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5 more conservative denominations that allow women to be pastors

Free Methodist Church

The World Ministries Center of the Free Methodist Church, headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The World Ministries Center of the Free Methodist Church, headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. | Courtesy of Free Methodist Church

A Methodist denomination that traces its origins to the 19th century, the Free Methodist Church officially allowed for the ordination of women as pastors back in 1974 at its General Conference, when attendees unanimously voted to approve a resolution “giving women equal status with men in the ministry of the church.”

FMC Bishop David W. Kendall wrote an essay in which he defended the idea of female church leaders, noting that “the limitations on women in human history are mostly the result of sin and its brokenness, that in the beginning, God created the man and women as co-stewards and co-trustees of the world he created.”

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“Is it biblical for women to be in leadership in the church? My answer, the FMC answer, is a resounding ‘Yes!’” wrote Kendall.

“We see signs of this undoing in the several notable women who appear in Israel’s story, in the ministry of Jesus, in the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy that the Spirit would fall upon and fill both men and women and both would prophesy, and so they both did in the life of the early church.”

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