As a co-pastor with 25 years of full-time ministry experience, I am grateful for the people who have invested in my calling.

When I started out as a worship director, my senior pastor met with me weekly for training and coaching. He held me to high performance standards, gradually giving me more responsibilities.

This leader was just one of many who have mentored me through the years. My ministry today would look different if these men had followed the Billy Graham Rule.

I would never have heard the feedback I needed for growth — constructive criticism that was too personal for a group setting. Without such guidance, I likely would not have experienced the opportunities I’ve had for development and advancement.

In short, the barriers that hold back many women from ministry leadership would have blocked my path as well.

The Rule

The Billy Graham Rule — which many ministers still dogmatically follow — goes back to 1948.

That year, Graham and three male colleagues met in Modesto, California, to discuss the evangelistic ministry’s values.

What emerged was the so-called Modesto Manifesto, which included three major commitments: financial transparency; honesty in reporting ministry results; and a prohibition against male leaders being alone with any woman other than a wife or relative.

This third principle, which became known as the Billy Graham Rule, gained popular support among evangelicals beyond Graham’s ministry.

The policy’s simplicity and seeming virtue contribute to its appeal. It advances the laudable goal of sexual integrity and presumably helps shield pastors from false accusations.

However, this 76-year-old rule creates more problems than it solves.

Brothers and Sisters

Amid legitimate concerns about an increasingly promiscuous American culture, Graham attempted to insulate team members from temptation.

After all, the apostle Paul warned, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

Rather than focusing on hearts and minds, however, the Billy Graham Rule simply creates physical distance between men and women.

Gender segregation has never been a panacea for sexual sin. Overlooking the need for spiritual transformation, it instead promotes social isolation and the marginalization of women.

If we responded to the temptation of internet pornography in a similar manner, we would forbid digital technology entirely. We might return to using bound encyclopedias for research, sending all correspondence through the postal service, and making calls with rotary phones.

The Billy Graham Rule perpetuates the myth that men and women can’t work together without engaging in inappropriate behavior. It treats male pastors as powerless victims of irresistible sexual urges.

Creating gender barriers that don’t exist in other professions sends a message that ministers are incapable of achieving the spiritual maturity they expect of parishioners.

More subtly, the Billy Graham Rule accommodates the oversexualization of male-female relationships with its subtext that all women are sexually dangerous.

This mindset objectifies women as mere sexual beings and temptresses. It suggests women are threatening and frightening.

Such a perspective doesn’t transform culture. It represents a caricature of culture, reinforcing the notion that men and women always relate to one another in sexual ways.

Instead of obsessing over culture, we should consider how God views relationships in the Church and seek to live out His vision.

The New Testament provides the framework of a healthy family. Fellow believers are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Within this context, every relationship is innocent.

Rather than focusing
on hearts and minds,
the Billy Graham Rule
simply creates physical
distance between men
and women.

Renewing the mind means rejecting thoughts that don’t fit these categories. Instead of sexualized ways of thinking, we focus on protection, care and respect.

We should continually ask how Jesus sees the people we work with and serve — and then treat them accordingly.

God created both men and women in His image (Genesis 1:27). He poured out His Spirit on “sons and daughters” alike (Acts 2:17). We cannot fully reflect God’s design and calling while sidelining half the Church.

When men and women create healthy partnerships in ministry, everyone benefits. This calls for boundaries that support the biblical family framework.

Good relational boundaries don’t create distance. Too much distance destroys relationships, leading to division. The goal of relational boundaries should be strengthening relationships, not pushing people away.

Just as a bone structure supports musculature in a body, healthy boundaries support relational closeness, promoting healthy interaction. In this way, we reflect Kingdom culture rather than simply reacting to the culture of our fallen world.

Ministry Barriers

The Billy Graham Rule creates unique challenges for egalitarian ministries.

Legalistic gender segregation is at odds with the goals of affirming and equipping called women.

Some pastors today follow a version of the Billy Graham Rule that’s even more extreme than the original. Rather than simply refusing to be alone with a woman who is not a relative, they refuse to have a relationship of any kind with such a woman.

I’ve encountered male pastors who refused to look me in the eye. Others wouldn’t answer an email directly, instead asking their assistant or wife to respond.

These pastors fully isolate themselves within male ministry circles. Walling themselves off with a righteous-sounding rule, they refrain from working with emerging female leaders.

Consequently, women face major impediments to ministry — even within egalitarian traditions. Churches miss out on the God-given gifts these women offer. And male leaders forfeit valuable partnerships in ministry.

Young ministers need mentoring from pastors. A lack of such opportunities within many churches blocks women’s access to leadership development.

The Billy Graham Rule was designed by men for men. Today, men wield it almost exclusively, blocking women from leadership.

I recently interviewed more than 100 female ministry leaders in the U.S., Canada, and Australia as part of my doctoral research. Without exception, these women reported having no input regarding relational boundaries with male colleagues.

Men set the boundaries, and the women felt compelled to accept them. This lack of agency is not only disempowering, but also disrespectful of women.

The Billy Graham Rule assumes male pastors are somehow irresistibly attractive to the women around them, and if a pastor lowers his guard to have a one-on-one meeting, a woman will take emotional or sexual advantage of him.

This simply isn’t true. Spiritually and emotionally healthy women don’t objectify their pastors. In fact, none of the women I spoke with reported ever feeling sexually attracted to the men on their ministry teams.

Pastors’ wives sometimes promote the Billy Graham Rule as a way to preserve marital fidelity. However, these views usually arise from personal insecurities.

Building relationships with a spouse’s colleagues and mentees is a healthier way of working through such concerns. This also helps create accountability for everyone involved.

Despite our human desire for simple, memorable solutions, the Billy Graham Rule is too simple. It does not handle every type of relationship well.

For example, the Billy Graham Rule fails to address same-sex attraction, ignoring the possibility that an inappropriate relationship could develop between two men.

Furthermore, if a male pastor is unmarried, strict adherence to the Billy Graham Rule inside and outside the church would ensure he remains single. (While few evangelicals would support such an extreme application, this point does highlight a logical inconsistency.)

Healthy Alternatives

I believe most pastors are spiritually and emotionally mature people who are pursuing their callings with integrity.

This is not to suggest there should be no boundaries. Appropriate policies can help safeguard ministries against abuse, corruption and discrimination.

The solution is not to
build walls between
the sexes. Instead, we
need a new paradigm
for relational
boundaries in ministry.

Still, the solution is not to build walls between the sexes. Instead, we need a new paradigm for relational boundaries in ministry.

My research examined the various ways church leaders address these issues. Between the extremes of gender segregation and a complete lack of guardrails are two moderating alternatives healthy teams follow.

These paradigms utilize boundaries to facilitate — rather than hinder — interaction and cooperation between men and women.

Each provides a framework for developing a more nuanced set of boundaries than the Billy Graham Rule offers. While the processes are more complex, they give agency to both men and women, ultimately cultivating healthier environments.

The first is the consistent boundaries approach. All team members follow the same guidelines, including policies regarding sexual harassment.

Proximity boundaries establish norms for healthy social interaction. For example, the rule of three encourages meetings and mentorships in trios rather than pairs.

When one-on-one meetings in an office are necessary, a door-open policy adds a measure of safety.

Discouraging hugs among staff members and restricting touch to handshakes sets a tone of professionalism.

Ministry team members navigate unique relational dynamics, where the lines between church-family life and work obligations are often blurred. This reality provides all the more reason to establish proximity boundaries in digital, office, ministry, and home spaces.

To protect the reputations of team members who work together, leaders should also consider public relations boundaries. These guidelines discourage interaction others might perceive as inappropriate.

For example, two colleagues having a professional lunch meeting in public might be mistaken for a couple on a romantic date. A team commitment to avoid dining out in pairs (unless the pair is a married couple) anticipates and avoids this situation.

What works — and doesn’t work — may vary from one ministry team to the next. Guidelines that help a large staff work well together might hinder a smaller group, for instance.

Establishing appropriate and helpful boundaries requires collaboration, flexibility, communication, and careful consideration of the team’s culture and context.

A second paradigm is the emotionally intelligent approach. This framework focuses on the spiritual and emotional health of team members, encouraging them to pay attention to internal cues and personal vulnerabilities.

This approach cultivates self-awareness and honesty. When sensing inappropriate physical or emotional attraction, emotionally intelligent team members take the necessary steps back.

Seasons of exhaustion or unmet needs call for enhanced introspection and caution.

Leaders with emotional intelligence and integrity avoid making comments or using body language others might misinterpret as suggestive.

Emotional intelligence increases awareness of social dynamics that might be veering into inappropriate places and steers those relationships back into health.

For example, an emotionally intelligent person waits until the next day to respond to a late-night message from a team member who makes him or her feel especially affirmed, recognizing that physical exhaustion produces emotional vulnerability.

Emotional intelligence is vital when a leader is tired, stressed, discouraged, overworked, lonely, conflicted, or struggling spiritually.

Self-awareness about discouragement or exhaustion should send us to Jesus to meet our needs for encouragement and support.

During conversations with team members, emotionally intelligent leaders avoid saying anything that might come across as flirtatious or introduce even a hint of romantic tension. Every exchange should be one that could air publicly without shame.

If a discussion strays in an overly personal or otherwise awkward direction, emotional intelligence helps reign in the communication and refocus it on ministry.

Spirit-empowered transformation affects everything, including work relationships. It creates in us a desire for appropriate boundaries and greater emotional intelligence, so we can express love for God and others in
all we do.

This shapes team relationships as professional partnerships rather than personal friendships.

The emotionally intelligent approach isn’t about simply avoiding attractive women.

I have experienced moments when I felt as though colleagues were avoiding me, especially when I was a young, single woman in ministry. Not only is this hurtful and confusing, but discrimination is also illegal.

An emotionally intelligent approach empowers us to redirect our thoughts and intentionally relate to team members in a professional and platonic manner.

Of course, it is erroneous to assume an attractive woman is a temptation for every man — or vice versa. The notion that everyone acts on impulses and feelings of attraction is equally misguided.

The Holy Spirit helps us overcome temptations and manage emotions in ways that glorify Christ.

For married team members, the most important boundary is prioritizing home life. A healthy, fulfilling marriage is the best safeguard against infidelity.

We need practical and adaptable paradigms for creating appropriate boundaries, without penalizing or demeaning women.

Heart Change

Teams often lean toward a system of clear boundaries rather than focusing on emotional intelligence.

Evaluating other people’s behavior is much easier than managing their thinking. We can see behavior, but we can’t read minds.

Thus, the challenge of an emotionally intelligent approach is that no one can impose it. It is a voluntary, internal process.

Despite the difficulty of accountability, the emotionally intelligent approach is the most important. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) and a crucial part of spiritual formation.

True discipleship is not about imposing rules and supervising behavior. It is about heart change that leads to gradual transformation.

It’s through spiritual renewal of the mind that believers are “able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

As Paul told the church in Corinth, “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:17–18).

Inner transformation manifests externally, as the Holy Spirit inspires and empowers Christlike ways of thinking and living. Only when behavior change follows heart change does it become a lasting part of our new identity in Christ.

Likewise, we cannot simply impose the Billy Graham Rule and expect it to inoculate our ministries against sexual transgressions. People overcome sin by surrendering it to God and allowing Him to change their hearts.

Spirit-empowered transformation affects everything, including work relationships. It creates in us a desire for appropriate boundaries and greater emotional intelligence, so we can express love for God and others in all we do.

Consider Paul’s words to Titus:

The grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope — the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach (Titus 2:11–15).

Notice that the ability to say “no” to ungodliness is a work of God’s grace. This is not something we will bring about through rules alone.

As we disciple teams that are growing in grace and godliness, we can encourage them to “treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity” (1 Timothy 5:1–2).

This, in turn, sets an example for the entire congregation — “in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).

This article appears in the Winter 2025 issue of Influence magazine.