wfn.org | UCC / Florida pastor elected

[powellb@ucc.org]

Dec. 23, 1996
United Church of Christ
Diane C. Madison
(216) 736-2226
E-mail:  madisond@ucc.org
On the World Wide Web:  http://www.ucc.org

Florida pastor elected to head denomination's women's agency

      CLEVELAND--A minister from Tallahassee, Fla., will be
the next executive director of the national women's agency of
the 1.5-million-member United Church of Christ.
      The Rev. Lois M. (Loey) Powell begins work in Cleveland
Feb. 1, 1997, at the UCC's Coordinating Center for Women in
Church and Society.  She was elected in December 1996 by the
Coordinating Center's board of directors.
      The Coordinating Center monitors the status of women in
the denomination and develops policies and programs to address
women's concerns and eliminate sexism inside and outside the
church.
      Powell has been pastor of the United Church in
Tallahassee since 1989 and before that held several church
positions in the San Francisco Bay Area.  She brings to her
new ministry a concern for issues of social and economic
justice, as well as a keen awareness of the internal work to
be done in the UCC as its national agencies are restructured
over the next three-and-a-half years.
      "I am excited to be joining the staff of CCW at this
critical time for the whole church," Powell says.  "As we move
towards a new national structure, it is essential that the
particular concerns of all women in the UCC--women of color,
laywomen, clergy women, lesbian and bisexual women, young
women and girls, retired women and women of diverse economic
backgrounds--are assured a place, a voice, and a presence in
the full life of the denomination.  Women in the UCC also
demonstrate prophetic leadership in society in challenging the
evils of racism and sexism and the Coordinating Center is one
agency which works to equip women for such prophetic
leadership."
      Among Powell's responsibilities will be to convene the
team representing all national bodies of the UCC to coordinate
programs related to women; represent the United Church of
Christ in a variety of ecumenical settings; and oversee Women
in Mission, a partnership network for women in the United
Church of Christ.
      Powell received her B.A. degree in religion from Oberlin
College, Oberlin, Ohio, in 1973; her M.Div. from Pacific
School of Religion, Berkeley, Calif., in 1977; and was
ordained to the Christian ministry in Northern California in
1978.  From 1978 to 1985, she served as director of an
ecumenical environmental justice organization in the Bay Area;
on the UCC's Northern California Conference staff as an
interim associate; as Interim Minister of First Congregational
Church, a UCC congregation in San Francisco; and as founding
pastor of Peace United Church of Christ in Oakland.
      She has served the UCC in a variety of voluntary
leadership capacities.  Nationally, she has served on the
Executive Council, the General Synod Committee on Structure,
the former Advisory Board of the Coordinating Center for Women
and as national coordinator of the United Church Coalition for
Lesbian/Gay Concerns.
      She succeeds the Rev. Mary Susan Gast, CCW's executive
since 1991, who becomes the UCC's conference minister for
Northern California-Nevada in January.
      The United Church of Christ, with more than 6,100 local
churches in the United States and Puerto Rico, was formed by
the 1957 union of the Congregational Christian Churches and
the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
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