ELCA News Blog
October 10, 2006
ELCA reports survey results on gender issues in ministry
by Frank Imhoff, ELCA News Service
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and its predecessor church bodies began ordaining women in 1970. On the 35th anniversary of that event, ELCA Research and Evaluation conducted a survey "to describe differences and similarities in the ministerial experiences between rostered men and women." A "rostered" leader of the ELCA is an ordained minister or a professional lay minister -- associate in ministry, deaconess or diaconal minister. ELCA Research and Evaluation issued a 41-page report on its "35th Anniversary of Ordination of Women Rostered Leader Survey 2005" in September 2006. The report focused on the experiences of 1,625 clergy respondents.
"The central hypothesis of this study was that there are differences in ministerial experiences and that gender is the primary factor related to these differences," the report said. Those differences are more pronounced when comparing responses according to the gender and the race/ethnicity of the respondent, it said. Some differences are related more to the age of the respondent or when the respondent was ordained.
The report drew some conclusions from the surveys. Slightly more than half of both women and men waited one to four months after completing the ELCA candidacy process before receiving a call to ministry from a congregation. White clergy were more likely to receive calls to rural or small-town settings, while clergy of color were more likely to receive calls to large-city settings. Whether the person was ordained before or after 1990 made the primary difference in their compensation. Female clergy, especially women of color, were more likely to be single than their male counterparts.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog