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Clergywomen's event will celebrate milestone, address challenges

Dec. 16, 2005

NOTE: Photographs are available at http://umns.umc.org.

A UMNS Report
By Vicki Brown*

When 1,500 clergywomen gather in Chicago for the 2006 International
United Methodist Clergywomen's Consultation next summer, they will reach
forward to a new generation, even as they celebrate the historic 50th
anniversary of full clergy rights for women.

The Rev. HiRho Park, coordinator of the Aug. 13-17 meeting, which is
sponsored by the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and
Ministry, says the gathering provides an opportunity to address barriers
that remain for women in ministry. The final plenary session will be
devoted to considering the future of clergywomen in the United Methodist
Church.

"The gender gap between achievement of male and female clergy persists
in spite of the increasing number of women coming into the ministry,"
says Park, director of Continuing Formation for Ministry at the board.
"Clergywomen are still struggling because of lower salaries and
resistance to accepting female pastors at the local churches level.

"Many clergywomen are still in a lower to mid-level placement,
oftentimes on a token level. Gender, race, education, family, mobility
and politics of the church all affect clergywomen's ministries. Clergy -
male and female - in leadership positions must be advocates for women
and racial-ethnic ministers."

Park hopes the consultation will help develop strategies to strengthen
and nurture the next generation of women leaders. Those strategies could
include establishing a support system in each annual conference,
encouraging women to explore global leadership opportunities and
developing seminary curriculum that encourages greater diversity. In
addition, she hopes the conference can look at why ethnic minority
clergywomen are less likely to stay in local church ministry.

"It is a tragedy that the church is losing its rich diversity when these
women leave local church ministry," Park says.

Registration brochures were mailed in November, and more clergywomen are
expected at the 2006 consultation than at any of the previous seven
gatherings. That is partly because of interest in the 50th anniversary
of the historic vote at the 1956 General Conference in Minneapolis,
which gave full clergy rights to women. The anniversary will be observed
at a banquet during the meeting.

The Rev. Jerome King Del Pino, top staff executive of the Board of
Higher Education and Ministry, describes the significance of observing
the anniversary at the meeting.

"The United Methodist Church, and especially its predecessor body, the
Methodist Church, will observe a defining moment in its quest to be
'fully church' when it celebrates the 50th anniversary of granting full
clergy rights for women in set-apart ministry," Del Pino says. "While
the 1956 General Conference addressed a vexing social, political and
justice issue by its action, the greater significance was, and is, that
the full inclusion of women in the ordained leadership of the church
affirmed the fullness of God's creation and God's expectation that the
church model God's will for God's creation to the world."

Park agrees, saying the presence of clergywomen is the evidence of an
egalitarian belief of the church.

"God calls all people into ministry, especially to the ministry of
reconciliation," says Park, the first Korean-American clergywoman to
head up the consultation. "We need to commemorate the contribution and
sacrifice that women made to be faithful to their dedication to ordained
ministry."

In addition to the banquet and plenary session, workshops dealing with
such issues as the status of racial-ethnic clergywomen, how to mentor
the next generation of clergywomen, and bridging the gap between
clergywomen and lay women will be offered. Spirituality groups offered
each morning will explore such issues as spirituality on the go,
intercessory prayer and living the Sabbath.

Bishop Leontine T.C. Kelly, the first African-American woman elected
bishop, foresees an ever-growing role for women clergy in the United
Methodist Church.

"As I listen to the young women bishops, we've got bright, able,
well-trained and clear-thinking women," says Kelly, now retired. And
those bishops are likely to appoint more women to posts in
"high-steepled" churches, the large churches that have typically been a
route to the episcopacy, she adds.

Kelly credits the changing face of ministry - about 9,500, or one in
five United Methodist clergy, are women - partly to the civil rights
movement.

"I don't think we'd have seen the movement in race or color in ministry
without the kind of movement we had in civil rights," she says. "And
women were very much a part of that, too."

*Brown is an associate editor and writer in the Office of Interpretation
at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

News media contact: Linda Green or Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615)
742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org

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