long, without being nearly long enough to adequately explain what I am trying to say!) it is important that grace gifts find a place to be expressed. How that would work in the case of someone like Amy would be interesting to explore; but it is worth noting that she has spoken at seminars at the Newfrontiers leaders conference, which is more than most Newfrontiers (male) elders get to do…