Hidden in Plain Sight: Women Who Knew Jesus

Begins Sunday, April 14 • 10 am

Did Jesus have female disciples? Popular memory would say no. Not only are women not imagined as being part of Jesus’ mission, but the story of Christianity’s spread is also a masculine one. In the first century – so the story goes – the Christian message was taken to the lands around the Mediterranean by two great men: Peter and Paul.

But is this the full story? Paul's letter to the church in Rome ends with a list of important people he knew there. What’s fascinating about this list is that of the twenty-nine names in the chapter, eleven – more than one-third of them – are women. Most significant of all is the fact that the letter itself was delivered by a woman, Phoebe. (Paul wrote to commend her to people who didn’t already know her, strongly implying that she had been sent from him with the letter.)

So how do we explain the presence of so many women in the Christian movement when they seem to have been absent earlier, in Jesus’ mission? If we look carefully at the Gospels, we’ll see that there is more evidence for women in the mission of Jesus than we first supposed. Here and there women do appear. Traces of Jesus’ women disciples haven’t been completely rubbed away. 

Over the next 8 weeks we are going to take a look at the hidden story of Christianity, the one right there in plain sight. The stories of the women who knew Jesus. 

Celebrate with us. 

Please join us at 10:00 am Sunday at 515 Woodford St in Portland, Maine, or via Zoom, for a time of worship and fellowship. We'll share some music, lift up our joys and concerns, pray together, and share Communion. (If you're joining us from home, feel free to bring a beverage and crackers, or whatever you like, to your screen so you're prepared to receive Communion with the in-person worshipping community.)

Masks are optional for in-person worship.

Masks are now optional, but some people wear them during worship. In addition, we have a highly efficient air filtration system and purifiers in our space running throughout the service.

We post our weekly Zoom Worship meeting link on our main worship page.

Worship anytime!

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Worship services are live-streamed in and recorded on Facebook. So if you miss worship or just prefer an earlier or later time, you can always join us!