Propel Women: What’s next?

Photo credit: Liberty University’s Marketing Department

Since the launch of Propel Women here at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, this week, the campus has been abuzz with a flurry of questions, debates and discussion, filling the academic and residential hallways alike, beginning a conversation that is days, months, years, decades — and even centuries — overdue.

So, what’s next?

We have been left with a great challenge from ministers of all walks of life. From Arizona pastor Terry Crist to Texas author and speaker Beth Moore to Australian evangelist Christine Caine, there has been no shortage of biblical wisdom shared amongst the student body.

So, again, I ask, what’s next?

Now is the time to step into living out this new information. And, for those who were not at Liberty to hear what this week has been all about, you can get a great overview of the movement by reading Dr. Karen Swallow Prior’s article here and visiting the Propel Women website here.

Stepping into this next phase can often be cumbersome, chaotic and easily overwhelming — no matter the topic. Regardless of the awkwardness of charting new waters, it is critical that we not become combative. From here, the discussion transitions into the atriums, fellowship halls, sanctuaries and coffee shops of churches all across the United States.

This is a humble and bold movement. Humble because Christ is the very flesh and bones of God’s humility and bold because Christ is the furious display of God’s bold grace and his unmoving commitment to the gospel — “So God created human beings, in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27, NLT)”

Now, in humility, I think it is time to start the discussion of what that means — he created them, male and female. Because of our American Christian culture, men are often positioned in places of authority and it is the men in those positions who have the responsibility to initiate that conversation.

Liberty University is made up of 59 percent female, according to U.S. News & World Report. And 53 percent of the evangelical church in the United States is women, according to Pew Research. The Church needs to prove its relevance not by creating new initiatives for the purpose of proving itself. Christ has already proven the gospel; we just need to live it out, including all people.

Propel Women is jump-starting that conversation and now we are moving forward into living it out.

In the coming weeks, I will be playing my part in that discussion. I will be interviewing several female Christians who are influencing and shaping millennial culture in a series to be published with the Liberty Champion, Liberty University’s student-run newspaper.

Christine Caine and her hard-working team have handed us the baton. Now, we must take it and run. That’s what’s next.