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Interview With Beth Grant

Becoming a Woman of God

God is sovereignly laying His hand on women who have a heart after Him. In America and around the world, women are responding to the call of God and are ministering in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Once such woman who has ministry as the passion of her life is Beth Grant. In this first feature interview, Beth visited with Peggy Musgrove, former Women’s Ministries director for the General Council of the Assemblies of God, and talked about her faith, family, call to ministry, and insights regarding the place of women in ministry.

Beth and her husband David have served as Assemblies of God missionaries to Southern Asia for 26 years. She has served as adjunct faculty and guest lecturer in missions and cross-cultural studies in colleges in India, Europe, and the United States. Beth has completed a Ph.D. in Intercultural Education from Biola School of Intercultural Studies in Los Angeles, California . She currently provides leadership to the national Assemblies of God Task Force for Women in Ministry which is planning the 2004 Assemblies of God national Conference for Women in Ministry.

To begin with, help us become acquainted with you. What pathway led you to become a Christian?

BETH: I grew up in a wonderful Christian home. When I was 7 years old listening to an evangelist in my home church, I personally heard Jesus’ invitation to me to follow Him. Although I sat quietly at my seat while others were at the altar, I made the life-changing decision to follow Him.

The call to the ministry comes in many different ways. How did this call come to you?

BETH: I began to sense from my early teens that God’s hand was on my life, setting me apart for His purposes. I didn’t sense a call to a specific ministry, but that God was calling me to be available to minister to people whenever and wherever He would open the door.

How has this call directed your life? Could you give us a brief sketch of the kinds of ministry in which you have been involved, as you have answered the call to ministry?

BETH: Because I did not have a call to a specific kind of ministry, I decided to go to a state university and prepare to be a teacher. I spent 2 years there in God’s will, learning to follow Jesus alone (well, almost alone. There were 10 of us out of 3,000 who would identify with any kind of Protestant Christianity.) However, it was there that I learned to care deeply about those who have no faith and to try to articulate my faith in a skeptical, even hostile non-Christian environment.

After a month-long summer AIM trip when I was 18, I realized that ministry was going to be a full-time passion. God led me to transfer to CBC to major in Christian education. After graduating, my first husband and I spent 2 years as Ministers of Youth and Music. After his death, I continued on the pastoral staff as Minister of Music and Education. Then, God brought David Grant into my life and with him, a whole new chapter in life and ministry! David was a missionary-evangelist focused on India, and a week after we were married we left for 3 months of overseas ministry. That was the beginning of 26 years of missionary service focused on Southern Asia. Along the way, God gave David and me two wonderful daughters, Rebecca (21) and Jennifer (18), and added "mothering" to my ministry. Mentoring our daughters to follow Jesus has been one of the most treasured experiences of my life. Over the years, God has brought the many threads of my life together in beautiful ways. There have been opportunities to teach cross-cultural studies to future missionaries in Southern Asia Bible College in India, Continental Theological Seminary in Brussels, Belgium, Southeastern College in Lakeland, Florida and Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri. Sharing God’s passion for our world with college students is a joy!

In the last several years, God has directed my steps to focus more on the ministry and challenges of women, both in the US and in Southern Asia. When our executive leadership approached me about chairing a task force for women in ministry and working toward the first national conference for women in ministry, I was honored, humbled and somewhat taken back. Gender has never been a focus for me in following Jesus or in trying to obey His call. I felt like a somewhat unlikely candidate for this role. However, I sensed God was sovereignly "putting this on my plate" for a period of time, and I feel very responsible to Him as I serve. Because of my role with the conference task force, God and dear friends in leadership have opened meaningful doors of ministry in district retreats, churches and our colleges. It has been a stretching but exciting journey of faith and obedience!

At about the same time that the AG executive leadership has been giving new impetus to women in ministry in America, I was becoming more involved with a growing ministry called Project Rescue in Southern Asia. This is a powerful outreach to the thousands of girl-victims of forced prostitution in India and Nepal, led by a committed team of national and missionary partners. For the first time in my life, I was personally confronted with issues relating to the value of the girl child, hideous injustice against women, and the role of compassion ministries in addressing those issues. It has stretched my theology and my missiology, but made me appreciate the transforming power of Jesus Christ to change broken women’s lives like never before!

What would you say is the controlling principle or philosophy that drives your ministry? What keeps you going?

BETH: I have promised the Lord that I would be available to Him, to do whatever He wants me to do, wherever that might be. As a servant, I don’t make the conditions- He does. Therefore, whenever He nudges me by His Spirit to walk through an open door, I try to obey.

When I was a little girl, there was a locked wooden tithe box in the back of my home church. My parents diligently taught me to give to the Lord out of obedience to Him, but I had one fear. The offering box was locked, and I was very concerned that if I put my offering there for God, how could I know that He would be the one to get it?

Finally, I got the courage to ask my mother, and I’ll never forget her reply. "Beth, you give your gift to God in obedience and faith, and you can trust Him to spend it as He will." Like my offering, I have given my life to God, and it is His. He can spend it as He will.

What keeps me going? Jesus keeps leading, and I keep following! I keep telling Him I don’t want to end up anywhere that He doesn’t want me—but if He wants me somewhere, I want to be there in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.

I don’t want to set the agenda. I’m afraid of doing that, because I’m a planner, and that’s where I’m comfortable. But in the last five years, God keeps pushing me out beyond where I’m comfortable. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that when He leads us out on the cutting-edge of what He is doing in our world, we discover He is there in power and anointing to minister through us! If that’s where God is at work, that’s where I want to be!

While much of your ministry has been in missions, you have had the unique opportunity in recent years to give leadership to women who have ministry as the passion of their life. Could you share some of your thoughts regarding the place of women in ministry?

BETH: I believe that ministry is first and foremost a passion birthed in the heart of God rather than a profession. If we are obedient to God and act on that inspired passion, a profession can grow out of it. However, ministry does not flow out of a profession; it comes from God. As a woman, wife and mother who has experienced different and very diverse chapters in my life, my role and official profession have changed several times. But the common thread which has provided unity, continuity and on-going ministry has been the passion to minister that comes from God. Both in India and America, I see God raising up women in ministry like I have not seen in my lifetime. God is sovereignly laying His hand on women who have a heart after Him. For example, we are seeing young women in India step forward and testify that God is calling them to be missionaries to Afghanistan to work with women and children. Others are being called to work in the red-light districts of India, bringing hope and healing where there is great despair and darkness. They are willing to risk great hardship, misunderstanding in their own culture and the loss of the possibility of marriage in order to obey the call of God. It is humbling to see the commitment and courage of these young women of God. In American and Europe, women are responding to the call of God to dark places in their cities where the presence of Jesus is totally lacking. Godly women are creative and see needy areas of darkness which the traditional church has overlooked. I believe God is calling women today to pioneer creative ministries that are defined and directed by the Holy Spirit.

What would you say to young women today who feels called into ministry?

1. Focus on becoming a woman of God, a woman who walks with God, hears His voice, and simply obeys in the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything of significance flows out of our relationship with the Father.

2. Study and appropriately prepare yourself to be the best minister you can be in whatever area of ministry God is calling you to. This includes engaging God intellectually as well as spiritually and emotionally. The church and world need articulate women of God!

3. Remember that ministry is not a right. It is a privilege.

4. Embrace the work of the Holy Spirit in your life and ministry. His anointing is essential for life-changing ministry.

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