wfn.org | Black clergywomen 'build bridges' with others

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Sept. 23, 2002 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.	  10-31-71BP{425}

NOTE:  Photographs are available.

By Melissa Lauber*

COLUMBIA, Md. (UMNS) - Integration has not yet come to the United States or
its churches, an African-American pastor told 60 women at the annual meeting
of the Black Clergywomen of the United Methodist Church.

"I've never experienced integration. True integration means the power
structure has to change," said the Rev. Katie G. Cannon, the first
African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (USA) and
a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary. She spoke at the
United Methodist black clergywomen's Sept. 16-19 meeting.

Black clergywomen represent only 1 percent or 497 of the total of 44,118
United Methodist pastors, according to denominational statistics.

"Many of us serve in churches that are miles away from other black
clergywomen," said the Rev. Beverly L. Wilkes of Lebanon, Ill.,
superintendent of the Mississippi River District of the Illinois Great River
Conference. "It's essential for us to come together to celebrate who we are
and share our stories. It's an opportunity to not wear masks. It's a time of
challenging and a time for the healing of our spirits."

In addition to hearing speakers, the women expanded on the conference's
theme of "building bridges" by hosting an inter-ethnic panel to discuss
challenges facing women in the ordained ministry. The Rev. Gennifer Brooks,
pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., moderated.
 
The Rev. HiRho Park, a native of South Korea and a professor at Wesley
Theological Seminary in Washington, said that the difficulties faced by
female pastors were systemic throughout the denomination. The church, she
said, seems to function with unspoken rules of tokenism.

Park, also the chairwoman of the Baltimore-Washington Conference Commission
on Religion and Race, drew applause when she shared the Greek myth of
Procrustes. 

Procrustes ran an inn with a special bed that had the unique property of
assuming the length of whoever lay down upon it, Park said. As he offered
hospitality to passersby, Procrustes did not mention that this phenomena of
"a perfect fit" involved stretching on a rack the visitors who were too
short or chopping off the legs of guests who were too long.

The United Methodist system today is like Procrustes, Park said, chopping up
and stretching the gifts, abilities, and identities of its ethnic minority
pastors to make them fit. 

"It's time. We need to put Procustes into his own bed," she said.

The Rev. Laura Easto, pastor of College Park (Md.) United Methodist Church,
shared stories from early in her career when she worked as a summer chaplain
at Yellowstone National Park.

The only woman pastor in the park, she preached at seven services each
Sunday. "Not a Sunday passed without someone standing up while I preached
and reading aloud Scripture that they felt provided God had not called women
to preach," Easto said. Her parents sent her a plane ticket home. She hung
it on her wall with the note: "I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me."

Easto, chairwoman of the Board of Ordained Ministry of the
Baltimore-Washington Conference, rejoices that many women today do not face
the trials of being the first woman pastor in a church. However, she
believes that as a group, women clergy have become fractured.

"Somewhere along the line, we stopped supporting each other. We decided it
was more important to advance politically," she said. "But we need to
gather. We need to hear each other's stories again. We need to remember."

For the Rev. Tweedy Sombrero, pastor at Globe (Ariz.) United Methodist
Church, the trials of being a Native American female pastor of a white
United Methodist church in Arizona are still daunting. A Navajo, she said,
she wrestles with people's perceptions of Indians as stupid or lazy. 

"The people tried to make me their mission project instead of their pastor,"
she said. "I have to work hard to keep that from happening."

However, claiming her authority as a pastor and balancing Native and Anglo
customs and traditions is not always easy. "Recently, I went to visit a
parishioner in the hospital. They wouldn't let me in because they didn't
believe I was the pastor," she said. 

The Rev. Dorothy Watson Tatem, director of urban ministries in the Eastern
Pennsylvania Conference, represented an African-American view on the panel
and stressed that these incidents, and women's history in the church, should
be remembered.

"We may fall to our knees, but that's all right because we can hear God on
our knees and then we can get up," she said. 

The women on the panel offered ideas to improve the status of women pastors
in the church, such as nurturing specific leaders, forming more intentional
networks of support, and providing additional funding for education and
other opportunities.

"We need to dream off the page and not worry about what we don't have,"
Tatem said. She encouraged women throughout the connection to "come together
in the halls of the mundane" and share their everyday struggles.

"We need to identify leaders," Tatem said. "But we also need to build the
body, so that if one gets struck down, there are hundreds to step forward
and serve."

Bishop Linda Lee of the Michigan Area also spoke at the conference during
the opening worship service. "It's our time," she told the black
clergywomen. "It's our turn to be blessed."

# # #

*Lauber is associate editor of the UMConnection newspaper in the
Baltimore-Washington Conference.

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United Methodist News Service
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