I want to give you a few thoughts about our precious sisters. This is a very important topic for us as pastors. Half of our congregations, it's okay, the reporting is going right here, About half of our congregations are not men and boys. They're ladies or young girls and I don't have to say that there are a lot that there are landmines everywhere and that there's a lot that can go wrong. Personally on the few times when I need to text another woman, My wife Janet is always on the text.

If I ever get a text from another woman, when I reply, I copy the content out of that. I start a new text and I put my wife on it. When I email, I always copy my wife. I never blind copy her. I want the female recipient to know, my wife is on this email.

She has visibility to everything that we say to one another. Anytime I receive an email from a woman, I reply and copy my wife. On the occasions when I need to call a woman, my wife is standing there when she answers, hello. I say this is Jason Dome. It's actually Jason and Janet, you're on speaker.

When I receive a call from a woman, if Janet's not there, I let it go to voicemail. If she's there, I pick up and I say, hello, this is Jason and Janet, you're on speaker. I Don't ride alone with a woman in a car I Don't meet alone with a woman and I don't make exceptions If these are not your practices they should be. It's part of being blameless. But, but these precious sisters, the married ones and the unmarried ones of all ages are dearly loved by the Lord and need our pastoral care.

We are their pastors. They are not lepers. They are blood-bought daughters of the king, precious daughters of Zion. So we should never violate the principles of family headship. When I relate with the women and the young girls in our congregation, it is in concert with the principles of family headship.

It is with husbands and fathers knowing and agreeing, but our care for them should not be exclusively through family heads. Okay, I'm going to say that again. Our care for the women and girls in our congregations should not be exclusively through family heads. Here's what I mean by that. You can't have lunch with Dad and say, I've done my duty to the ladies and girls in that family.

Our care for them should not be exclusively through family heads. Some of that care... But by the way, we do care for them through family heads. Ministry to the head of the home is ministry to a wife and to the daughters. I'm not denying that, and I think we should pack as much punch into that ministry as we possibly can, but there needs to be direct pastoral ministry as well.

We actually have a model for this in Scripture. Please turn to John chapter 4. John chapter 4 is a wonderful model and it proves out a lot of where the boundaries are in an area that can be high risk but doesn't have to be high risk. John chapter 4. This is known to you, the woman at the well.

I'm going to read a lengthy portion. I'll be reading John chapter 4 verses 5 through 27. So he, Jesus, came to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well.

It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink for his disciples have gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who says to you give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock. Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.

Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman said to him, sir give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you have well said I have no husband, for you have had five husbands and the one who you now have is not your husband.

In that you spoke truly. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Jesus said to her, woman believe me the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you do not know.

We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth For the Father is seeking such to worship Him God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth The woman said to him I know that Messiah is coming, who was called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. And at this point his disciples came and they marveled that he talked with a woman, yet no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her?

There's a load of marvelous truth in this text. I'm not going to talk about any of it. I'm just going to point out that here you have not only just the male-female dynamic, but what a female. What a reputation she has in the place where she is for improper inappropriate relationships with men and yet Jesus will speak with her. Not to mention that you have the Jew-Samaritan dynamic on top of it, this multi-level high-risk propositions.

We can come to this text and say, we can do this much. Brothers, fellow pastors, we can do this much. This text declares and proves that this was not sinful to do. Jesus did it. Jesus spoke with this woman.

He actually spoke with her one-on-one, but not in private, in public. This was at the well. This is where the town comes to get their water. Jesus is not chatting her up. Jesus is speaking to her about the most important things.

Chatting her up is a polite way to say acting flirtatiously. Jesus, nowhere in here could Jesus be perceived by her or anyone looking on as chatting her up as being flirtatious in any way. He was talking to her about the most important things in the world. We can do this, we can speak with women and girls in our congregation in public settings, not to chat them up or do things that might bring us into reproach, have them wondering what we're thinking. This woman's not wondering what Jesus is thinking.

After our service, we have a fellowship meal every week. In the room is 50 people, 60 people. If it's raining outside, 100 people. It's an ideal time for me to sit down at the lunch table across from a wife and a mother of another family and say, how's it going schooling that wonderful brood of yours? Talk about things that matter and encourage her, speak to her.

We have a woman who has significant health challenges in our congregation on a number of occasions. I've just in speaking with her husband just conversationally said, it's been a while since Janet and I have come and prayed for your wife. Could we come sometime this week pray for your wife? Could Janet and I come to your house to pray for your wife. He'll be at work.

My wife and I come. We talk to her. We pray for her. If I was at a normal evangelical event, I would be screaming, brothers, boundaries! Let's have some boundaries!

But in our little subculture, our strange little subculture, I have seen and experienced and felt the pressure of having boundaries that were higher than Jesus's boundaries in John chapter 4. I just want to say that's not right. I just want to say we're pastors to these women. When we get to Acts chapter 21, he says, shepherd all the flock. He doesn't mean shepherd 50% of the flock.

So we're not going to violate the principles of family headship. We're going to act in concert with those, but it is not enough to just have lunch with husbands and dads and think you've done your duty, that somehow it will trickle down to them. We need to encourage these sisters. They are loved by the Lord. They are precious and they need shepherding.

They need pastors.