Women in Ministry | Genesis Conference of the Free Methodist Church

We empower and appoint women and men who are called to serve the Lord and lead the church, in any and every capacity. This approach is demonstrated in the Scriptures, at the heart of the Free Methodist Church and our lived-out practice in Genesis.

From our policy manual (Book of Discipline):

"Free Methodists recognize that God gives spiritual gifts of service and leadership to both men and women. Since male and female are both created in the image of God, that image is most fully reflected when both women and men work in concert at all levels of the church. Therefore, all positions in the church are accessible to any whom God has called."

In reference to those going through the ordination process for pastoral ministry, that they should: "wholeheartedly support the role of women in leadership."

Regarding the FMCUSA vision for the local church: "we have labored and continue to labor to address poverty, eliminate slavery, affirm the dignity of all persons, restore equality to women in all places – church and world – and help all people in bondage discover freedom in Christ."

From our founder (Benjamin Titus Roberts, in Ordaining Women):

In his groundbreaking 1891 book Ordaining Women, Benjamin Titus (B.T.) Roberts—the founder of the Free Methodist Church—argued that the gospel of Jesus Christ demands the full equality and ordination of women in ministry. Written in response to the 1890 General Conference's decision to deny women's ordination, his text provides a rigorous, scriptural defense of gender equality.

- Roberts directly compared the exclusion of women from ministry to the sin of racism and the institution of slavery. He argued that just as Christ's gospel dismantled the false social justifications for slavery, it must also repair the damaged social structures preventing women from serving in leadership. Just as the church was historically wrong, or, at least, too often silent about racial inequity, Roberts claimed it was equally blind and wrong about gender.

- Unlike secular suffragists of his era, Roberts deliberately avoided appeals to the "spirit of the age" or mere sentimentality. He rooted his entire treatise in the Scriptures, maintaining that true biblical interpretation supports equality and an egalitarian point of view. He also detailed how specific Pauline passages (like instructions for women to keep silent) were taken out of context or poorly translated, masking the real history of women leaders in the early church.

- Roberts asserted that human prejudice, rather than divine decree, was what primiarly kept the church from recognizing the spiritual gifts given to women by God.