New indigenous movements to Christ are taking place in many parts of the world today, especially in Asia and Africa, generally described as church-planting movements or disciple-making movements. There is significant diversity among these movements in terms of their origins, worship, practices, and languages. Movement leaders have come to different conclusions about the most appropriate ministry roles for women. Although it is impossible to know what share of movements are led by women, a significant number have women leaders as part of the movement’s natural growth and immediate needs. This article offers a descriptive analysis of women’s roles in emerging movements by considering examples from history and the present. How might women’s leadership within emerging movements today be challenged as these movements grow and potentially institutionalize? This article aims to provide historical context to that question to help Christians think clearly about the future as it relates to women’s leadership roles in new indigenous movements.
ArlundPFoardR (2021) From her perspective: women and multiplication movements. In: FarahW (ed.) Motus Dei: The Movement of God to Disciple the Nations. Littleton, CO: William Carey Publishing, pp.176–180.
5.
BarrBA (2021) The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.
6.
BlumhoferEL (1993) Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody’s Sister. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
7.
DzubinskiLMStassonAH (2021). Women in the Mission of the Church: Their Opportunities and Obstacles Throughout Christian History. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
FarahW (ed.) (2021) Motus Dei: The Movement of God to Disciple the Nations. Littleton, CO: William Carey Publishing.
10.
FinkeRStarkR (1992) The Churching of America, 1776–1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
11.
GarrisonD (2004) Church Planting Movements. Midlothian, TX: WIGTake Resources.
12.
HasseyJ (1985) No Time for Silence: Evangelical Women in Public Ministry around the Turn of the Century. Minneapolis, MN: CBE.
13.
HertigYL (2002) Without a face: The 19th century Bible woman and 20th century female Jeondosa. In: RobertDL (ed.) Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Missionary Women in the Twentieth Century. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, pp.185–200.
14.
HylenSE (2023) Finding Phoebe: What New Testament Women were Really Like. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
15.
JohnVColesD (2019) Bhojpuri Breakthrough: A Movement that Keeps Multiplying. Monument, CO: WIGTake Resources.
16.
JohnVColesD (2021) Bhojpuri case study. In: FarahW (ed.) Motus Dei: The Movement of God to Disciple the Nations. Littleton, CO: William Carey Publishing, pp.250–261.
17.
JohnsonTMZurloGA (2019). World Christian Encyclopedia, 3rd edition.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
18.
KentEF (2011) Secret Christians of Sivakasi: gender, syncretism, and crypto-religion in early twentieth-century South India. Journal of the American Academy of Religion79(3): 676–705.
19.
KontoumaV (2012) Women in Orthodoxy. In: CasidayA (ed.) The Orthodox Christian World. New York: Routledge, pp.432–441.
20.
KumarMARobinsonR (2010) Legally Hindu: Dalit Lutheran Christians of coastal Andhra Pradesh. In: RobinsonRKujurJM (eds) Margins of Faith: Dalit and Tribal Christianity in India. New Delhi: Sage, pp.149–168.
PachuauL (2014) A clash of “mass movements”? Christian missions and the Gandhian Nationalist movement in India. Transformation31(3): 157–174.
28.
PickettJW (1933) Christian Mass Movements in India: A Study with Recommendations. New York: Abingdon Press.
29.
RhodesM (2022) Advancing conversations about proclamational and movements methodologies. Global Missiology19(3): 18–30.
30.
San ChiricoKPC (2023) Between Hindu and Christian Khrist Bhaktas, Catholics, and the Negotiation of Devotion in Banaras. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
SetonRE (2013) Western Daughters in Eastern Lands: British Missionary Women in Asia. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
33.
StarkR (1996) The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
34.
StephensonLP (2011) Prophesying women and ruling men: Women’s religious authority in North American Pentecostalism. Religions2(3): 410–426.
35.
Walker Family (2019) How God is sweeping through South Asia. In: ColesDParksS (eds) 24:14 – A Testimony to All Peoples. Spring, TX: 24:14, pp.121–129.
36.
WesterkampMJ (1999) Women in Early American Religion 1600–1850: The Puritan and Evangelical Traditions. London: Taylor and Francis.
37.
XinY (2011) Deborah Xu: The story of a catalytic leader in the Chinese house church movement. In: SnodderlyBMoreauAS (eds) Evangelical and Frontier Mission Perspectives on the Global Progress of the Gospel. Oxford: Regnum Books International, pp.136–162.
38.
ZurloGA (2023) Women and World Christianity: Building and Sustaining a Global Movement. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
