Commission on Biblical Gender Equality

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. 

Last week I had the honor of joining eight-hundred-fifty women for Triennial, the outstanding conference for ECC Women Ministries. As one of the two dozen or so men attending, my presence created a light-hearted cognitive dissonance, like seeing a giraffe standing among a group of swans. At six foot three, towering over the fifteen women in the hotel elevator, I was once again politely asked the question: “What brings you to Triennial?”

Thinking is good. It’s natural and healthy to attempt to resolve conflicting thoughts in one’s mind. “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong.” What’s up with that?

My official reason for attending was to co-lead with Pastor Abby Jones a workshop on the Develop a Deborah initiative. (You can learn more here). A small (two dozen) but lively and responsive group of women attended. The low turnout can partly be attributed to the fact that our seminar was added to the slate of workshops after many people had already registered. Realistically however, the topic of women in ministry is not necessarily the primary thought on the minds of many people.

Because of my role serving on the Commission on Biblical Gender Equality I was also invited to attend a breakfast for women clergy, at which the fortieth anniversary of the ordination of women in the ECC was celebrated. Near the end of the meeting, I was given the opportunity to briefly share about our commission’s hope for Develop a Deborah – that many local congregations would identify and encourage girls and women who have leadership gifts.

I told them that I could trace back my role on the commission and even my participation at Triennial back to cognitive dissonance, specifically the effect one woman had on the collective mind of our congregation. In 2007-8, Kirsten Kronberg Burdick was the first woman to serve our congregation for a year as a North Park Seminary pastoral intern.

No one could deny that the Holy Spirit was powerfully present and active in her ministry among us, especially as the year progressed. This had an unshakeable impact upon those in our fellowship who were not comfortable with the idea of women in ministry. Kirsten’s presence and pastoral gifts caused people to attempt to resolve the conflict in their minds – God was blessing them and speaking to them, but it was through a woman. Hmmm, what does that mean?

Thinking is good, but it’s not always comfortable or easy, which is why it’s often avoided or discouraged. An ordered and predictable life is much preferred; uncertainty can just make us grouchy. When someone rearranges the cupboards at home or the aisles at our favorite store, it causes an existential vertigo. If my long-held convictions are shown to be suspect, that means I might also have to examine other areas of my theology, so I’d rather not think about it.

Jesus made people think, which sometimes also made people mad. Parables without a moral application – what does it mean? Why is he talking to that woman? God desires to stir up the placid waters of our minds: When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. But I now arraign you and set my accusations before you. (Psalm 50:21 NIV).

The Commission on Biblical Gender Equality is attempting to distill the Develop a Deborah initiative into one simple question: who is the girl or woman in your ministry context who follows hard after God? Whose obvious giftedness will subsequently stir up a healthy debate in the minds of those who like to keep God in a neat little box?

Yes, thinking is good. But may we never settle for thoughts that limit God or that lull us into a comfortable slumber. The people of your congregation may not want to think about women in ministry, but it’s vitally important that their minds be engaged on the subject. Our apathy can have the effect of stifling or discouraging that one person from living into the call of God on her life. I can’t imagine God would be pleased with that kind of thinking.

For the sake of the Kingdom, Develop that Deborah among you.

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Rev. Cathy Kaminski is the lead pastor at Trinity Community Church in Cincinnati, OH. She is blessed to be counted among pastors in the Evangelical Covenant Church and strives to be a voice that celebrates the stories of faithful women who have gone before her.

This past month a young couple in our church had their first child. Only ten days after their son was born they made it to our Sunday service. These rock star parents triumphed over the hardship of the early days of new life to allow the community of faith to celebrate with them. We were overwhelmingly blessed to worship with them that day. Nothing about getting to church is easy with a new born. Nothing about leaving the house is easy 10 days after a C-section! But this family made gathering together a priority and sacrificed to make it happen. We were better because we had them in our midst.

As a joke, I sent the new parents an “inspirational” passage in scripture. Leviticus
12:1-4 reads, “The Lord said to Moses, 2 ‘Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. 3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.’”

Oops…looks like the new mom was supposed to wait twenty-three more days before coming into the sanctuary! I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. This passage seems absolutely absurd. Though, as crazy as this sounds in our 21st century context, the Law of Moses did at one point have a place. A new mom is susceptible to many harmful things in the first month after giving birth. Some new moms TODAY choose to stay home for the first weeks after delivery because it is better for the health of mother and child…but it was not the Law itself that was absurd to me. It was how it can be misconstrued and abused. The heart behind the law is good, wellbeing of the mother & child, however, the logistics of this law could also have devastating effects on the entire church. Because staying to the letter of the law means we exclude people from worship. And when someone is excluded, the entire community of faith experiences a loss.

I thought about the story of the hemorrhaging woman, (Matthew 9:20-22, Luke 8:43-48 & Mark 5:25-34). Here is a woman who had experienced continual bleeding for 12 years. In accordance with the Law of Moses, during this time she was not permitted to enter a sanctuary and worship with her people. She would have existed on the margins of her community. She had suffered much under this affliction. She spent all her money to see doctor after doctor with no impact except a worsening condition. Yet, even after all that, even after years and years of heart ache, isolation, and being an outcast in her community of faith, this woman still had hope God could heal her. When she heard Jesus was coming through her town, she pushed through the crowd to touch his cloak because she had hope and faith that God would bring an end to her suffering. TALK ABOUT FAITH!

The instant she reached out for Christ she was healed. Jesus stopped to recognize the faith of this tremendous woman. He called attention to her, listened to her story, and declared her healing and forgiveness to the crowd of people.

If I were this woman, I’m not so sure I would have such enduring faith. I would like to think so, but if I’m honest I really don’t know. This is what I am certain of: I want to know this woman. I want to worship with her. I want to see how God moves in her life. I want her in my community of faith. I want warriors like her in my church. Because a woman like this, who endures, suffers, is cast aside, yet still seeks the face of the Living God can impact the church for the Kingdom in powerful ways.

I think about what her community missed out on for those 12 years she existed on the margins. How many blessings did they miss because they followed the letter of the law instead of the heart behind it? What did the community loss because according to the Law they must keep her out instead of inviting her in? Do we fall into this same trap today? Do we keep people out of our communities of faith that could point us towards Christ in unbelievably impactful ways?

In my own life, I was told I could not be a pastor because of what scripture says. The letter of the Law told the church to keep me out. And sadly, I listened for a long time. How many years of ministry did I miss out on because I failed to see the heart of the law. A law that actually points me to being faithful and sharing the gifts that God alone gave me. What did the church miss out on? I’m not saying I’m some amazing pastor and the church is so much better because of me. But God called me to this life. He is that one who equipped me for ministry and set me on this path. He is the one who created me to impact the church for his Kingdom.

So let’s be honest. Let’s name the places where we keep people out. Let’s recognize the impact of the loss. Let’s start there. For all the new mom that are told to stay out of the sanctuary, to the bleeding women and the female pastors. Let’s not put God’s Law above God’s charge to love. Let’s not let the Law dictate how we see people and worship God.

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Ellie VerGowe is currently serving as Ministerial Resident for Community Outreach at First Covenant Church on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Ellie enjoys dancing, being outside and reading a good book on a rainy day with a friend and a cup of tea.

From the moment my parents met in a mountaineering class, my future was determined. My sister and I would be outdoor people.

My parents encouraged my sister and I to hike and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation around us. I grew up being outside as often as our family was free to do so and though we may have complained a little about our camping trips in our junior high years, wilderness was in our blood. We couldn’t help it.

When I got to seminary, I took the “Wilderness and Faith” class taught by professors Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom, Jim Bruckner and Phil Anderson and found myself feeling so at home. We discussed together two things I deeply loved: God and creation. And in the middle of it all, as we canoed together over the mostly calm, but sometimes choppy waters of the Flambeau River in Wisconsin, I saw the wildness of creation…in the waves and currents that tipped over our canoes…in the wind in the trees…and in the giant bonfire that we built as Jim recited poetry to us.

But as much as the wilderness was home, I felt…somehow…not a part of what was happening. I felt less than majestic as I commented on the theological readings that we discussed over the course of the trip. I was so aware of what I didn’t know and I felt that I couldn’t speak as eloquently as so many in our class did. The mountains I had seen in my life were big, but I had been kept small over the years. The trees were warped, knotted and unique as weather shaped them, but I took to heart society’s expectation that I always be nice, always look a certain way and always fit into people’s expectations of what a woman was supposed to be. The waters and the trees and the wind were wild and excellent…but was I?

This seems to be a pattern in my life and in the lives of so many women I know. We are taught to think less of ourselves and our ideas. The world around us does the same to us. Many churches we know don’t allow us to preach the gospel. When we state our ideas, some of our brothers interrupt us or summarize what we say, implying that what we said wasn’t good enough the first time. We are told to follow and not lead, though we have the experience, the skills and the calling. Sometimes we women inadvertently take these things to heart. We think to ourselves: “Why would I speak up if my thoughts are so different from what has already been spoken? Maybe I am wrong in my assessment of what is going on. Maybe I am not good at this…maybe I am not called to what I think God is asking me to do.” Sometimes my thoughts (and I hear it in so many of my female friend’s stories too) spiral into dangerous territory of doubting the ways that God has created me.

But a colleague recently gave me a quote by author Ursula K. Le Guin that turns all of these lies on their heads. It says:

“I know that many men and even women are afraid and angry when women do speak, because in this barbaric society, when women speak truly, they speak subversively—they can’t help it: If you are underneath, if you’re kept down, you break out, you subvert. We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experiences as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. That’s what I want—to hear you erupting. You young Mt. St. Helenses who don’t know the power in you—I want to hear you…Speak with a woman’s tongue. Come out and tells us what time of night it is! Don’t let us sink back in silence.”[1]

These words resonated deeply in my nature-loving soul. The wildness of a volcano, the vastness of a mountain glacier…these are strong. They burst into song and in their very being, they tell of the glory and goodness of God. With their own voices and in their own unique and majestic ways, the mountains and rivers and trees and oceans proclaim God’s presence among us. I’ve seen others do this…from the Black Lives Matter activist who works and shouts until her voice is hoarse that violence towards black and brown bodies must stop, to the artist who paints in defiance against the chronic pain she suffers. I learn from them. So many women I know are doing this already and are leading the way, but we can all do the same. We MUST do the same…in our own ways…in the ways that God has created us. We need the voices of women to tell the truth in ways that aren’t heard as often or as loud as male voices in our broken world.

And while we are telling truth in the ways that we are made, we recognize that it can be terrifying, wild and unpredictable to patriarchy. While the destruction that comes from mountains exploding is awful and while we don’t want to leave destruction in our wake, we too are wild. We too are are called to be fully ourselves with our erupting voices that image God and that aren’t unlike powerful mountains. While listening is imperative and necessary (we all have much to learn and we must listen to each other), maybe some of us need permission to erupt.

So, my sisters: don’t be quiet. Erupt with the truth. Tell the gospel as you live fully into who YOU are created to be. Do justice with your words and actions. Love mercy with your words and actions. And as you erupt, erupt with humility, knowing the one who created us also loves us and continues to teach and shape us into the people we have been created to be.

^[1] 1986 Bryn Mawr College Commencement Address

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Bio: Rev. Cathy Kaminski is the lead pastor at Trinity Community Church in Cincinnati, OH. She is privileged to be among the female pastors in the Evangelical Covenant Church. This is a post to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the decision to ordain women in ministry.

This past weekend the Evangelical Covenant Church celebrated its 131st annual meeting. Gather 2016 also marked 40 years since the Covenant decided to ordain women in ministry. 40 years of faithful women setting an example. 40 years of blazing new paths. 40 years of pioneers navigating waters of heart-ache, triumph, frustration, grace, and everything in between. On day one of Gather 2016, one speaker noted the reality that “The floor that you stand on is someone else’s ceiling.” This truth shakes me to my core. As a woman in ministry I often feel like I’m in an old boys’ club. People see my gender before they recognize my calling. My sexuality seems to define me more than my identity as an image bearer of God. I find myself trying to prove my place at the table instead of allowing the gifts God instilled in my personhood to speak for themselves. Yet, when I stop and listen to this profound statement I am instantly humbled. “My floor is someone else’s ceiling.”

As hard as my experience is, as difficult as my fellow sisters in ministry have it, we all stand on the ceiling of the faithful Christ-followers who have gone before. We have a long way to go, we have many more doors to open and walls to break down. But first, I’d like to take a moment and thank the women who went where no woman had gone before. I recognize them. Their sacrifice. Their bravery. Their faithfulness to follow God. And I am profoundly in their debt.

But God has used women as ambassadors for His Kingdom for way longer than 40 years. To do our Covenant sisters justice, we must go farther back. I hope we can see the ceiling that THEY stood upon. For generations and generations women have demonstrated giftedness and embodied calling even if not formally recognized by the church. And it is the culmination of their witness that brought the whole denomination to a place to celebrate God’s calling on our sisters.

Before women like Carol Nordstrom and Sherron Hughes-Tremper were ordained to the Evangelical Covenant Church, there were many who went before. Victoria Weltner was the first to graduate from North Park Theological Seminary in 1903. Dr. Mildred Nordren, the first single female missionary in the Covenant. We should know their stories and celebrate them. We should know women throughout Church history like Katherine von Bora, St Olga of Kiev, Matilda of Tuscany, Hedwig of Silesia, St Catherine of Siena, St Theresa of Avila. We should know women of the bible like Junia, Phoebe, Lydia, Chloe, Dorcas, Jael, Deborah, Tamar, Rahab. We should celebrate the stories of the unnamed women like the maidservant of Namaan’s wife, the woman at the well, Pharaoh’s daughter, daughters of Jephthah, Heman’s daughter, the widow who gave a tithe of two coins. Why don’t we know their stories? Why don’t we preach them on Sundays? Teach them in our Christian formation classes? Tell our sons and daughters about their courage and their faith? (If you don’t know one of these women, look them up and share what you find!)

Since before the birth of the Church women have stood on the ceilings of these women celebrated in scripture. Each generation building on the progress of the ones who went before. Today we tell the stories of these women. Today we celebrate the women in the Covenant. Today we pray for the next generation who will call our ceilings THEIR floors. In the picture above are the faces of 25 women serving the Covenant Church. Some missionary, others pastors, some directors, others lay leaders, but all ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope we tell their stories. I hope we name and celebrated their gifts and callings. I hope we all recognize the potential to add to the collective witness of faithful women. Every woman stands on the witness of those who came before, may others one day stand on us!

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Jo Ann Deasy is an ordained Covenant pastor currently serving as the director of institutional initiatives and student research at the Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh, PA.

Last year, in honor of Mother’s Day, my son’s daycare hosted “Muffins with Mom.” While a lovely idea, the event was held at 10:00 am which meant that all of us working mom’s dropped our children off at daycare, rushed to work for an hour or so, and then returned for the celebration. While fun for a minute or two, the event soon devolved into a room of screaming children who did not understand why their mother’s were leaving them once again to return to work. Despite the inconvenience, almost all of the mom’s in my son’s classroom came.

A month later the same daycare held “Donuts with Dad.” Scheduled from 7:00 am to 9:00 am, the event was designed to allow dad’s to spend a few extra moments at drop-off time with their children before heading to work. So convenient for them. Despite trying to work around their schedules, though, many dads didn’t show up or managed to eat their donut before they even got to the classroom. When I showed up at the tail end of this year’s celebration, there was not a single dad still celebrating with their child.

After the “Muffins with Mom” event, several of us spent a few moments in the parking lot sharing the guilt that drove us to be present and the frustration at another Mother’s Day celebration that seemed to be about everyone except mom herself. No one had bothered to ask us what might actually make us feel celebrated. No one had made adjustments for working moms, even in a daycare facility that was designed to watch children while both parents were at work.

So, what does this have to do with biblical gender equality? First, it highlights the assumptions made about gender roles in our society. We often assume that Mom’s don’t work, or if they do work they must have more flexible schedules, or being a mom must be more important than their job and surely their bosses will understand. And even if other people don’t feel that way, as moms we often carry those feelings. The guilt at not being available all of the time, of having other priorities whether work or relationships or self-care or ministry or education.

We also assume that fathers are not willing or able to make the same time available for their children. We actually often make men feel guilty if family is a priority over work, if they are stay at home dads, if their jobs don’t pay as much or they choose to work part-time.

Biblical Gender Equality is not about all women working or everyone neglecting children and family. Instead, it is about supporting men and women as they seek to make the best possible decisions in response to God’s call to care for and provide for each other, their children, and the world that we have been called to minister to. It is about making space to allow people to listen to the call of God on their lives, even if it is out of sync with cultural norms. It is about giving men freedom to care for their children and women the freedom to follow their call whether to ministry or to a job that might provide for her family financially.

Biblical Gender Equality is also about listening. Asking women, and men for that matter, what makes them feel cared for, valued, supported.

I am grateful that our daycare did listen. Not that they had much choice. With so many working moms in the community, they received a lot of feedback on that first “Muffins with Mom.” This year the event was shifted to earlier in the morning, allowing us to extend our drop off time for a few minutes before heading to work. Yes, once again most of the moms showed up and stayed longer, but it was a start. It was the beginning of a larger discussion about what it means to support both women and men as we try to navigate this life together.

When was the last time your church sat down with the moms in your community and asked if they felt supported? Or how you might support them better? Have you asked them how you might support them in their work outside the home? What about the fathers? Have you asked how you might support them not just in their jobs, but in their relationships with their children? As we look at our ministries to families, do we make space for discernment and choices that might look different than the norm? Do we, as a congregation, see ourselves as part of that equation? Part of the community, a resource that should be considered as we all seek to live lives that honor God and one another?

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Megan Herrold is a pastoral intern at Resurrection Covenant Church in Chicago. She is currently pursuing an MA in Christian Formation at North Park Theological Seminary, and is the seminary’s student representative on the ECC Commission on Biblical Gender Equality.

A couple of months ago we had our spring meeting for the Committee on Biblical Gender Equality. During that conversation, someone asked the question, “Why is this important?” As in, why do we think it’s important that women are welcome to be ordained? Why do we think it’s important that all people in our denomination welcome women to be ordained? It’s a question I’ve been thinking about again as we get closer to this month’s Annual Meeting.

I can’t say that we had a clear-cut answer, though the question wasn’t really asked in a way that required one.

I can’t even say that I had a clear-cut answer. But I wanted one, at least for myself. I’m just the type of person who likes to have reasons for what she believes.

It just happened that this meeting came the day after my midterm in my Old Testament class. The exam primarily focused on Genesis, including the story of the Fall into sin laid out in Genesis 3-11. I’ll be honest, until this point, I had only thought of the Fall as Adam and Eve eating fruit in the third chapter of the book, and this class gave me new appreciation for the fuller depiction of sin and its many facets that Genesis gives us.

The message overall was the idea that the effect of sin on God’s good creation broke relationships between God, ourselves, other people, and the rest of creation. In my eyes, today this means that people do not have space to live life to the fullest. There are barriers in the world that keep us from living into God’s good plan for our lives—individually and as a community.

So that’s my answer to the question of why this is important. When we don’t welcome certain groups of people into ordination, or really into any profession or role in society, we put up barriers in the face of what God may be trying to do.

There’s a reason I’m talking about welcoming women into ordination. There are plenty of people who may not be particularly opposed to ordained women, but also don’t care a lot about the idea that some people do oppose them. That there are barriers. I think of this as acceptance without welcome.

Acceptance without welcome does not break down barriers. It doesn’t help provide space for people to live life to the fullest, to live into God’s plan for them.

This year the ECC celebrates 40 years of ordaining women. We also mourn and lament with those who have been hurt by a lack of welcome into ordination. For the last four decades, we’ve been striving to convince people why we should welcome women who seek ordination. I think most of us now agree, and if you don’t agree at this point, I don’t necessarily expect anything I say to convince you.

Instead I’m writing to those of us who agree with the practice of ordaining women, but don’t really think of it as an issue anymore. And I say “those of us” because I find myself in this group sometimes. Since I first felt called to ministry ten years ago, I’ve had much more support than discouragement in my pursuit of that call. It’s consequently easy for me to forget that this is not the experience for many other women, even though I grew up in a church that did not support women’s ordination or female church leaders.

Yet I’ve heard stories of male pastors who support women in ministry, but don’t want to speak up about it in their less-supportive congregations because to do so might put their job in jeopardy. I’ve heard of women who’ve been told that there are no pastoral roles for them in certain ECC conferences because those congregations aren’t looking for a woman as their pastor. (I hesitate to share vague stories of unidentified people and places, but I’ve heard enough such stories that I’m convinced these are indicative of a larger pattern.) And when I expressed an interest in doing my North Park Field Education internship in a certain part of the country, I was told about a specific congregation that they don’t recommend for female interns because they won’t receive as much support in their call.

To me, these are all examples of how we can accept the idea of women in ministry, yet fail to consciously welcome women to that role. To really make space for all people to live according to God’s plan, we can’t just not put up barriers. We also have to help remove the barriers that are already there. And once again when I say we, I’m including myself: I have to remember that when I don’t take risks to speak out on behalf of women, I’m practicing acceptance without welcome.

The effects of sin in our lives—individually and as a community—are not removed without constant work and striving to live according to God’s will. The effects of sin do not go away because we stop sinning. We need to take concrete action to reverse that impact, and to ensure that all people whom God calls as ministers in any capacity have the space to respond to that call.

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Jo Ann Deasy is an ordained Covenant pastor currently serving as the director of institutional initiatives and student research at the Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh, PA.

Several years ago, as part of my doctoral dissertation, I had the opportunity to interview a group of young women who had grown up in a Covenant Church that fully affirmed the role of women in all roles of leadership in the church about their identity as women and the role of the pastor.  These women were thoughtful and articulate, but had rarely been given an opportunity to talk deeply about these topics.  They strongly affirmed the unique strengths of women, seeing them as much more nurturing, caring, and emotionally sensitive, but they also believed women were more passive and too emotional to be effective as leaders, especially during times of crisis.  They fully affirmed women as pastors, but felt more comforted when a male pastor offered them care and wondered why any of their peers would ever want to be a pastor. At times they didn’t even recognize their own ambivalence about women pastors and their own identities as women until the words came out of their mouths.

I don’t think their struggle was particularly unique.  They are the struggles many women face in a culture that sends such mixed messages about the roles of women, somehow both idealizing and devaluing them at the same time.  How can we help women in the church claim a stronger sense of their own worth and dignity?  How might we change some of the cultural narratives that shape them so that they might fully embrace who they are as children of God?

One possibility is for us to reframe how we think about traditional gender roles by drawing on the history of evangelical Christian women who tried to change the world.[1]

In the late 19^th century, women claimed their universal right as mothers to change to society. They saw their role as leaders drawing on the image of mothers as the guardians of morality and the protectors of families. They started social service agencies, orphanages, mission societies and temperance leagues that gained international reputations. In a study of conservative women from the Presbyterian Church, theologian Mary McClintock Fulkerson found women drawing on similar images. They focused on the unique ability of women to care for those in need, particularly women and children around the globe. Those images gave them strength, power, and a mission within an otherwise restrictive environment.

In 1819, Jarena Lee is thought to be the first women authorized to preach in the United States.  She traveled thousands of miles of foot preaching as an evangelist for the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  In the late 1800s, Antoinette Brown was ordained by the Congregationalist church; Catherine Booth was co-founding the Salvation Army; and Amanda Berry Smith, a former slave, was leading evangelistic crusades in the United States, England, India, and West Africa.

These women, both in the 19^th century and in contemporary conservative churches, often created their own separate organizations, parallel to existing structures and within these parallel organizations they were able to lead boldly, mobilize other women, change society, and serve God globally.  The Women’s Christian Temperance Union was a powerful force in the 19^th century that fought to restrict the use of alcohol in society because of its damaging effects on women and children and the Presbyterian women missions organizations are but one example of the many ways Christian women have served the world for Christ.

In the Evangelical Covenant Church, women also created their own independent structure.  Women Ministries originally functioned entirely independent from denominational structures.[2] For many years, Women Ministries was known for focusing on the role of women in the family and global missions, but they have always had that same desire to change the world.  Recently they have been extending their call to care for women and children beyond the home into the world through advocacy around issues such as domestic violence and human trafficking.[3]

 Women often hear mixed messages about their worth from the world around them.  They need to hear the stories of women who were strong and courageous, who embraced their roles as wives, mothers, and daughters of God as a call to change the world around them, to witness, preach, and fight for social justice. They need us to talk about these women in our sermons and our Sunday School classes, to celebrate them as we talk about history and heroes.  They need to see the pictures of these women up on the walls of our schools and churches.

And, they need time and space to talk about what it means to be a women, to critically reflect on the messages they are hearing, to discuss how they are navigating the various messages they are receiving. And they need to be toldWOMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD over and over again that they have been created as women fully in the image of God, called to serve, to lead, to witness, and to change the world for good of the kingdom.

[1] The following draws significantly on my dissertation, “Called to the Image?  How Discourses about Gender and Ministry Shape the Potential for Young Women to Develop A Pastoral Identity,” Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, 2010.

[2] Women Ministries of the Evangelical Covenant Church does not appear as part of the denominational constitution until 1978 when it is first listed under the administrative boards of the denomination as the “Board of Women’s Work.” (The Evangelical Covenant Church, Covenant Yearbook 1978, Chicago, IL:  The Evangelical Covenant Church of America, 1978), 356-357. Women Ministries is currently listed along with the other denominational ministries in the constitution and comes under the governance of the Annual Meeting of the ECC. However, it is the only denominational ministry that still bears its own administrative costs (The Evangelical Covenant Church, Covenant Yearbook, 2008-2009 edition, Chicago, IL:  The Evangelical Covenant Church of America, 2009), 372-373.

[3] Women Ministries launched Advocacy for Victims of Abuse (AVA) in 2004 and in partnership with the Department of Christian Formation and the Department of Compassion and Justice launched Break the Chains, a program to combat human trafficking, in 2008. See Women Ministries, “Women Ministries Welcome,” The Evangelical Covenant Church, www.covchurch.org/women, Accessed 24 October 2009.

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