Each year, three awards are given to clergy women, as well as men who have advanced the cause of women in ministry. The awards program was started in 2006 to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the denomination’s 1976 decision to ordain women.
The stones are part of a one-year effort to fund the program and communicate the story of women in ministry, Gilliard says. Bidding in the silent auction began at $30.
Seventeen stones remain to be sponsored and will be auctioned during the 2007 Covenant Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon. Three additional stones that already have been sponsored also will be auctioned.
Sponsors pay $100 for the white paper-mache stones and then find an artist to design and decorate the items. A sponsor can be an individual, a ministry department, an association or some other group. Sponsorship forms are available at ACCW Sponsorships.
The stones vary in size. “They’re smaller than a basketball, but bigger than a softball,” Gilliard says. Pictures of the painted stones also can be found at ACCW Painted Stones. The stone pictured here was commissioned by the Commission on Biblical Gender Equality and designed by its chairperson, Sharon Cairns Mann.
The association is asking all credentialed Covenant clergy women to submit 150-word summaries that recount their respective calls to ministry. Gilliard says the documents will be placed on the website and used by future students as they work through the process to discern their own call. The documents eventually will be stored in the Covenant Archives. Forms for the submissions can be downloaded at ACCW Summary Forms.
