A whole
and healthy
church
Joanna
Calling
Walk with Women · Equip Churches
Joanna Calling exists to see whole churches, led by healthy leaders, women and men flourishing together. By “whole,” we mean local church settings in which people are safe, structures are healthy, and the gifts and calling of all are welcomed.
The Problem
Nearly everyone believes women should lead. Far fewer churches are equipped to make room for them.
93%
of Australian church-goers believe women should serve as pastors.
92%
say it’s harder for women to be accepted in leadership roles in the church.
Source: Zurlo, Women in World Christianity.
Across Australia, many women experience a genuine call to church leadership. Yet the pathways that develop leaders do not exist for women in the same way they do for men.
Lack of Support Networks
The relationships and sponsorship that carry a leader through transitions.
Unsupportive Workplace Cultures
Church workplaces where women find it harder to be accepted as leaders.
Closed Church Systems
Policies and structures that give women no clear path into senior roles.
This is both a leadership-development challenge and a systemic one. Joanna Calling is responding to both.
I am not advocating for more opportunities for women to walk men’s paths, but for churches to invite, nurture, and amplify the feminine dimension of leadership… In bringing the feminine to leadership, women bring the missing dimension of the God-life to us all.
Joan Chittister
Where Women Are Lost
Leadership grows in three seasons.
Gap
01
Calling
“Who am I?”
Gap
02
Deciding
“What am I to do?”
Gap
03
Focusing
“What am I not to do?”
Each one can last five to ten years, with the gap between them lasting up to three years. It’s in the gap that most women fall away.
Early research suggests the time between these seasons is the most difficult for women to navigate, and many leave the pathway.
What We’re Doing
We work with the pastor and the church at the same time.
A pathway that develops the pastor without reforming the church has not worked.
For the Pastor
Pastor-in-Residence Pathway
We walk with women through a three-year, subsidised Pastor-in-Residence pathway. Each leader receives a bespoke network of support: contextual leadership experience and formation, as well as supervision or spiritual direction. Our aim is to form leaders for the long term.
For the Church
Assessment & Consultancy
We work with each employing church through a best-practice assessment and consultancy process. Our aim is to shape and reshape culture, policy and practice toward contexts that enable leaders to flourish.
When women receive sustained formation and genuine opportunities to lead, and churches intentionally develop safer and more equitable leadership environments, we see healthy leaders and whole churches.
20262027
We plan to launch our pilot program in early 2027 with five pastors-in-residence at five partner churches.
Where This Is Headed
We start with five churches and grow to 500 women and churches.
5
church partnerships to begin
25
growing to a yearly intake of twenty-five
500
women and churches over the life of the program
Growth will be earned, not assumed. No new cohort proceeds without the funding, staffing and safeguards in place to support it properly.
Get Involved
There are three ways to get involved.
This is an opportunity to invest not only in individual women, but also in a replicable model of church and leadership development, one that forms leaders, strengthens churches, and reshapes the pathways into leadership for the generations that follow.
1
More Info
Sign up to follow what we’re building.
2
Become a Supporter
Help fund the pathway.
3
Request a Meeting
A 45-minute conversation about whether a residency fits your church.
Commendations
For far too long, women have been overlooked and sidelined as they have attempted to follow God’s call on their life. But it’s not just them who suffer. Their families, communities and our broken world does too. Joanna Calling is long overdue and many of us will breathe deeply in the hope and expectation that it will enable and empower many more women to step forward to be trained, mentored, and engaged in all God is calling them to.
Rev Melissa Lipsett
CEO, Baptist World Aid
Breaking the stained-glass ceiling is very difficult, even in churches that say they support women in leadership. Women who feel called by God to be pastors need a career pathway that sets them up for sustainable and fruitful long term ministry. Joanna Calling will offer exactly that. It’s what our churches need right now.
Rev Dr Michael Frost
Director, Tinsley Institute, Morling College
Joanna Calling gives me hope for the future of the church. I long to see the church be a place of genuine partnership between women and men, where women are recognised, raised up, and released for kingdom work. I am thankful that Joanna Calling is pursuing this and I’m proud to endorse it.
Erica Mandi Manga
Anglican Pastor, Sydney
Joanna Calling promises to fill an embarrassingly large and long-standing gap in shaping leaders for Christ’s church. All too often, I’ve watched as women have struggled to find jobs in churches that would allow them to express, explore, and expand their gifts and potential. Please God, Joanna Calling can meet this need.
Rev Dr Andrew Sloane
Dean of Theology, Morling College
I believe that God wants each of us to live in the fullness of who he has made us to be, but it seems that the entrenched systems in which our churches operate are not designed to enable that to happen for women. Joanna Calling, God willing, seeks to make ways for women to lead within the church, not despite it.
Jude Barraclough
Director, Christian Women in Governance
We would love to speak with you to find out how you can join in with this calling.