Below is BCCTheTruth's premiere 'current member blog' post. Since we're posting a current member's account this week, next week will feature an Ex-member's account. If you'd like to make a submission or have any questions, contact us at the bottom of the page. Thank you,
-BCCTheTruth
I am a woman myself so I feel pretty qualified to speak on this subject. I am single and have never ever felt pressure from my parents or leadership to be married. I am very well educated and have a good career; again no pressure to be a stay at home mom or sense from other people that I'm wasting my child-bearing potential (I know this happens in other Christian communities). In fact, I get the opposite. I've had people in leadership positions say they were thankful for the single women because we can do things that others (married people with children) cannot; like take charge of events and projects and be mentors for the younger girls.
I've worked in lot of different places and I know what it feels like when a man treats me less because I'm female. I've never experienced this by leadership in BCC. It's true women don't generally start meetings and aren't usually church leaders (I think this may have happened a few times in smaller churches, I can't confirm it). This is biblical. BCC does profess to be Bible Christians. Personally, I've never wanted to be a youth leader or church leader. I don't have the wisdom and I don't know if I could work that hard. The bible does say that a woman shouldn't teach, but it also says things about a woman praying and prophesying. So we can certainly do that. and we do do that.
We consider ourselves to be a body; many members all with different functions. I cannot do things that leading brothers cannot and vise versa. Maybe some women have felt opressed; I can't speak for everyone, but I can't really say I've experienced that. I just want to add something about why I stay. I can empathize with the author of one of the blog posts here that when you grow up in the church, you think everything here is normal and then go to high school and college and realize how very differently other people think. And you think, whoa, maybe I'm crazy. So then you have to decide for yourself what you want. And it isn't true that only people within BCC are happy. I've met lots of other people that seem to possess a natural sort of happiness. But not everyone is born this way. And within BCC I've seen people who are naturally more grumpy or angry become actually happy. I am becoming happy myself.
I am learning, like Paul, to be content in all things. And life has been really really good for me, even the things that you might think are bad. I guess it can seem like a lot of brainwashing. But I really think that the people that preach are actually really full of joy and want to share what they have. They want it to go well for other people and that's why there is so much activity and so much preaching. When God's word comes to life for me, I get really excited and I want to share it. I want other people to be able to experience what I experience.