Tag Archives: Women in Ministry

[Her] Story: Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy Celebrate Calling

From March 10-12 in Grapevine, Texas, Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy hosted [Her] Story, an online and in-person gathering for women in ministry. The organization described the event as “a conference for women exploring and living out their call to ministry and the ministry leaders who support them. E2022: [Her] Story is a unique opportunity to connect with like-minded women clergy spanning many denominations.”

Over 600 women clergy participated over livestream and in person, representing denominations like the Free Methodist Church, the Church of God (Anderson IN), The Wesleyan Church, the Church of the Nazarene, and others. Speakers included Rev. Dr. Carron Odokara, Rev. Jo Saxton, Rev. Dr. Carolyn Moore, Rev. Dr. Colleen Derr, Rev. Dr. Dee Stokes, Rev. Christine Youn Hung, and many more. Ms. Almarie Rodriguez was the conference Spanish translator.

Wesleyan Accent Managing Editor Elizabeth Glass Turner spoke with contributor and WHWC board member Rev. Dr. Priscilla Hammond about Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy and the array of resources it provides.

Plenary sessions and select workshop sessions are available to watch free of charge on YouTube; visit the [Her] Story conference playlist here.

Wesleyan Accent: When was Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy established?

Dr. Priscilla Hammond: The first conference was held in 1994, but Dr. Susie Stanley had been coordinating resources through denominations beginning in 1989. WHWC was first incorporated as a 501c3 in 1997.

WA: What are the main activities and goals of Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy?

PH: We envision God’s Kingdom reality where the biblical foundations of gender equality are fully lived out across the Church as women and men lead together, following their holy calling. We produce a biennial conference for women clergy, ministerial students, and Wesleyan holiness women serving as chaplains or ministers in the marketplace, and we provide resources and encouragement to those women year-round.

WA: What denominations are represented in Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy?

PH: There are four sponsoring denominations: Church of the Nazarene, Church of God (Anderson, IN), the Free Methodist Church, and The Wesleyan Church. These denominations contribute annually to the operation of the organization and each appoints a representative to the WHWC Board for a four-year term.

Women from other egalitarian denominations or who are not affiliated with a denomination are welcome at our events and invited to explore our resources. We want to equip all called women for ministry!

WA: Has Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy morphed or focused direction over the years?

PH: The vision has not changed significantly in the eighteen years since the first conference. We endeavor to engage, empower, and equip women to lead in the Church. We do that through annual conferences, and have done it through newsletters, booklets, blogs, a book (Faith and Gender Equity: Lesson Plans Across the College Curriculum, 2007), a devotional book, and social media.

However, we are energized in these days to connect women even more, across more denominations and platforms. We don’t want to just host a “reunion” every two years. We are always seeking ways to promote better pathways for the development and advocacy of women clergy.

WA: Over the years has awareness grown of some of the rich historical heritage of women in ministry in these denominations?

PH: Reviewing our archived articles, we have found many articles written about women in ministry in the past and have posted some of them at this link. We publish a blog that digs into history as well.

We want the Church, women and men, to be aware of the ongoing presence of women in ministry throughout the history of the Church (not just in our own denominations). At our [Her] Story conference, we shared four monologues that highlighted the history of women in ministry (Laura Smith Haviland, Rachel Bradley, Rosa Lee, and our WHWC founder, Susie Stanley).

We created an interactive timeline with these four women on it and asked the ladies at the conference to post themselves on the timeline. At conferences and through resources, we emphasize that we are part of a long line of leaders. It is wonderful to see college students contemplating their place on the timeline.

WA: Are there resources WHWC produces or shares?

PH: In 2021, the Wesleyan Publishing House asked if we could develop a devotional book. Each WHWC denominational representative nominated a list of potential authors. I contacted them and cast the vision for the project. In the end, 25 weeks of devotional entries were created and contributed, and This Holy Calling was the result. The final page of This Holy Calling is entitled “Your Called Voice” to let readers know they have something to add to this ongoing story of women in ministry leadership. (We invite women clergy who would like to submit proposed contributions to future volumes to contact phammond (at) swu (dot) edu.)

WHWC also hosts a blog and shares content through our Facebook and Instagram pages and shares videos from our conferences on YouTube. We encourage researchers who are writing on women in ministry to let us know so we can build a list of current, available titles.

We are a board of volunteers who make up our conference planning committee and communications team, so we depend on our sponsoring denominations and people who believe in our work to contribute to our work. This includes the contribution of intellectual resources. We are committed to providing the full story of women in ministry and can do that when others contribute and share resources with us.

Learn more at whwomenclergy.org. For those who enjoy the conference sessions on YouTube, shirts remain available for a very limited time at https://www.bonfire.com/store/whwc/

Why Did the Women Disciple the Men?

Back when it was “a different time” – in this case, just 1992 – the pastor warmed up our mens’ Bible study with, “Why did the woman cross the road…What’s she doing out of the kitchen in the first place?” Before the chuckling died down, he continued his opening act: “How do you fix a broken dishwasher…Kick her in the butt.”

Twenty-five years later, my oldest of three daughters says, “Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a boy.” She’s helping me set up the Communion table for worship in an hour, because the advantage of being a pastor with three daughters is every Sunday is “take your daughter to work day.”

“Why?” I ask, unprepared for this conversation when my brain is tangled with mic cables and my upcoming sermon.

“So I can be a pastor like you,” she says, pouring Welch’s grape juice into a chalice.

I wince. “Who says you can’t be a pastor when you grow up?” Answer her question with a question. Make her think about it, I tell myself.

“Because aren’t all the preachers in the Bible men?” she says.

It’s the season of Advent, so we talk about Mary, the mother of Jesus. About how she’s the first disciple, because she was the first to lay down her life for Jesus. And how before she delivered the baby, she delivered the first sermon in the New Testament:

“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.

How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!

For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,

and from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For the Mighty One is holy,

and he has done great things for me.” (Luke 1:46-49)

We don’t often look to Mary as disciple or preacher. We take our cues from Moses, David, Peter, Paul; we only look at Mary once a year at Christmas, and even then to reduce her and her womb to a utilitarian role.

Opening Scripture, my daughters find a world where prophets and leaders from the home to the throne were determined by bloodline, gender, and birth-order (a.k.a. the firstborn male of the right tribe). All because of the dreaded word, patriarchy: when women were property of their fathers and dowry-ed off to be the property of their husbands, their children and legal rights belonged to him. He could divorce her with a word, so she kept her head covered and mouth shut.

But – in those same Scriptures, my daughters read stories of women encountering God and leading God’s people. Like Hagar, the slave woman whose womb was also reduced to a utilitarian role. She is the only person in the Old Testament to directly give God a name, and she names him, “The God Who Sees Me.”

Or Deborah. When Israel was under oppression because of their corruption and dysfunction, they cried out to God for help. God gave them a woman. Before they had kings, Israel was led by judges known for either their legal or military leadership. Deborah was a prophet who happened to be a judge, and she had both – so much so that when Barak, the leader of the Israelite militia, was sent into battle, he said, “I will go, but only if you go with me.”

And Ruth, who is described by the Hebrew word meaning “warrior.” Oh, and she was an illegal immigrant who saved Bethlehem with integrity and courage. Or Esther, who did the unthinkable and went public before the king, saving her people not with looks, but devotion to God.

How about Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin and the first human to prophecy the coming of Jesus while her husband doubted, and so an angel shut him up. Or the five-time divorced Samaritan Woman, who encountered Jesus at the well. She went back to testify and lead others to him, and a lot of folks in her village were saved.

And my favorite, Mary and the other Mary. Just as two women were the first to preach about Jesus’ birth, these two women were the first to preach about his resurrection. They went to the tomb while the men were scattered.

Daughter, look at these women who, like Moses, David, Peter, and Paul, are used by God to preach the good news and disciple your dad. And not just in the Bible.

My grandmother, who when I asked why some of the words in the Bible were in red, took that Bible and told me who Jesus was; Cindy, the pastor who led my confirmation class; Jeanine, a mother who called me out on some sin my freshman year of college and set some boundaries; Peg, who led me through inner healing and warned me numerous times of hang-ups in my life; Jo Anne, who’s preaching challenged me to not compromise the call on my life; Miriam, who’s preaching taught me what holiness really is and how to pursue it; Amanda, my co-pastor in college ministry who called out my weak points in ministry and stood up to fraternity boys dehumanizing women.

Most importantly, there’s Jennifer, my wife and our kids’ mother. She’s in the garage using her tools and air compressor to repair a car engine or refinish furniture while I’m cooking dinner or cleaning the toilet. But she also leads our house, makes the rules, and assigns the tasks. We both do, and so in our mutuality I can be led and submit to her because we submit to each other.

Daughter, someday you can preach and disciple me too.. You already are.

So I stand my daughter in the pulpit, where she is pretending to preach like her dad, and tell her about Peter’s sermon on Pentecost when he drops the words of the prophet Joel: “‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy…’” (Acts 2:17)

Did you catch that, daughter?

Prophets are the preachers who declare, “This is what the Lord says.” And now the prophets are your sons and daughters, no longer determined by bloodline, gender, and birth-order. There is only one manner of leadership in the church, and it isn’t gender or even credentials. The qualifications are to be called by God, anointed by Jesus, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit

This is no joke, but the story of good news for women. And as Dr. Sandy Richter, the woman pastor-professor who taught me reminds us: we need to tell that story, and tell it well.

Featured image courtesy Joshua Hanson via Unsplash.

Julia Foote and the Geography of Witness

What do you know of Zanesville, Ohio? History buffs might enjoy its distinct Y-shaped bridge or explore its history as part of the Underground Railroad or recall it for its well-known river and locks. If a spiritual pilgrimage were traced across the tilts and rolls of Ohio’s farms, rivers, and valleys, Methodists might mark a gentle circle around Zanesville. It’s not unique for towns that sprang up across the Midwest to have Methodist fellowships woven through their roots; but those Methodist fellowships in the mid-1800s were not without profound flaws. In the autobiography of Julia Foote – happily available for download through First Fruits Press – readers are confronted with this reality. On joining the local Methodist Episcopal church (in the state of New York), her parents, both former slaves, were relegated to seating in one part of the balcony of the local church and could not partake of Holy Communion until the white church members, including the lower class ones, had gone first.

Eventually, Julia Foote would become the first woman ordained a deacon in the AME Zion church, the second woman ordained an elder. Before that, she was an evangelist, traveling and preaching in a number of places, starting before the Civil War. At times, congregational conflict emerged when she visited a town, sometimes because Foote was Black, sometimes because she was a woman. But the testimony of her visit to Zanesville is different.

Before arriving in Zanesville in the early 1850’s, Foote had been in Cincinnati and Columbus, then visited a town called Chillicothe. Her time in Chillicothe was fruitful but not without controversy. (The following excerpts retain Foote’s own original language, a reflection of the time in which she lived.) She wrote,

In April, 1851, we visited Chillicothe, and had some glorious meetings there. Great crowds attended every night, and the altar was crowded with anxious inquirers. Some of the deacons of the white people’s Baptist church invited me to preach in their church, but I declined to do so, on account of the opposition of the pastor, who was very much set against women’s preaching. He said so much against it, and against the members who wished me to preach, that they called a church meeting, and I heard that they finally dismissed him. The white Methodists invited me to speak for them, but did not want the colored people to attend the meeting. I would not agree to any such arrangement, and, therefore, I did not speak for them. Prejudice had closed the door of their sanctuary against the colored people of the place, virtually saying: “The Gospel shall not be free to all.” Our benign Master and Saviour said: “Go, preach my Gospel to all.” (Julia A. J. Foote, A Brand Plucked from the Fire: An Autobiographical Sketch, First Fruits Press: 102-103)

Whether or not the good Baptists of Chillicothe today know that their forebears ousted a pastor who objected to a woman evangelist, the Methodists may be unaware that their forebears invited a Black woman to preach – but only if people of color were excluded from the meeting. And yet, in spite of these local controversies, Julia Foote wrote that in that town, “we had some glorious meetings,” and “the altar was crowded.” Like John Wesley, Foote sowed grace outside church buildings, even if she could not sow grace inside church buildings. Like the Apostle Paul, she proclaimed the Gospel to those who would welcome her.

But then, she went to Zanesville. And here, readers see a different move of the Holy Spirit. What was the difference? Foote wrote,

We visited Zanesville, Ohio, laboring for white and colored people. The white Methodists opened their house for the admission of colored people for the first time. Hundreds were turned away at each meeting, unable to get in; and, although the house was so crowded, perfect order prevailed. We also held meetings on the other side of the river. God the Holy Ghost was powerfully manifest in all these meetings. I was the recipient of many mercies, and passed through various exercises. In all of them I could trace the hand of God and claim divine assistance whenever I most needed it. Whatever I needed, by faith I had. Glory! glory!! While God lives, and Jesus sits on his right hand, nothing shall be impossible unto me, if I hold fast faith with a pure conscience. (A Brand Plucked, 103)

Foote labored for any and all for the sake of the Kingdom when she arrived in Zanesville. While there, for the first time, Methodist worship was integrated. So many people came, hundreds had to be turned away. Despite the crowds, there was no controversy or dispute. And – “God the Holy Ghost was powerfully manifest in all these meetings.” There was no segregated worship; the Holy Ghost was powerfully manifest.

This is powerful testimony reverberating down through the soil, through the generations, through the Kingdom. Sitting today in a different part of the state over 150 years later, I read the words of Julia Foote and see the rolling hills of Ohio differently. I’ve been in Cincinnati, and Columbus, and Chillicothe. I’ve read those names on road signs. I’ve seen church buildings in those places. Through her words, I hear the voice of a mother of American Methodism, particularly the holiness movement, calling across the rivers, the years. She was pressed, but not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. Her eyes too saw this rural landscape in the springtime; heading from Zanesville on to Detroit, she also likely saw Mennonite and Amish farmers along the road. She sowed grace into this landscape before my great-grandmother was born. Before the Wright brothers followed the birds skimming along air currents, Julia Foote learned how to glide on the wind of the Spirit: “whatever I needed, by faith I had.”

Today, in the yard outside my window, irises are blooming that I did not plant; someone else planted, another watered, and I enjoy the deep purple unfurling from the bud. Reading of Foote’s ministry, I am given a window onto the grace planted by faith, the results of which would have shaped the spiritual life of a community for decades. But it does not let me rest on what came before; her labor calls out across the rivers, the years, questioning: how are you tending to what others planted through the Spirit? She endured great hardship to proclaim the Word of God in this landscape. I would not rip out or mow over the irises carefully planted by another; how might I help to care for what she was bold enough to sow? Decades later – and yet not so very long at all – where is the Spirit brooding, full, like a thundercloud full with rain, ready to burst?

Sister Julia issued this challenge: Sisters, shall not you and I unite with the heavenly host in the grand chorus? If so, you will not let what man may say or do, keep you from doing the will of the Lord or using the gifts you have for the good of others. How much easier to bear the reproach of men than to live at a distance from God. Be not kept in bondage by those who say, “We suffer not a woman to teach,” thus quoting Paul’s words, but not rightly applying them. What though we are called to pass through deep waters, so our anchor is cast within the veil, both sure and steadfast? (A Brand Plucked, 112)

The gifts you have, for the good of others.

It is the Holy Spirit who transforms history into testimony, the same Spirit who was “powerfully manifest” now bearing down, laboring again. In the original introduction to her work, Thomas K. Doty wrote, “Those of us who heard her preach, last year, at Lodi, where she held the almost breathless attention of five thousand people, by the eloquence of the Holy Ghost, know well where is the hiding of her power.” (A Brand Plucked, 7)

What do you know of Zanesville, Ohio? That Julia Foote preached there in the 1850s, sowing grace? That Methodists there rejected segregated worship, joining together, and the Holy Spirit was “powerfully manifest”?

What do you know of the Holy Spirit, today? What do you know of those who planted and watered while God gave the increase, long before you saw the buds?

Sisters and brothers, we do not walk into ministry alone today. Wherever you are, someone has gone ahead, sowing grace ahead of you. If the rivers could speak, they might gossip to you about the ones who went before; who crossed rivers when no plane had yet crossed the sky.

What do you know of Zanesville, Holy Spirit? Hearts there once were soft.

What do you know of the Holy Spirit, Zanesville? Once, the Spirit was powerfully manifest in your midst.

Holy Spirit, where are you brooding now? Give us the grace of readiness.

Phoebe Palmer and the Day of Days

A while back, a well-known pastor made remarks about a female pastor that were distasteful and offensive. While respecting the pastor’s different viewpoint knowing full well that not all followers of Jesus agree in all areas of doctrine, I was disappointed with how the view was expressed regarding women as pastors. I have three daughters and I want them to know that God loves them, wants a relationship with them, and will empower them to do amazing things when they fully surrender their lives to God, just as God will use men when they do the same. For me, this includes the belief that God calls women to be fully ordained pastors. (This reflection is not meant to give a verse-by-verse biblical defense of women in ministry. If you would like more information on that, I encourage you to click HERE.)

Instead, I’m highlighting a female historical figure, one I have discussed with my oldest daughter: a woman named Phoebe Palmer, who was a prominent female pastor at a time when women were not allowed to vote. We discussed Mrs. Palmer after my daughter showed a desire to experience mission work and went on her first international mission trip. She just so happened to go with a group from a denomination that does not support female ministers. I was troubled when she messaged me and said, “I have already been told several times that God would never call me to be a pastor. How could I be a missionary if God doesn’t let me preach?” Then, after she heard the comments by the pastor I mentioned above, she asked me again about being a woman and what freedom she will have to preach and teach.

If you do not know anything about Phoebe Palmer, I encourage you to discover more on your own. She was born into a strict New York Methodist home in 1807. She eventually married a respected physician named Walter Palmer. During the first ten years of their marriage, they experienced the devastating loss of three young children, the third of whom died tragically when gauze curtains near the cradle accidentally caught fire. (1)

Rather than this experience causing her to turn away from God, eventually, she came to completely entrust her life to God. Palmer spent many years as a private Bible teacher, but she began to feel a longing for a deeper experience of faith. On July 26, 1837, God filled her with a special sense of the Holy Spirit that she would call “the day of days” for the rest of her life. (2)

Because Palmer lived in a time when it was not common for women to preach, she was hesitant at first to share her experience with men until a Congregational minister named Thomas Upham received the fullness of the Holy Spirit under her guidance. After that, she chose to set aside the social convention of the day and spoke to anyone who would listen. (3) Palmer spent the rest of her life as a writer, preacher, teacher of holiness, and social justice warrior. It is estimated that her influence led to the salvation of at least 25,000 people and helped thousands more learn how to live out sanctified lives. In A Global History of Christians, Paul Spickard and Kevin Cragg say of Palmer, “She was more than a preacher. She exemplified the nineteenth-century Protestant synthesis of evangelism and good works. She was the moving force behind innumerable urban social service projects. The most widely known was the Five Points Mission in New York City, which provided housing, education, and religious instruction for poor families.” (4)

Her ministry influenced the perception of women in ministry. “By the end of the 1850’s, Palmer had reached the high point of her preaching career, as both men and women viewed her as a leader. She not only brought the sexes together in worship, she also advanced the role of female preachers. She had become a prominent religious figure at a time when very few women rose to positions of power in America. Other women involved in leadership roles performed their services in their homes. Palmer was one of the few who took her message on the road and in the process, became the recognized spokesperson for the Holiness movement.” (5)

The story of Phoebe Palmer has given my daughter faith and boldness to believe that if God could empower Mrs. Palmer in such a powerful way, God can empower her as well. Additionally, Mrs. Palmer’s story shows men and women alike that whatever God calls us to do, we are to humbly but boldly obey, regardless of the social conventions of the day. I told my daughter, “How sad it would have been if Mrs. Palmer chose to stay quiet in fear of the men who would speak against her. Her ministry would not have eternally influenced thousands of people. How sad it will be if God calls you to preach, and you stay quiet. If God calls you to speak, then speak, and trust God to give you the courage to stand firm no matter what.”

1. “Phoebe Worrall Palmer,” Encyclopedia, 2019. https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/historians-miscellaneous-biographies/phoebe-palmer

2. Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 182-183.

3. Paul R. Spickard & Kevin M. Cragg, A Global History of Christians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 290.

4. Spickard and Cragg, A Global History of Christians, 290.

5. “Phoebe Worrall Palmer,” Encyclopedia, 2019.

Featured image from a volume contained in Southern Methodist University Bridwell Library Special Collections and Archives.

The Startling Poetry of Madeleine L’Engle

Before the rumblings began to emerge around New Years’ (stories dripping out slowly from halfway around the world); before awareness of trouble somewhere became the startling realization that trouble was here – we could indulge ourselves in becoming blasé about tradition. Habits are sly: sometimes, we’re lulled into the off-key sense that traditions are a way of controlling a season. We begin to see them as the point instead of as a waypoint. At Christmas, we mumble, “round yon virgin, mother and Child,” so that young hearers don’t whisper loudly, “what’s a virgin?” We don’t know what to do with the truly awful passage about Herod ordering the slaughter of Bethlehem’s toddler boys, so we skip it. Then we stare open-mouthed at the news when natural disasters erupt in December, scissors halted halfway through the Snoopy wrapping paper. For many people around the world, last December – despite weariness or tight budgets or influenza – was one of the last waypoints of normalcy. Even for people who don’t avoid the awkward or painful, this year has been a chaotic overthrow of everyday simplicity. What voice can sound clearly through the chaos? We live in a moment aching for the holy iconoclasm of the poetry of Madeleine L’Engle.

Best known for novels, the late writer Madeleine L’Engle – born in a year much talked-about lately, 1918 – showed a knack for discomforting the comfortable and soothing the overheated, displayed well in The Ordering of Love: The New & Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle. There is nothing controllable about life on this planet, her words seem to shriek; no family recipe to follow carefully that will alleviate the cosmic chaos. And after all, she was born at the tail-end of World War I, during the 1918 flu pandemic, a child during the ’29 crash, a teenager during the Depression, a young woman during World War II, a mother in the tumult of the 50’s and 60’s, a grieving widow as the Information Age picked up steam. Her experiences shout loudly to our current world.

But L’Engle’s poems also bear the time signature of sacred rhythms: many follow liturgical seasons, or lectionary readings, or high water marks of living, like births, weddings, baptisms, deaths. Others cobble amusing little sketches of the absurd habits of selfishness, or glee, or fear, or comfort. She speaks to God as brashly and fearfully as a child who dares to shout at her parent before bursting into tears. Her joy, rage, mirth, and disappointment are pinned into place with her regular, irresistible return to Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. For an author best known for books on time travel, Madeleine L’Engle shakes us awake now as much as she must have while she was alive.

Consider a few fragments from “Lines Scribbled on an Envelope While Riding the 104 Broadway Bus:”

There is too much pain

I cannot understand

I cannot pray

Here I am

and the ugly man with beery breath beside me reminds me that

it is not my prayers that waken your concern, my Lord;

my prayers, my intercessions are not to ask for your love

for all your lost and lonely ones,

your sick and sinning souls,

but mine, my love, my acceptance of your love.

Your love for the woman sticking her umbrella and her expensive

parcels into my ribs and snarling, “Why don’t you watch where

you’re going?”

Your love for me, too, too tired to look with love,

too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person on the bus.

Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain…

It is startling to encounter words that so quickly, easily puncture the day to day patterns that trouble us – whether riding public transport or hopping on social media: “too tired to look with love, too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person.” Her honesty strips bare what phrases like “compassion fatigue” cover up. It is tempting to think that new technology or novel new realities are to blame – but for words like these, written decades ago.

In “Instruments (2)” the woman who managed to write and raise children at the same time confessed,

Hold me against the dark: I am afraid.

Circle me with your arms. I am made

So tiny and my atoms so unstable

That at any moment I may explode. I am unable

To contain myself in unity. My outlines shiver

With the shock of living…

A sense of precarious fragility often goes hand in hand with dripping, fleshy exuberance in her thoughts. Reflecting during a time of hospitalization, L’Engle writes in “From St. Luke’s Hospital (4),”

She comes on at night,

older than middle-aged, from the islands,

to answer the patients’ bells…

At first she was suspicious, cross,

expecting complaints and impositions,

soon tender and gentle,

concerned about requests for help with pain…

This morning she rushed in, frantic,

please, please could she look for the money

she had lost somehow, tending patients,

forty dollars that was not even hers.

She had kept it, in time-honored tradition,

in her bosom, and it must have fallen out

when she was thinking of someone else’s needs.

She scrabbled in the wastebasket,

in the bedclothes, panted from room to room,

returned to mine with a friend. We said,

“Close the door, take off your clothes, and see

if it isn’t still on you somewhere.”

She did, revealing an overworked body,

wrinkled, scarred; found nothing; had to leave.

In a moment when work, medical care, and working women are much in the news, Madeleine L’Engle presents us with sketches that honor womens’ labor – even one brief, sly wink at a casually maligned person from Scripture: “Martha,” the prosaically distracted sister busy with a meal.

Now

nobody can ever laugh at me again

I was the one who baked the bread

I pressed the grapes for wine.

In a year when suffering, depression, and despair threaten to blow the lid off of theoretical pondering on theodicy and the problem of evil, L’Engle charges in where churchgoers fear to tread, in these selections from “Love Letter” –

I hate you, God.

Love, Madeleine

I write my message on water

and at bedtime I tiptoe upstairs

and let it flow under your door.

When I am angry with you

I know that you are there

even if you do not answer my knock

even when your butler opens the door an inch

and flaps his thousand wings in annoyance

at such untoward interruption

and says that the master is not at home.

I cannot turn the other cheek

It takes all the strength I have

To keep my fist from hitting back

the soldiers shot the baby

the little boys trample the old woman

the gutters are filled with groans…

I’m turning in my ticket

and my letter of introduction.

You’re supposed to do the knocking. Why do you burst my heart?

I take hammer and nails

and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood:

Dear God

is it too much to ask you

to bother to be?

Just show your hindquarters

and let me hear you roar.

Love,

Madeleine

What starts off like a cannonball blasted toward the stubbornly closed gates of heaven ends up landing with hoarse awareness: the fury driving her makes her own heart a target. I take hammer and nails and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood. So then. Rage at the suffering in the cosmos inevitably illumines our own complicity. In that case, just let me see even a glimpse of your backside, God; let me hear your power roaring.

The years heavy with her writing were years of upheaval; chaos; swift change; suffering. Her thundering world gave way to these lines from “First Coming” –

He did not wait till the world was ready,

till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.

He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came…

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Whatever the pain, whatever the fear, whatever the work waiting to be done; whatever the mockery, whatever the fury, whatever the suffering – we cannot wait until the world is sane. Christ did not wait until the world was calm and well-mannered before he arrived; we cannot wait until the world is sane, we can’t pause for a more opportune moment to lift our voices, to rejoice.

L’Engle goads at every turn; upheaval is nothing new, no tradition can control it. Chaos, overwhelming loss, injustice, uncertainty – these are nothing new, no habits could contain them or master them. Millions of people around the globe would’ve been startled to realize last December that it would be one of the last calm or predictable months for a long time. Perhaps there was even a sense of boredom. In the absence – the stretching absence – of so much; in the absence of traditions, habits, routines, predictability, reasonable certainty, and guarantees, Madeleine L’Engle insists on the only stable reality: Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. Even while she is screaming at God’s silence, ultimately she lands, too tired to be cautious, in this reality:

He did not wait till the world was ready.

We cannot wait till the world is sane.

Featured image photo credit: Sigrid Astrada

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Discussing Theological Education on the Wesley Seminary Podcast

Recently I had the joy of chatting with Dr. Aaron Perry on the Wesley Seminary Podcast he hosts; our conversation ranged from theological education to vocation to Wesleyan Accent and global Methodism to leadership and gender. He is a regular contributor to Wesleyan Accent, providing a hearty voice from the academy, and teaches at Wesley Seminary where he is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Leadership.

The Wesley Seminary Podcast, “seeks to provide relevant content to those in ministry while addressing questions of faith with intention and thought. Centered around audience interaction and listener feedback, the podcast provides an outlet for questions…and also serves to minister to those who need encouragement within their ministerial journeys.”

This was recorded before the world went on lockdown; a few mid-quarantine postscripts are included below. Click the play button to listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/user-743479271/120-rev-elizabeth-glass-turner-the-importance-of-theological-education

Wesley Seminary is affiliated with Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. Founded in 2009, it offers a variety of Master’s degrees as well as a Doctorate of Ministry degree, highlighting online accessibility.

Wesleyan Accent is unique: our site is a hub featuring voices from a variety of Wesleyan Methodist denominations, in a time when institutional silos tend to run deep. United Methodists might be surprised to learn that 85% of Wesleyan clergymembers don’t have a Master’s degree, while Wesleyans might be surprised to learn that ordained United Methodist elders don’t have to wonder if a particular congregation will provide health insurance and pension.

Theological education in North America is prone to the same pressures undergraduate institutions or liberal arts programs endure; debates about accessibility vs residential programs, in-person classroom discussions vs online engagement, bang for education “consumer” buck vs holistic development, and job preparedness vs academic rigor will surely re-emerge in the eagerly awaited post-quarantine world. Perhaps these straining values will be thrown into sharper relief as false dichotomies; likely, future debates will resound with fresh insights gained from the massive shift to remote working and learning.

Whether or not we can collectively master our moment (a deliberate higher education pun), surely our current circumstances force our attention to certain realities:

Modern online technology can no longer be considered an optional add-on; the internet should be approached as an essential utility.

Congregations, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions that are nimble and had already integrated into online existence well have had fewer hiccups adjusting to remote living.

There are deep inequities in accessing the internet and owning the technological tools to utilize it, from rural areas to urban areas.

Economic stability is fragile; many congregations and academic institutions will be affected for years to come, and some potential students weighing student loans now consider theological education from a new economic footing.

Theology matters; pastors and chaplains with robust appreciation for theology are well-positioned to engage with the massive wave of deep questioning on the nature of suffering; death and dying; the value of the body; missiological contextualization and the Sacraments; uncertainty and addiction, substance abuse, and trauma; Divine sovereignty and human free will; and more. Theological education isn’t a luxury; it’s essential.

Some things that pastors and academics thought the church (broadly speaking) in North America does well, were in fact things that organizations did well as long as circumstances were ideal; some things that pastors and academics questioned about the church in North America have proven stronger or more resilient than expected. So it goes with crisis: revelation ensues.

Leaning into the global nature of the broad Church is always a strength: it helps highlight our blind spots and provides insight we simply don’t have. Early in the pandemic, an American pastor asked for leadership advice from a pastor from the Congo, who had led church members through significant upheaval, including public health crisis. He gave excellent advice. North Americans don’t know everything; and we need to know that.

Are you a layperson, pastor, or professor? What dynamics of church life are you grappling with? If you’ve been to seminary, what’s been one of the most valuable elements of your theological education during the past few weeks? If you grew up outside the U.S., wherever you live now, what are your observations about theological education, infrastructure, church life, quarantine, and leadership?

Interview: Mary DeMuth Talks “We Too” with Carrie Carter

Author and church planter Mary DeMuth has been featured on CNN and in The Washington Post.

Note from the Editor: Wesleyan Accent writer Carrie Carter recently interviewed author and church leader Mary DeMuth about her new book on sexual abuse and the church, We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis. DeMuth’s tradition is not alone as American Protestant church life has been rocked by the faith community’s own #metoo moment, #churchtoo. From megachurches to historic denominations, the ripple effect of revelation has been far-reaching. Wesleyan Accent extends gratitude to clergy spouse Carrie Carter for shining the spotlight on this new resource.

Warning: This interview includes references to sexual abuse that some may find a trigger of traumatic response.

I grew up in a faith community where abuse was not spoken of, where sex was a taboo topic in any context. So as one can imagine, my understanding of sexual abuse was quite simplistic well into adulthood. How could a man or woman of God do such horrific things? I confess that it was easy to feel smug when scandal rocked the Roman Catholic Church, because somehow I felt like Protestants were different.

They’re not. At all. How arrogant of me to think so.

It took a little longer for the corner of that rug to be lifted, but all that filth is the same. Sexual abuse is a darkness that has pervaded the Church for centuries. No branch of faith is above another when it comes to the pervasiveness of sin. The flames of sexual abuse have scarred people I love. People who trusted and were burned.

For this reason I jumped at the chance to review We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis. We Too is now available for purchase, and it was written to help those in ministry leadership to understand the far-reaching effects of sexual abuse and how to support to those on the healing journey. It was truly an honor to interact with Mary and to hear her thoughts on a topic so vital for our ministry leaders right now.

CARRIE CARTER: For those who might not be familiar with you, tell us a little bit about your story.

MARY DEMUTH: I am a sexual abuse survivor. When I was five years old, neighborhood teens repeatedly raped me over the course of my kindergarten year. My father was a predatory man as well. And I found myself during a lot of my childhood being approached by predators. I spent a lot of time running away from those who wanted to steal from me. I met Jesus when I was fifteen through the ministry of Young Life. I have been on a decades-long healing journey since then.

CC: Was We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis written as a response to the recent issues that have been exposed to light in the evangelical world, or was it a work that was already in process?

MD: In some ways it’s been in process for decades. I have been speaking about this issue a very long time, but it has finally gotten teeth because of the evangelical scandals of late. I am grateful that Harvest House Publishers took a huge risk in publishing this book.

CC: Was there anything during the research and writing of We Too that you didn’t already know? If so, what impact did this new knowledge have on you?

MD: I’ve been seeped in this for decades. But I was particularly surprised at the numbers outside the United States. In other cultures, the numbers are significantly higher percentages of women and children being exploited. Consider this: “Some 35% of women globally have experienced some form of sexual violence, though because of the nature of secrets, this number is most likely underreported. For some countries, the statistics are even more shocking: 57% of Bangladesh women, 77% of Cambodian women, 79% of Indian women, and 87% of Vietnamese women and 99% of Egyptian women have experienced some form of sexual harassment. Remember, harassment is not the same as sexual violence. Harassment involves innuendo, inappropriate comments, and unwanted sexual solicitation. 120 million girls globally have experienced forced sex. 750 million girls will be married before their eighteenth birthday.[1]” (Excerpt)

CC: What was the most difficult section of We Too to write? What made it difficult for you?

MD: Recounting the first story in the book where I was abused by a doctor, and then telling the story at the end of the book of when I returned to the scene of the crimes [that occurred] when I was a five year old. There are so many fears in making those stories public, and the shame still looms.

“We all know someone affected by sexual abuse. Sadly, the secular media has shown more compassion than the church toward sexual abuse survivors. There is a holy reckoning unfolding before us in the church. People are fed up with secrecy, covering up, and the sheer proliferation of abuse—both inside and outside the church. It’s time for the church to become what it should be: a place of security, not shame; humility, not pride. By standing with survivors of sexual abuse, we can build a community of kindness and restoration—a place where God’s people are healed and made whole.”
Excerpt, We Too

CC: As the spouse of a ministry leader, I received no training on practical ministry, let alone how to minister effectively to sexual abuse survivors. What do you feel is the most important thing for us, as ministry spouses, to know?

MD: That, most likely, everyone you minister to is affected by this issue. It either happened to them, or they love someone who has had this story. The best thing you can do is err on the side of belief, listen, weep alongside, and pray. If there is an outcry from a minor, you must report this to the authorities. Instead of viewing sexual abuse survivors as drains on your energy, look at them as tutors to teach you what it means to turn to Jesus and lean on him for sustenance and strength. They have SO MUCH to teach us about discipleship.

CC: After reading We Too, I feel it is going to be a vital tool that needs to be on the shelf of every ministry leader’s library. Have you written any supplemental material or do you have recommendations for other resources to help navigate this crisis?

MD: I am in the process of writing a video study and guide. Two other great resources: The Child Safeguarding Policy for Churches and Ministries by Boz Tchividjian and churchcares.com.

CC: For churches that are ready to put protocols in place for the protection of children, is there an organization that you recommend for assistance with those protocols?

MD: Yes, netgrace.org. I also have an extensive list of resources for pastors and ministry leaders here: wetoo.org/pastors

To read DeMuth’s “8 Reasons Why the Church Doesn’t Like to Discuss Sexual Abuse,” click here.

[1] Meera Senthilingam, “Sexual harassment: How it stands around the globe,” CNN, 29 Nov 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/25/health/sexual-harassment-violence-abuse-global-levels/index.html

Suzanne Nicholson ~ Which Story Will You Tell?

Sometimes you just know that life will never be the same. When you fall deeply in love. When your parent dies. When you land your dream job. When you hold your newborn for the first time.

Other events, however, are more ambiguous. Will the neighbors who just moved in next door be a blessing or a bane? Will a new Congress actually accomplish anything? Will the college degree you just received be worth the tuition you paid for it? The answer may vary depending on whom you ask.

The same is true in the resurrection narrative. In Matthew’s version, various witnesses have to decide what to do with the empty tomb. On the one hand, the women who arrive looking for a corpse discover that everything has been turned upside-down. The big, burly Roman soldiers who are guarding the tomb look like corpses themselves. Despite their normal valor and brutality, these men are completely unprepared for the shaking ground, blinding supernatural power, and vacated tomb. Like the ground they walk across, the soldiers shake uncontrollably until their fear overcomes them and they faint dead away.

The women, however, demonstrate the greater courage as they speak with the angel who already comprehends their motives: “I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said.” Those simple words cut through their grief and fear, and the women recall that Jesus had predicted this. And now they realize that Jesus had not been speaking in a parable! The blazing angel further astonishes the women by commanding them to proclaim to the disciples that Jesus has risen and will meet them in Galilee.

The women now have a decision to make. They are unlikely to be believed—after all, most rabbis did not consider the words of women to be reliable enough to use as testimony in court. And everyone had seen the brutality and completeness of Jesus’s death. Who would believe their tale? Is it worth the ridicule?

They have a decision to make.

So, too, do the soldiers. Although they did not register the words that the angel spoke while they were passed out from fear, the guards remember the earthquake, the lightning-like appearance of the angel, and the angel’s incredible power to single-handedly roll back the enormous stone that had sealed the tomb.

And the guards know the tomb is empty. That’s a huge problem. The soldiers don’t know how to explain it, but they are desperate to keep Pilate from finding out they failed in their guard duties. Otherwise, the next cross they see might be their own. They run into the city and tell the chief priests everything they experienced.

And now the chief priests have a decision to make. They had heard the amazing stories of Jesus’s miracles during his lifetime—and some of them had been in the crowd to witness these signs. The priests also know the Scriptures that promise a messiah will come to set the world right. But everything that Jesus did upset their power and teaching and the status quo in general. The priests had been sure that the devil was using Jesus to manipulate the Jewish people. But now the chief priests hear the soldiers’ report of earthquakes and angels and an empty tomb. Could it be true? They discover that change is too hard for them. Overturning all of their theological assumptions and relinquishing their power is simply too costly. Instead, the priests and the elders decide to pay a great deal of money to the guards to spread the story that the disciples stole Jesus’ body while the soldiers were asleep. The religious leaders—the moral example for the people—devise a lie to make sure that nothing changes.

And the soldiers—the protectors of civil order— decide to bury the truth. They take their bribe and the promise of protection from Pilate’s wrath, and they toe the party line. They protect the power of a broken world.

But the women—the ones with little influence, the ones who are least likely to be believed—they run from the empty tomb with great joy. It is only as they are obedient to the angel’s command that Jesus himself appears to them. They worship him, grabbing hold of his feet, the scars reassuring the women that they are not hallucinating. Jesus repeats the angel’s command; the risen Lord himself tells the women to proclaim his truth to the other disciples. Clearly, their testimony is effective, for the disciples go to Galilee and see Jesus there, where they are commissioned to carry on his work.

And so the story continues. As we experience the power of the risen Christ in our own lives, we too must decide what to do with his story. Do we fear that others will not believe us? Do we worry that our whole lives will be turned upside-down? Are we afraid that the authorities of this world will condemn our testimony? Will we have to change our theological assumptions or the power we wield?

The story of the risen Christ confronts our basic expectations about life and death, power and weakness, tragedy and triumph. Yet experiencing the power of the empty tomb is not enough: the soldiers saw, but they were not transformed. We must choose daily whether we will cling to the lies of a broken world or obediently run down the path where the power of Christ meets us, transforms us, and sends us out to spread the good news.

Which story will we tell today?

Tammie Grimm ~ Keeping the Feast and the Fast

It is Easter. Alleluia! Or, more properly, it is Easter-tide. Palm fronds saved from Sunday’s service a few weeks ago are woven homemade crosses drying on the kitchen windowsill or (in my case, on the pile of mail stacked on my desk). The signs and symbols of Lent and Holy Week – along with the bins of empty plastic eggs – are packed up as we savor the last morsels of Easter chocolate many of us denied ourselves for lo those 40 days. Refreshed by caffeine enjoyed anew with gusto, we put decorations into storage till next year’s Lenten fast returns and we begin the ritual again by asking ourselves, “What to give up for Lent this year?”

To be honest, I did not give up chocolate or caffeine for Lent this year. Or last year for that matter. And as long as I have plans to travel to England during Lent I will not give up chocolate or caffeine as my Lenten discipline. I will not purposefully cut myself off from the widely available British treat of chocolate-covered digestives with a cuppa Yorkshire tea during my travels. But traveling hasn’t stopped me from being more creative and circumspect about my choice of fast. This year I fasted (with varying degrees of struggle and success) from dependency on social media, so that I might grow more mindful of my dependence upon God.

For the last several weeks, I have contemplated the rhythms of fasting and feasting as a part of Christian discipleship. How does the experience of fasting help shape us when we finally break it and enjoy the feast? In what ways are our daily lives punctuated by choices we make to abstain from certain pleasures so we might be more conscious of our need for God? And, conversely, how do we share the joy we receive in the presence of God with one another so we seek to extend it further into our communities? How and why should fasting and feasting be a part of our discipleship, our way of living that is meant to help us grow in Christlikeness?

While in England, I had the opportunity to read the manuscripts of early Methodist pioneer Mary Bosanquet Fletcher housed in the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester. Having taken requisite Methodist history classes in seminary, I knew Mary Fletcher was the first woman John Wesley permitted to preach in the 1770s. Later, she became the wife of John Fletcher, who is often considered the theologian of the Methodist movement. They were married for four years before his death and she continued their ministry in the same parish for the next 30 years before her death. Her journals, diaries, private thoughts, and letters embody the largest collection of Methodist papers in existence with the sole exception of John Wesley’s papers. Though I had research purposes relating to my doctoral thesis, the experience of reading her handwriting ministered to my heart and soul in ways I never could have imagined.

It wasn’t the words that Mary Fletcher used that illustrated something fresh to me about discipleship. It was the ebb and flow of her journal entries among the occasions she regularly recorded over the decades. There were times in which her entries were considerably more sparse contrasted by other times in which her entries were especially numerous.

But without fail, on holy days, significant birthdays, and anniversaries, she journaled about her experiences in private prayer, public worship and the holy conversation she had with persons she knew through her ministry. Journaling was an indelible feature of Mary Fletcher’s life. Other writing projects she authored and published for the Methodist movement may have diverted her from her personal journaling at times, but I am convinced that journaling was as much a part of her discipleship as Bible study, regular Eucharist, tithing, and participating in regular class and band meetings.

The spiritual disciplines help us establish a way of living our lives for Christ. Mary Fletcher, like John Wesley, called spiritual disciplines “means of grace,” which are the regular things we do as Christians that open us up to God’s grace and the activity of the Holy Spirit in this world. Discipleship is living in those daily moments, submitting ourselves regularly to God so divine grace can make us more Christlike.

Holy fasts and holy feasts are special events which offer perspective to the ordinary everyday. Fasts and feasts ebb and flow throughout the year to help transform the everyday experience. These holidays (or holy-days) highlight our regular disciplines, transcending them from the daily fabric of our existence, which in turn gives back to the ordinariness of our lives as we grow in Christlikeness.

There are times I’ve wondered if a Lenten fast is nullified by Easter feasting. But in reading Mary Fletcher’s journals, noting the ebb and flow with which she made journal entries, I understood her seasons of profuse writing were not negated by the seasons of terseness. Nor did periods she lapsed in writing void those periods of profusion. She was consistently journaling, reflecting on God’s goodness and allowing divine grace to transform her to become a worthy example to many as she became more and more like Christ. Like a tide that ebbs and flows upon a shore, the disciplines are like waves, ever-present with the rising and falling of the water.

Discipleship is a life-long endeavor, regularly punctuated by the fasts and feasts we keep, consistently renewing and transforming us so we might be worthy vessels to offer the life-giving water of Christ to a parched and weary world.

This piece from our archives originally appeared in 2014.

Don’t Miss She Leads: Church Together

This November, She Leads will be held at Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene and broadcast to multiple regional locations. The gathering is a Missio Alliance event, with multiple sponsors and stakeholders from a variety of denominations and traditions. This year’s theme is represented in a stark but hopeful visual: the words church too melded into church together.

As the website states,

The world has an old, painful story about men and women. This year the #metoo moment brought to light some of the most disturbing parts of the story and the #churchtoo moment forced us to confront how much the brokenness of the world has entered the Church. This broken story is deeply painful on a personal and communal level.

It’s easy to believe we’ll never overcome the brokenness.

But this is not how God sees our story.

It’s time to name and lament how the world’s story has limited the Church’s imagination.

And it’s also time to tell a better story. God is weaving a restoration project in us as individuals and as a body. It will give us a better story to tell the world.

It’s not the first year for She Leads, even if it’s the first year you’re hearing about the one-day conference. (You can listen to a panel segment from 2016 here or a talk by Carolyn Custis James here. Past speakers include Rev. Jo Saxton, author Nancy Ortberg, General Superintendent Emerita of The Wesleyan Church Dr. Jo Anne Lyon, Bishop Todd Hunter, Professor Janette Ok, and Rev. Tish Harrison Warren. This year, speakers include Rev. Tara Beth Leach, Dr. Mark Labberton, and Rev. Ines Velasquez-McBryde.

Though many of the speakers are different, The Junia Project‘s 5 Reasons You Don’t Want to Miss #SheLeads are much the same, especially “connecting with likeminded women and men in your area.” At the same time, the urgency for this kind of gathering is felt in reading reflections like this one – What One Small Church Plant Learned from She Leads.

Registration is currently open for attendance in Pasadena or at one of the regional gatherings, and student discounts are available. There are still opportunities to be a regional host or to host a viewing party, as well. Click here to learn more about being a regional venue.

For more resources on women in ministry visit Missio Alliance, The Junia Project, Sacred Alliance, and CBE International.