wfn.org | Taiwan women pastors mark 60th anniversary of women’s ordination

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3009 Edition

>October 26~November 1, 2009

Taiwan women pastors mark 60th anniversary of women’s  ordination

>Reported by Chen Wei-jian

>Written by Lydia Ma

The Association of Women Ministers in Taiwan has been renamed and  transformed into a

ministry-oriented association recently. Instead of merely  providing fellowship, it will now also

focus on planning events scheduled for next year as 2010 is the  60th anniversary of women’s

>ordination as pastors.

During a conference on October 20-21, there was a forum for  Aborigine and city women

pastors, followed by a general conference at PCT headquarters for  all women pastors. In total,

62 women pastors attended the conferences. During one of the  conferences, a woman pastor

ordained in 1990 said she was the 30th woman pastor to be ordained  by PCT. The church

>now has over 400 ordained women pastors.

On the second day of the conference, there was a Taize-style  morning chapel followed by

seminars on various topics, including gender equality laws,  conflict resolution, principles for

pastoring a church, women pastors and their families, and  ministering as a single, woman

>pastor.

On the topic of gender equality, attendees mentioned that PCT  currently has a rule mandating

at least 20% of the board of directors of all its affiliated  organizations must be women. They

hope this rule can be enforced more efficiently and the bar can be  raised higher so that at

least one-third of all board members can be women. The  association’s CEO Chen Mei-hui

replied that based on the gender composition in most churches  today, such a ratio is a

>reasonable goal to aim for.

Chen also commented that many people have pointed out before that  women tend to

participate and attend board meetings less frequently than men.  However, she believes such

comments are unfair because women are newcomers when it comes to  being board

members. As long as we give them enough time and opportunities to  learn, they will become

experienced sooner or later. Therefore, women should be encouraged  to participate in

presbytery and general assembly administrative matters.

>********************

Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local  languages.

You may translate and re-use our articles online only if you  acknowledge the source as

"Taiwan Church News" and list the names of the reporter and  writer.

Contact us before reprinting any of our articles for print  publications.

Direct comments and questions about this article to:  enews@pctpress.org

Visit our website for more news at: http://enews.pctpress.org/  (English)

>http://www.pctpress.org (Chinese)

>********************

> 
>