by James Casey
This book, written in 1975, a time in the churches of Christ of ultra legalism and extreme restrictions on all females in general, examines the rights of girls to express their prayers in the presence of boys in the youth devotional, family devotional, and other informal meetings, as viewed by an elder of the churches of Christ. James was an elder who, during this time frame, maintained his fairly traditional Church of Christ views regarding the silence of women in leadership and the worship, yet he stepped out of that traditional thinking to defend the right of girls to lead prayer in the presence of teenage boys in the home, youth devotionals, and informal meetings. It is a book that has an overall theme of gender inclusiveness in the youth programs that was published at a time when gender inclusiveness was just not talked about without risking being publically labeled as a "liberal" or worse. This book was at least 25 years ahead of the current thought and practices in 1975 regarding girls and prayer. As open discussion on this subject has increased over the years since it was published, this book has actually become more applicable. However, even with increased discussion and study, there are still huge restrictions on girls being able to audibly pray or lead a prayer in the presence of a boy who has been baptized. Bro. Casey takes a thorough look at this problem and solutions. The arguments he uses from scripture and common sense are not only valuable for developing the prayer lives of teenage girls and teenage boys, who need to be able to hear their female peers pray alongside them and to be lead in prayer by those females, it has applications for females in the church in general for the same reasons. This book should be a must read for parents, elders, preachers, youth ministers, deacons and teens. Jim Hackney, the present minister for the Heritage Church of Christ in Ft. Worth, wrote the forward for this book.
At the present time, this book is out of print. A limited number of remaining new copies will be offered for sale in the near future by Bro. Casey's wife, June, through this web site. The proceeds of the sale though this web site will go in their entirety to Sis. Casey. However, in order to make it available in the future after the present remaining copies have been sold, June has given me permission to make it available free of charge in pdf to anyone who would like to download it and read it. If you would like an original copy for your library, the information on how to order the book should be available on this page sometime in the next month. For anyone who is interested in gender inclusiveness in the Church of Christ, especially regarding teenage females in our youth programs, this book is a valuable reference for your library.