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Note #8363 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Committee hears women's concerns
GA04069
June 30, 2004

Committee hears women's concerns

Speakers say clergywomen still face discrimination, need support

by Emily Enders Odom

RICHMOND, June 30 - In a frank and intimate exchange, about a dozen women and
two men shared stories about women in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Wednesday
at a consultation sponsored by the Advocacy Committee for Women's Concerns
(ACWC).

The Rev. Karen Breckenridge, associate pastor of Northminster Presbyterian
Church in Seattle, WA, the ACWC chair, convened the informal gathering
intended as a forum for feedback on issues raised in the committee's "Report
on Clergywomen's Experience in Ministry," a document approved by last year's
Assembly.

Breckenridge also lifted up women's issues before this Assembly, including
two items brought by the ACWC to the Committee on Church Orders and Ministry.
"What we're asking the GA to recognize," she said, referring to those items,
"is that there's a prevailing myth that the work of supporting and sustaining
clergywomen in ministry was completed. That work is not done."

N'Yisrela C. Watts-Afriyie, the coordinator for the Women's Advocacy Network
of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, said her own experience
validates Breckenridge's observation that support for clergywomen is mostly
provided by the clergywomen themselves.

"What's really lacking, in terms of support for clergywomen," Watts-Afriyie
said, "is the opportunity for clergywomen themselves to come together and
connect.  I've talked with seminarians who have said, 'We really would like
to have mentors ... seasoned clergywomen who can be with us on a one-to-one
basis.'"

The concerns raised by the forum participants included appropriate child-care
services, problems of single and racial-ethnic clergywomen, inadequate
self-care opportunities and inequitable compensation.

The Rev. Terry Alexander, associate for pastoral care at Richmond's First
Presbyterian Church, a nominee for ACWC membership, said, "I've been an
advocate for women ever since seminary." He said he is aware "how tough it
has been for women - who have more gifts than I do, in so many cases, and
just do not get to use them where they should."

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