Brian Wiele is Lead Pastor at River Ridge Covenant Church in Olympia, Washington, and serves as Chair of the Commission for Biblical Gender Equality for the Evangelical Covenant Church, which exists to equip the church to articulate the truth about Biblical equality regarding gender; and to advocate for women in ministry and leadership in all possible venues within the church. He recently spent time at CHIC (Covenant High In Christ) a youth conference of the ECC which takes place every three years.

I had every intention of sleeping on my flight to CHIC. I’m not a fan of flying before 6AM, but I felt it was best to accompany with the nine people attending from our church. My primary reason for participating in CHIC, however, was not to serve as one of their chaperones. Representing the Covenant’s Commission on Biblical Gender Equality, I was praying that God would direct me into meaningful encounters with students and leaders who sensed that God was calling them into vocational service.

Little did I sense that the first person would be on that flight.  Sitting in the row with me was a teenage girl heading to CHIC with her church from Redmond, Washington. A delightful young woman reading a very interesting book, she and I engaged in mostly small talk. I learned later, however, that on the next flight, she asked her youth pastor’s wife (Ali Hormann) about me.  She was thrilled to learn that there would be opportunities at CHIC to explore ministry, as she is sensing God’s call on her life.

This was just the first of several opportunities that surfaced during the week. The rest centered around the little table in The Hub where I sat each afternoon.  Admittedly, I was “luring” some to speak to me with the promise of a $15 I-tunes card.  Students were encouraged to write about why they love having a woman pastor or youth pastor, with the plan of giving out three cards on the last day. One of the winners, Pastor Kathy Kaminski of Trinity Covenant in Cincinnati, is pictured with some of her students. The other winners were Julie Portillo of Faith Covenant in Manistee, Michigan and Dawn Burnett of Celebration Covenant in Omaha, Nebraska. Continue Reading »

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Evelmyn Ivens was born in Mexico and moved to the United States during her teenage years. She graduated from North Park Theological Seminary in 2013 with a MA in Theological Studies and works at the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) in Chicago. Evelmyn has lived in Los Angeles, CA, Washington, DC, and Chicago, IL, enjoys traveling and learning about other cultures. She’s passionate about issues of immigration, hunger, poverty, and human trafficking.

The other day I was leaving home to meet a friend for dinner and on my way out the door, one of my roommates asked whom was I meeting? I said “a friend, who is really more like a mentor.” My roommate said, “Oh I wish I had a mentor!” I stopped for a moment and thought, how cool it was to have someone like this friend, someone that I look up, and ask for advise, but who encourages me, and pushes me in a good way, to continue writing, and dream together about continuing my education. This friend has become more like a mentor. In my first post on this blog I shared about two of my friends who inspired me about pursuing seminary education and about following God’s call into my life. But then there’s been other women who along the way have impacted my life and who continue to be of support.

In 2009 I had the amazing opportunity of doing an internship at Bread for the World. Bread is a Christian advocacy organization that focuses on issues of hunger and poverty. It was there that I became friends with a woman who since then has influenced my life so much, and whom I love dearly, Sister Margaret Mary Kimmins, a Franciscan nun from New York City. Before getting to know Sister Margaret Mary the image I had about nuns was completely different, I always thought all nuns wore habits and lived secluded in convents. But what a surprise! Sister M as my friend Dulce calls her, does not wear a habit nor lives in a convent. She actually loves city life. It was through her that I learned about Catholic Social Teaching because she not only talked about it, but she lives it. A woman who lives her faith and loves people, she was everyone’s favorite person at Bread. She’s so much fun and I loved working with her, there was never a dull moment. It was because of her that I stopped drinking bottled water, for example, and learned to be more conscious about the use of water, which is a very strong Franciscan value. I also learned about her justice work, and even had the chance to participate in an immigration rally with her. Continue Reading »

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Jon Lemmond is Pastor for Congregational Life at Montecito Covenant Church, Santa Barbara, CA and an adjunct professor at Westmont College. Jon received a M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in early modern European history from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focused on the issue of domestic abuse during the Protestant Reformation. He is married to Marianne Robins, a full-professor at Westmont College, and they parent four children: Jeremie, Emma, Jordan, and Lea.

We live in a world where our bodies are often experienced as burdens – a world where advertisers seek to alienate us from our own bodies by describing them as always lacking, desperately in need of some fixing or enhancement. Unfortunately, this is also true of many churches where sin is so closely defined by our bodies and where our souls and minds are envisaged as being our true selves. More than ever, the church needs to find ways to embody and reclaim the Biblical truth that our bodies, all bodies, are wonderful creations of a loving God. As a pastor and parent, I have come to learn that we will never be able to come close to gender equality without attending to the sacredness and vulnerability of our bodies. The ability to see one’s whole self as loved and empowered by God needs to be more than a mental task but also connected to tangible practices which help us envision all aspects of our lives as sacred.

The beauty of the body is everywhere found in the Scriptures. The Old Testament is replete with praise and wonder at our bodies as God’s good creation. Even a cursory review of the Psalms acknowledges the myriad ways our bodies are spiritual vehicles made for relationship with God: flesh longs for God (Ps. 63:1), can come to God (65:2), cry out for God (Ps. 84:2), and bless his holy name (Ps. 145:21). In one of the most well-known Psalms on the body (Psalm 139) – Leslie Allen translates vss. 13-14 – “Indeed you yourself created my kidneys; you wove me together in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks because you are awesomely wonderful, so wonderful is what you have made.” The wording of Leslie Allen’s translation is helpful. The Psalmist does not praise God because he (the Psalmist) is wonderful. He says that we are wonderful because God is – “you [God] are awesomely wonderful, so wonderful is what you have made.” God, the Psalmist declares, is the One who is the source of wonder for our bodily life. This means that bodies are not precious because they are beautiful or thin, well-groomed with straight teeth, muscular, controlled, or sleek. Your body – every body – is precious because it is the Lord’s. This shouldn’t detract from a sense of wonder about yourself – you are wonderfully made – but vs. 14 says that the wonderfulness of your body connects directly to God. So the task of the church is to help people creatively connect, love and serve one another in a way that protects the body, delights in the body, and cherishes the body as part of God’s good creation. Continue Reading »

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David Bjorlin is a pastor of worship at Resurrection Covenant Church (Chicago) and adjunct lecturer in worship at North Park Theological Seminary. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in liturgical studies at Boston University where he focuses on hymnody, the connection between liturgy and ethics, and children in worship. He recently published Incorporating Children in Worship: Mark of the Kingdom with NPTS professor Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom.

Growing up as a pastor’s kid in a Pentecostal church in northern Minnesota, I spent an inordinate amount of time in church. And in that tradition, sermons were not a fifteen-minute homily but at least a forty-five minute ordeal. With an attention span that usually ran out just as the preacher was working his way out of the introduction (in this tradition, it was always “he”), much of my time in church was spent looking for creative but quiet ways to pass time that seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Sometimes this was accomplished through vivid daydreaming; I would later resonate with the Wendell Berry character Jayber Crow who noted, “Some of the best things I have ever thought of I have thought of during bad sermons.”

But one of my favorite pastimes during sermons of indeterminate length was to grab the unused, dusty brown hymnal in front of me (the Assemblies of God’s Hymns of Glorious Praise) and leaf through its contents. During one of these forays into the hymnal, I noticed that one name seemed to recur with some regularity: Fanny J. Crosby. During a particularly long and arduous sermon, I set out to count how many hymn texts were written by this ubiquitous woman (21, in case you were wondering!). The search also brought to light hymn texts by Cecil Francis Alexander (“There Is a Green Hill Far Away”), Frances Ridley Havergal (“Take My Life and Let It Be” and “Like a River Glorious”), Louisa Stead (“’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”), and those translated from the German by Catherine Winkworth (“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” and “Now Thank We All Our God”), to name but a few. While at the time I didn’t notice the irony, I later came to realize how strange it was that in a tradition where women were banned from the pulpit, we had a hymnal chock-full of texts written by women. Continue Reading »

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Karen Hinz is solo pastor of Mission Covenant Church in Ishpeming, Michigan. She loves to travel when time and money allow. Raising teenagers is her current joy and challenge!

I know this column is a place for serious discussion of issues facing women in ministry. And I’m usually pretty serious, but sometimes, we’ve just got to laugh. So today, don’t take life too seriously. Allow yourself a chuckle. It’s good for the body and the soul.

When I was a child, the church kitchen was run by Mrs. Bance, who had white hair, and Mrs. Bice, who had slightly blue white hair. Noisy kids were not welcome. Many years later, when I started as a solo pastor, I wondered what my relationship to the church kitchen ought to be. This was not covered in seminary. Was I welcome in the kitchen? Banned? Expected to share the load the same as the other women in the church? When “fellowship hosting sheets” came around, was I supposed to sign up?

The church kitchen is usually the domain of a few specific women, but also a place of expectations for all church women. In many churches today, males of any sort – and particularly male pastors – are not still not allowed near these stainless steel temples. Or at least not expected to take their turns. In fact, in these places, kitchen ladies will come to church any time of day to make coffee for the pastor, or for any gathering the pastor may be hosting. So I found myself puzzled as to what to do. For two years, I purposely did not learn how to operate the church coffeepots, because it seemed like trying to take over the kitchen ladies’ turf. But this also raised the familiar question: does a clergy woman need to act like a man to be respected as pastor? It’s a Catch-22. The last couple of years, I have been making coffee when needed. And no one seems to mind. Continue Reading »

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Mandi Cherico is a second year M.Div student at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL. Raised in the Twin Cities, her interests include feminism, word-care, aesthetics, and Beyonce.

“Are there really that many hurting women in the Church?”

I was a freshman at a Christian college when I heard one of my professors pose this question to our class. Yes, I replied, women were still second-class citizens in many congregations, yet he was unconvinced. According to him, the women in his church seemed happy and fulfilled. We’ve come a long way. Women have the right to vote and work outside the home, why make an issue out of nothing?

I wish I could tell you that I attended college in an era of widespread, Mad Men-type sexism but, alas, I graduated in the early 2000s. I’ve reflected on his disbelief since then, still saddened by his ignorance. His question taught me something valuable, though. For some among us, the struggles of women in the 21st century are a non-issue. It is the opinion of some, even (especially?) in the Church, that discussions on gender equality are simply not needed today.

I agree that it’s good to recognize women’s progress. Three waves of feminists spanning two centuries have done hard and necessary work both inside and outside the Church to create a more equal playing field for women and men. There are far more women in the workforce this decade than ever before. For every one man who graduated from college in the U.S. in 2009, three women earned their diplomas as well. Women are running companies and running for president. So why, some may ask, are we still writing blogs about gender equality? Continue Reading »

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Corrie Gustafson is an ordained Covenant pastor and the Pacific Southwest liaison for Advocates for Covenant Clergy Women (ACCW). She currently serves as the Pastor to Women at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California. She blogs regularly at http://pastorwithapurse.com

Last month I attended the Pacific Southwest Conference annual meeting and there I hosted a gathering for clergy women. 15 women showed up, among them chaplains, staff pastors, senior pastors, bivocational ministers, non-profit leaders, and conference staff. We had a time of open sharing framed by this question: where do you see the ink of the Holy Spirit in your ministry?

I’ve attended many such gatherings over the years, and now hosted a handful. I’ve learned that camaraderie among women clergy is a critical force in sustaining our ministry in the church and the world. It’s incredibly encouraging to both testify to and bear witness to God’s work through women with such diverse calls and gifts.

Despite the many inspiring stories, there’s always a sobering element to our meetings. I’ve never been to a gathering of Covenant clergy women that was unburdened by a story, or stories, of pain. Like the story of a staff pastor who resigned because she was bullied by her senior pastor. Or the testimony of a pastor who serves her church faithfully and her efforts are bearing rich fruit, but she is paid significantly less than her male colleagues of the same experience and education level. Or a pastor who bravely took a call to lead a struggling church (a call declined by several male candidates) and the slow climb to congregational health is blamed on her perceived “lack of experience.” Continue Reading »

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Rev. Mary Putera is an Ordained ECC pastor serving as the interim pastor at Sunset Covenant Church in Beaverton Oregon.  Mary also serves nationally and globally in peace building and community resiliency efforts.

In the past two years I have lost 4 clergy colleagues from the ECC Covenant Ministerium, not to death; but to death of hope.  Loss of Hope that the ONE who befriends us is actually powerful enough to form us into deeply respectful, mutually honoring, diverse and embracing, loving mission friends.  History, because it is systemically entrenched, seems to have a mighty hold on us believers.

I am heartbroken by these losses.  These are women and men of God who truly have been befriended by God and separated from our ECC church community.  These pastors are all called by God, affirmed by our community, and became dismembered from us.  Is it because history forms us more strongly than Hope?  I wonder.  For me there is not blame, just lament, lament that where we are is not where we could be.  Lament that it is possible, that where we are headed is not where God would have us be going for the sake of, with God, giving birth to the Kingdom community here on earth. Continue Reading »

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