Common Lot Fall 2014

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CommonLot A J O U R NA L F O R WO M E N I N T H E U N I T E D C H U R C H O F C H R I S T

Women in Ministry Never the Same Day Twice: Snapshots of Women in Ministry Guess Who’s Coming to the Pulpit?

Deciphering Antoinette Freedom and Healing … Sex and the Spirit

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A JOURNAL FOR WOMEN IN THE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

Womenin Ministry

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Never the Same Day Twice: Snapshots of Women in Ministry Marchae Grair . . . Mary Luti . . . Letitia Rouser Christina G. Kukuk

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Guess Who’s Coming to the Pulpit?

Emily C. Heath

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Freedom and Healing . . . Sex and the Spirit An Interview with Verlee A. Copeland Christina G. Kukuk

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Women Clergy: Strength in Numbers Emily Schappacher

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A Day in the Life of a Seminary President Alice Hunt

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Look Sharp: Dressing Like You Mean Business . . .

Even if You’re a Minister Victoria Weinstein

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Deciphering Antoinette: Communing with Antoinette Brown, a Sister-in-Ministry Jennifer Mills-Knutsen

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Snapshot

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From The Publisher

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little over thirty years ago, I applied for a job at the national offices of the United Church of Christ, then in New York City. When I arrived for my interview, I waited in the lobby while the receptionist, a middle-aged woman, called the office manager, another middle aged woman, to come out and fetch me.

The office manager gave me a typing test (on an actual typewriter) and ushered me into a large comfortable office in which sat four middle-aged men in suits and ties. They were the ministers, and the only surprising thing about that for me was that they wore suits and ties, like ordinary business men. I had been expecting, I guess, clerical collars.

They hired me. They also hired, at the same time, my first boss at the UCC: an African American woman about 20 years older than myself. Things were beginning to change, even then, and we must give credit to those four white middle-aged ministers, whose hearts, if not all of their habits, were in the right place.

Over the next 10 years, I learned that while men held virtually all of the top positions in the church, there were a lot of women—experienced, smart, ordained and lay, all of them multi-talented and necessarily thick-skinned—waiting in the wings, on the cusp of moving into leadership in much greater numbers.

These were women who had to work harder and be smarter than the men around them to get where they were. In this respect, the church was no different from the rest of society. Perhaps it was worse. I remember hearing more than once, back then, from church members, male and female: “I just can’t get used to the sound of a woman’s voice preaching.”

Well. Times have changed. Today women represent 47.7% of ordained ministers in the UCC. Yet it is also true that they represent only 37.5% of senior or solo pastors. (Maybe it’s still that “sound of a woman’s voice” leading thing.)

The women we feature in this issue of Common Lot have found their place in ministry. The diversity of identities and roles of the women in ministry in the United Church of Christ is only hinted at here, but we hope you will enjoy the insights and experiences they share.

Christina Villa Director, Publishing, Identity and Communication United Church of Christ Common Lot Christina Villa Editor and Publisher Barbara A. Powell Production Manager Common Lot is published twice a year.

Sign up for a free subscription at ucc.org/commonlot.

Comments, ideas and story suggestions can be sent to CLeditor@ucc.org.

A publication of the United Church of Christ, 700 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115.

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Let’s talk about sex.

(After all, the Bible does).

Two UCC pastors, Verlee A. Copeland and Dale B. Rosenberger, invite you to experience the relationship between sexuality and spirituality (yes, there is one!) in their book, Sex and the Spirit: The Romance of Heaven and Earth.

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$ Love, Sex, Aging, and the Stirring of Passion’s Fire

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NEVER THESAMEDAY TWICE Christina G. Kukuk

Women in the United Church of Christ minister in so many varied settings with strength, skill, and spirit. Periodically, Common Lot likes to go deeper than the job description for our readers. How would you describe ministry? How did you get here? Who made the difference?

What do you love?

For this feature, we talked to three women, each of them engaged in very different UCC ministries—all of them committed to their work and inspired by commitment to UCC values.

Mary Luti

JOB TITLE: Interim Senior Pastor of Wellesley Congregational Church (UCC), The Village Church

LOCATION: Wellesley, Massachusetts

HER MINISTRY IN 3-5 WORDS: “At heart, I’m a teacher.”

Photos: Bryce Vickmark

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rowing up Roman Catholic in a family of educators, Mary Luti always knew she wanted to be a teacher. Being a pastor was one of the farthest things from her mind.

“I always expected to be connected to the life of the church, but I didn’t expect to be a leader,” she says.

Luti joined the Teresian Institute, an international Catholic women’s religious community founded in the early 20th-century in Spain. With other members, she took vows to live with and support one another in their secular professions in an intentional way. Following in the footsteps of many family members, Luti taught English at high school and college levels in Boston, Miami and Mexico City.

Members of the community, however, pressed her to pursue a degree in theology.

She did. And she fell in love—with the history of Christianity, with the history of Christian theology, with “all things ecclesial.” That was the beginning of thinking of herself as a religious professional. She taught at Andover Newton Theological School from 1984 to 1998.

Eventually, a series of events led her to leave the Catholic women’s community and the Catholic church and discover the United Church of Christ, where she thought about ordination for the first time in her life. Called and ordained by a church in Boston in 2000, she left Andover Newton to serve in parish ministry for the next eight years.

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“I loved my religious tradition,” Luti says. “I still do. I’m not a recovering Catholic. There were reasons why I felt I needed to leave, but I didn’t take flight.”

Luti traces her call to spiritual leadership in the Christian church to childhood, when she loved going to summer camp.

“I was madly in love with my camp counselors, and several of them were very devout Catholic Christians who made the decision to enter the convent,” she says. “I don’t think I knew it was influencing me at the time, but . . . those conversations really impressed themselves on my heart and soul: that there were people, these women, who felt called to give themselves over to the kind of service that would anchor their lives forever among the people of the church.”

Joining the United Church of Christ, though, was not a given. Luti admits she might have easily become

Then she checks and triages email. The rest of her day fills with “typical” pastoral work: staff meetings, visits from leaders or members, a trip to a nearby retirement facility, some worship planning, a bit of sermon writing, or an evening meeting.

Except that there is no “typical” day in pastoral ministry, which is what Luti says makes it so wonderful and frustrating at the same time. Plans to work on a big project for next year go overboard when a call in the middle of the day brings news that someone’s parent has died.

“Parish ministry has really taught me the truth of the old cliché that the interruptions are the job,” she says. “That is the ministry.

Your work is not being interrupted; that is your work. You plan and plan and plan, but they’re all up for grabs.”

Luti returned to Andover Newton in 2008 as a visiting professor and director of the Wilson Chapel for four years, and she still

“If the United Church of Christ has people like this in it, I thought, then there’s no reason I cannot join this.”

Episcopalian. (She is married to an Episcopalian priest, after all. They’ve been together for 33 years.)

“I could shop around historically with the best of them and analyze traditions,” she says.

But it was the life and witness of several of her colleagues at Andover Newton, and her affinity with their vision and hope for the church, that tipped the balance for Luti. “If the United Church of Christ has people like this in it, I thought, then there’s no reason I cannot join this.”

A self-described “morning person,” Luti often arrives these days at her office at the Village Church before anyone else to spend the first 15-20 minutes leafing through the parish directory to pray for members of the congregation. She purposefully leaves her shutters open so she can next pray for the commuters who cut through the church property on their way to a nearby rail station to catch the train that takes them to Boston.

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occasionally teaches a class there. She also takes great joy in interfaith relationships, and the Daughters of Abraham groups of Muslim, Jewish and Christian women with whom she meets and shares pilgrimages to places important to those three traditions.

After this interim at Wellesley, Luti promises she will really, finally retire from full-time work.

She cannot stop teaching, though, unless she also stops writing. Through online devotionals, sermon blogging, and social media, Luti has discovered another classroom of sorts in which she can find herself in lengthy, deep and thoughtful exchanges.

“Someone [online] once said, ‘Thank you for continuing to teach us,’” she remembers. “And I never thought of it that way, but of course, I’m a teacher. I’m going to be teaching . . . . I’ve spent my whole life learning about these things that I love and I want to share what I love.”

Marchae Grair JOB TITLE: Social Media Associate for Publishing, Identity and Communication, United Church of Christ

LOCATION: Cleveland, Ohio

HER MINISTRY IN 3-5 WORDS: “Relating real life to God.”

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ow does a person begin to manage the social media presence of a diverse, 1.1 million-member, frequently news-making Christian denomination? Marchae Grair can start her day only one way.

“To be as engaging as I need to be in my job, I have to start with caffeine,” says Grair, the UCC’s Social Media Associate since June.

After the coffee, Grair can tackle her various news streams, email, social media notifications, and any comments, inquiries, personal messages, or tags on Facebook or Twitter that require a response.

If she doesn’t know the answer, she finds someone who does. She monitors the stories trending in religion—her own RSS reader as well as popular online news and blogging sites—for relevant pieces to share or schedule to share sometime in the future. And as she scrolls, Grair looks for ways to help people see the practical application of faith and religion in daily life.

“UCC [people] are not just interested in religion in the traditional sense,” she says, “but also in what it means to be a Christian living in the world today.”

On any given day, Grair also might plan with others ways to promote a new book published by The Pilgrim Press or Open Waters, a new imprint of Pilgrim. She might give suggestions to an author brainstorming blog content. She might offer social media input at a meeting on an upcoming churchwide campaign, or confer with the United Church News team about how to best share important stories via social media.

“My goal is awareness,” she says. “Not everyone is comfortable

Common Lot Photos: Joseph Albert

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taking a traditional path to God. Those are the people this [work] is about. It’s not really about the people who are going to go to church every Sunday.

That’s not what my job is about.”

friend in the 5th grade first made a difference in what she thought, felt, and believed. She remembers arguing on the phone with that friend about whether it was right or wrong to be gay.

For Grair, this makes her work ministry.

“I was arguing that it was wrong to be gay. I just kept repeating, ‘It’s in the Bible. It’s in the Bible,’” Grair says. “But my friend kept saying, ‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’ I was only in 5th grade, but I will never forget that . . . . Even though we were children, she was the first person to show me that there could be another way. Her name just happens to be Grace.”

“Your main purpose in social media is generating a conversation,” she says. “The most common feedback I get on social media is that people didn’t know churches like the UCC exist. I don’t think you can diminish the fact that some people are uncomfortable with religion or traditional routes to religion, but they may stumble across something of interest in social media, and through that find a path to a church.”

Not long ago, Grair was one of those people.

Although she grew up within an hour’s drive of the UCC’s national headquarters in Cleveland, she’d never heard of the UCC before she saw a posting for her current job. Raised in the Pentecostal tradition of

In her work today, Grair says grace is what she tries to show others by appreciating many different viewpoints as she curates social media conversations about hot topics of faith and justice, religion and politics.

The news cycle is unpredictable. “You can’t really control when stories come along or when things happen,” Grair says. “You could have nothing to post, and then you could have everything to post,

“Part of ending up in the UCC was realizing the difference between unrelenting faith and unrelenting devotion to people’s ideas” the Church of God in Christ, church held a central place in her family’s life. Grair sang gospel in church on Sundays with her grandmother. Grair even served as a worship leader. But after getting her degree in electronic media management from Kent State University, interning at The Advocate in Los Angeles, and freelancing for local newspapers in Ohio, Grair found she could no longer sit in silence in church, hearing messages she could not endorse.

That’s when she saw her job posting. She decided to investigate the UCC and discovered a church that not only affirmed her passion for social justice, but also welcomed the LGBTQ community of which she is a part.

“Part of ending up in the UCC was realizing the difference between unrelenting faith and unrelenting devotion to people’s ideas,” she says.

And although the job posting for her current position came at just the right time, Grair says a

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and it’s absolutely beyond your control.” The summer of 2014 brought an extremely busy news cycle, including the denomination’s challenge of restrictive marriage laws in North Carolina on the basis of freedom of religion. All that makes her daily routine “1,000 percent subject to change.”

“Someone like me thrives on that,” she says. “I never get bored.”

Grair does not love how hateful people can be online under a veil of anonymity.

“You can’t be on social media without realizing that some people just have a lot of hate in their hearts,” she says. “I always hope that somebody who’s vulnerable to certain messages won’t see those words.”

She will block, delete and moderate. But she also believes in doing more.

“You just have to make sure that the love wins,” she says. “You have to make sure that your message is louder.”

Leticia P. J. Rouser

JOB TITLE: Command Chaplain for Headquarters & Support Battalion, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton

LOCATION: San Diego County, Southern California

HER MINISTRY IN 3-5 WORDS: “Fishing in a deep ocean at night.”

Photos: Justin Galloway

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pastor for 21 years before entering the military at age 47, the Lt. Rev. Dr. Leticia P.J. Rouser often finds herself the oldest person present at her work. "Other service members are retiring by age 50, with 30 years of service.”

“Every day, when I pull on my camos and my boots, I look in the mirror and wonder, ‘What am I doing?’ It’s a young person’s job,” Rouser says.

But Rouser’s passion to serve the whole military family compels her. She became a Navy chaplain in part because she can never forget how badly a chaplain treated her when she was a military spouse fighting to save her marriage.

Rouser ministered in a hard-won position as a pastor in a Baptist church for 15 years before marrying and moving to Hawaii for her spouse’s military career. In Hawaii, she intended to care full-time for home and family. It wasn’t long until she also filled a vacancy at a church in Maui part-time, but her marriage struggled. She wrote the military and she wrote the president about the difficulties spouses and families faced in the military. She tried to get help from her husband’s chaplain, but he wouldn’t hear her story.

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Rouser’s marriage didn’t survive. But at a chaplain’s professional retreat while she was trying to save that marriage, she met a United Church of Christ chaplain.

He pointed out all her skills and experiences—as a pastor, as a hospital chaplain, as a military spouse—and asked if she would consider chaplaincy.

“I told him no,” Rouser says. “But he gave my name to the military anyway.”

And when she found herself a single parent of two small boys about to finish an interim ministry position, the military called her at just the right time. She flew to Washington, D.C., for an interview and was hired in part due to the strength of her experience as a spouse.

“I let people know: I’m a chaplain for the whole family,” Rouser says. “I’m going to take care of my marine or my sailor, but I’m a chaplain for the family.”

“If you really want to minister to the multitudes, this would be the place”

The families aren’t the only aspect of the job that draws Rouser. She also enjoys the geographic breadth of the ministry. “When you are a military chaplain, you can preach on the sea, in the air, in the desert, in the middle of a war zone,” says Rouser, who has deployed with a Marine Expeditionary Force to Saudi Arabia. “There’s no limitation to where you do ministry.”

There is also no limit to what you might hear. Since the chaplain’s office is the one place in the military where

“As a chaplain, you’re the chaplain people can disclose almost anything and not get judged or reported, Rouser hears painful, dark confessions: Murder.

Rape. Incest.

“As a chaplain, you’re the chaplain of the rapist and the victim,” Rouser says. How can she do that? “You just do.

You can look at Jesus’ ministry.” Jesus spent time with all sorts of people, she says. And people didn’t understand. “A murderer like Saul: Who would go and pick a person like him?” Rouser asks. “Jesus did. And then he let him write half of the New Testament . . . . When you look at it in the context of Christ, you can do it.”

Rouser says she has to ask herself, “What is my mission? Is it to save or to sink?

If you have medicine that can cure somebody who’s sick, you need to share it.”

Administering such spiritual medicine often means ministering to people she would rather have nothing to do with. “When a child molester comes into my office, I want to kill him…” Rouser says. “I know what I want to do. But what would Christ do? And what would Christ want me to do?”

Rouser navigates this calling in the midst of many more routine ministries: marriage counseling and grief counseling, pre-marriage and women’s retreats, preparing families for deployment, and supervising other chaplains or religious programmers in addition to advising command when morale is low and the marines need a day to de-stress and de-compress. Rouser oversees the Marine Memorial Chapel at Camp Pendleton and any events or ceremonies held there.

She is one of few chaplains who can officiate at the weddings of same-sex service

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members. Every quarter, she also works a 7-day duty chaplain shift, which means she’s on-call for the entire base population of 55,000 people, counting the military and their families and support staff.

But temptations to quit came more often in a local church. In the military, Rouser says, people change jobs every 2-3 years; people are constantly checking in and checking out. Every day her command is different, which means every day brings new potential for spiritual revelation.

“Every day you go expecting,” Rouser says. “There is excitement every day. It’s hard to get in a rut if you’re doing your job. Something is going to happen.”

The physical training requirements are a hassle. “In the local church, you can do whatever,” she says.

“But in the military, twice a year you have to take that physical fitness test and you have to pass it. It’s not voluntary, it’s mandatory.” She usually prefers to run her mile and a half test. But after recovering

of the rapist and the victim.” from knee surgery, this year is the first she’ll have to bike or swim.

But she loves the work and the potential for her ministry to touch lives.

“When you speak to 1,400 marines on a base, you have the ability to touch and change communities all over in one swoop: community, family, country, everything,” she says. And she would encourage others to consider military chaplaincy.

“If you really want to minister to the multitudes, this would be the place,” Rouser says. “You definitely have to deal with the diversity of people. You learn to care for all.”

CHRISTINA G. KUKUK is pastor of Embody: A Community of Faith (UCC) in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, a writer and a journalist.

She previously served congregations in Minneapolis, Minn., and Elyria, Ohio. You can follow her on Twitter@theRevCK.

GUESS WHO’S

COMING TO THE PULPIT?

GOD BROUGHT A MINISTER THEY NEVER EXPECTED TO A TOWN I NEVER EXPECTED TO GO. Long before I arrived for my candidating weekend at my first parish I had already been well-Googled.

Emily C. Heath

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had been honest and upfront about my sexual orientation during my conversations with the search committee. I didn’t want anyone to feel misled or like I was ashamed of who I was, so from the beginning I told them candidly that I am gay.

The search committee was going to be honest and upfront about this fact with the congregation as well, but as soon as my name was announced church members had put it into a search engine. And some did not like what they found.

My first congregation was not an ONA (Open and Affirming) congregation when I arrived.

There had been attempts to broach the conversation over the years, but the congregation seemed so divided that a formal vote was never taken. There was a fear that an ONA vote could “split the church.”

I had at first been reluctant to send my ministerial profile to a church that was not already ONA. After all, I had spent my first eight years in ministry in the Presbyterian Church, a denomination deeply divided on issues of inclusion. I just wanted to do ministry without having people fight over who I loved.

But in my United Church of Christ polity class the professor, an associate conference minister, asked how many of us would consider serving a non-ONA church. Only a few hands went up. He then said, “For those of you who didn’t raise your hands, why do you want to go where the work has already been done?”

And so, here I was, standing in front of the congregation at the Saturday-night pre-vote dinner that colleagues jokingly call the “trial by potluck.” Everyone was nice enough . . . for the most part. But there was an undercurrent of apprehension and fear. Would the call be affirmed?

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I answered questions as transparently as I could and the next morning the church voted to call me as their pastor. It was not unanimous, and there was some very vocal opposition. I considered declining the call. But, when I prayed about it I really did feel that God was calling me to be the pastor of this community. I knew that I had the right skills, and I believed God could use me. I said “yes.”

I moved to rural Vermont the day before my first service.

My friends thought I was making a mistake.

I thought I might be too.

Emily and her wife, Heidi Carrington Heath.

That first year was hard. There is often no “honeymoon” for a gay pastor in a more conservative congregation. But, gradually, people started to see that I really believed, and tried to live my life in accordance with, what I was saying on Sunday. Soon some of the members who had been the most concerned about the new gay pastor were having me over for dinner, or stopping by the church to talk.

Photo provided by Emily Heath

Would people leave the church? Would the church be known as the “gay church” around town?

My second year I fell in love. Cautiously I introduced her to the congregation. And, by the time I proposed, they celebrated with me. My third year, on the Sunday before our wedding the entire congregation even gathered at a deacon’s house to celebrate with us and share a cake. In the end they

“More than once I looked into the eyes of someone who hadn’t been so

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hat summer I found a file of paperwork that had been left to me from the church’s last ONA conversations a few years before. Anonymous surveys had been taken by members of the congregation. Some were affirming of LGBTQ people, but others were not. I read statements about people like me that made my heart hurt.

I couldn’t believe what some people actually believed. I had never wanted to hurt a child. I had not been “turned gay” because I hated men.

I didn’t want to destroy the church. And I didn’t believe gay people could change if they only prayed enough.

For the next week or so I walked around in a fog. Why am I here? They obviously don’t want someone like me.

But then it struck me. They could have voted “no.” There were other possible candidates and they could have sent the search committee back to the drawing board. And yet, 90% of them had voted to be open to the Spirit and at least give it a try.

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came to love my wife every bit as much as they had come to love me. (Okay, maybe even a little more.)

It wasn’t until after our wedding, in the midst of a visioning process, that the question of revisiting our Open and Affirming vote came up again. The church was much larger now. It had doubled in size in the past few years, and we had more members who identified as LGBTQ or who had family members or friends who did. And so, one night in a deacons’ meeting we talked about it. Was the church ready to explore becoming ONA again? Would it tear them apart? Would people engage in a conversation?

We weren’t sure, but we decided we couldn’t wait any longer to ask the question. And so the congregation began a series of ONA discussions led by our deacons. Good questions were asked.

Hard questions weren’t ignored. And in the end, everyone had a chance to speak.

When the Sunday of the formal vote came, I held my breath. Would it pass? Would we

become Open and Affirming? Would people leave?

I wondered these things as the ballots came forward in baskets, and were counted on the chancel. Finally a deacon spoke: “It’s unanimous.”

I was stunned. And I was grateful. And I give God all the glory for leading us through that process, and together as a church.

This past year my wife finished seminary and it became clear to us that we were being called to move on. Deciding to leave was extremely difficult. We had grown to love this congregation and community.

And yet, we knew God was calling us to something new.

On our last Sunday in Vermont we prayed and sang and worshipped like always. And then we all spilled out onto the church lawn and ate deviled eggs and brownies and potato salad. One after the other, we said goodbye.

More than once I looked into the eyes of someone who hadn’t been so sure about me and I realized that God is never wrong. God had called me there. God

sure about me and I realized that

God is never wrong.”

had called me to stand with families on their wedding and baptism days. And God had called me to sit with them at their bedsides and next to their family members’ caskets. God had brought a minister they never expected to a town I never expected to go. And God had blessed it, and made it good.

I am now the new pastor of a church that has been Open and Affirming since in the mid-1990’s.

Discerning a call with this church was different in many ways. From the very beginning my wife was included by the congregation in my discernment. By the time a successful vote came down on my candidating Sunday, we both felt sure that God was calling us to this place. Just as God didn’t make a mistake in calling me to Vermont, I know God had something great in mind when God called me here.

And yet, I will never forget that church in Vermont.

The one that took a chance and called a pastor they weren’t so sure about. And the one that opened their hearts, and decided to be church together. I’m glad we gave each other a chance. And I’m glad God called us together.

Photos: Bryce Vickmark

AN INTERVIEW WITH VERLEE COPELAND

Photos: Bryce Vickmark

FREEDOM, HEALING, SEXAND THESPIRIT “People talk all the time about their gall bladders, their cancer treatments . . . but our sexuality is still, for many people, behind a hidden door.”

Christina G. Kukuk

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biographical blurb on the back of Verlee A. Copeland’s recently published book sounds a bit like a personal ad. She loves “wilderness adventures, mountain climbing, and kayaking.”

The line may be a subtle wink at the book’s content. It’s called Sex and the Spirit: The Romance of Heaven and Earth.

But ask Copeland about the questions she and her co-author answer in that book, and there is no winking. She doesn’t even seem to blink. (At least not verbally. We spoke by phone.)

“It’s a risky book,” she says.

In it, Copeland and long-time colleague Dale Rosenberger answer twenty-four questions real people have asked about sex and faith during their ministries. For each question, Copeland had a specific person or a composite of several people in mind. Sections of the book are theologically dense at times. But the drive to write it came from the very practical experience of helping people grow in their intimacy with God and one another.

After years of pastoral ministry, including much family and individual counseling, Copeland says she’s convinced the biggest difficulty Christians face moving forward in conversations about sexuality is simply talking about sex—any kind of sex. Even heterosexual struggles, challenges, and joys are invisible in the conversational life of the Church.

“I think there’s an assumption that there are plenty of resources out there, from movies to Cosmo,” Copeland says. “But much of what’s out there from a Christian perspective has been written from a very conservative Christian point of view.”

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“I pray as I walk, and no matter what happens in life, every day the tide rolls

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hat’s why when she and colleagues gathered a couple of years ago to talk about what they were writing, for whom they were writing, and what they wanted to write next, she told the others that she’d long wanted a book to be written on what it means to be created whole and beautiful and embodied, and not just as a sidebar to the devastating effects of sexual misconduct or to church conflicts surrounding homosexuality.

“We’re made in the flesh,” she says. “This is how we love one another.” And that should frame our conversation about what healthy sexuality looks like for anyone, regardless of sexual attraction or gender identity.

One of the people in that room turned to her and Rosenberger

Other people will hate the book, she says, because the authors’ holistic approach to sexuality – mind, body, and spirit – “leaves the door open to some of the things our more conservative brothers and sisters would like to have more tightly buttoned up.”

They don’t say outright that sexual fantasy is wrong.

They don’t make any judgments about masturbation. They do not tell people that they should always disclose every detail of their sexual past.

Where did Copeland get the courage to write such a book?

“I have a deeply abiding Christian faith, and the courage to do anything that ever matters comes from my relationship with God,” she says. “When I’ve been clear about a call to do something, I’ve

“The heart of my ministry and my faith is to create a context for people to deepen their faith in God through Christ and develop practices for faith that will sustain them through a lifetime,” and said, “You should write that book together. Verlee, if you write it, everyone is going to think it’s a chick book. Dale, if you write it, everyone’s going to think it’s a sexist tome. You need to write it together.”

They did. The Pilgrim Press published the book in April.

In her measured, therapeutic voice, Copeland freely predicts a lot of people will hate the book. Some will hate it because it doesn’t address gay and lesbian relationships. (Though much of the theological framework for sexuality will apply to anyone, she says, there are definitely issues specific to gay and lesbian relationships, and she hopes someone else will write about them. Since the co-authors are both heterosexual, they felt they weren’t the best ones to do it. )

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known that I couldn’t not do it. And this is something I couldn’t not do.”

That faith has been a gift from God since a very early age, Copeland says. She was raised as a United Methodist and nurtured in a family of blended traditions that also included Catholic and Baptist extended family. Her relatives seemed to practice their faith with mutual respect for one another. One grandmother wanted to be a missionary in Africa but met Copeland’s grandfather and married instead. She is the one Copeland remembers most as the person who showed her what it meant to be a Christian and how fascinating the Bible could be.

Still, when she entered college, Copeland had not yet heard a woman preach or seen a woman preside at the communion table. She pursued a degree in education and then another in counseling psychology, working at a school, practicing family therapy, and even taking on twelve part-time hours

in and it washes it all away,” she says. “Every day is a new beginning.” at a church. She eventually realized splitting her time among so many jobs to satisfy her sense of call wouldn’t be sustainable for a lifetime. So when a public school colleague who set off for Yale Divinity School returned to lead a group of women in a yearlong discernment of calling, Copeland joined. Six of the seven women in that group became pastors or priests in their respective traditions. Between her family and that group of women, Copeland found her calling affirmed over time.

“Ministry is an apprenticeship that is nurtured in community,” she says. Now the Senior Minister of First Parish Congregational Church (UCC) in York, Maine, Copeland recently celebrated her 25th year of ordination.

While helping people talk about sexuality in the framework of Christian faith is part of her ministry, it isn’t all of it.

“The heart of my ministry and my faith is to create a context for people to deepen their faith in God through Christ and develop practices for faith that will sustain them through a lifetime,” Copeland says.

Throughout years of pastoral ministry in Colorado, Illinois, and now Maine, Copeland has emphasized spiritual and devotional practices. She developed a women’s retreat called The Garden in Winter as well as a Bible study that replicates house church called Simple Suppers. In addition to lending her leadership to several theological education institutions, she invests in mission through Habitat for Humanity International, Common Hope (devoted to the education of Maya minority children in Guatemala) and the United Church of Christ’s Global Ministries work in Cuba.

What excites Copeland now is a new initiative with her husband, psychologist Ellis Copeland, with whom she founded The Copeland Institute, a retreat center in Northwest Boulder, Colorado. Collaborating with health coaches around the country, The Copeland Institute supports optimal health for retreat participants. Consistent with her work through Sex and the Spirit, Copeland teaches participants to

cherish the body, prioritizing self-care that lead many to significant lifestyle changes and weight loss. The work includes creating habits of health that fully honor the body and optimize health for a lifetime. The Copelands also create a context for individuals to gather for long-term sabbatical work in an intentional faith community.

Though she loves to fill even her downtime with “meetings that matter over good bread and wine,” Copeland says she recently recommitted to self-care after years of not caring well for her own body.

When we spoke she was training to run a halfmarathon in a week and had climbed eighteen of Colorado’s 14,000 peaks. She loves to dance—New England contradance, country line, or swing—and says she never turns down the opportunity for a good dance at a wedding.

When in Maine, every day she takes a long, three-anda-half mile walk along a beach. Being in the wilderness renews her spirit every time.

“I pray as I walk, and no matter what happens in life, every day the tide rolls in and it washes it all away,” she says. “Every day is a new beginning.”

A new beginning in the area of sexuality and spirituality is part of what she hopes to give others through her recent book.

“There are suffering people longing to be free, and it’s a special kind of suffering because it’s a secret,” she says. “People talk all the time about their gall bladders, their cancer treatments . . . but our sexuality is still, for many people, behind a hidden door.”

Copeland says she’s willing to open that door toward freedom and healing —even if it’s risky.

CHRISTINA G. KUKUK is pastor of Embody: A Community of Faith (UCC) in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, a writer and a journalist. She previously served congregations in Minneapolis, Minn., and Elyria, Ohio. You can follow her on Twitter@theRevCK.

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WOMEN CLERGY: STRENGTH IN NUMBERS As in nearly every industry, Emily Schappacher women seeking leadership roles in ministry have long been overshadowed by their male counterparts. But in the United Church of Christ, that trend has taken a substantial turn in the other direction.

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ACTIVE ORDAINED UCC FEMALE MINISTERS 2002 27% 2012 46%

ACTIVE ORDAINED UCC FEMALE SENIOR PASTORS 2002 27% 2012 35%

ACTIVE ORDAINED UCC FEMALE CO-PASTORS 2002 47% 2012 54%

ACTIVE ORDAINED UCC FEMALE ASS0CIATE PASTORS 2002 60% 2012 64%

ACTIVE ORDAINED UCC FEMALE INTERIM PASTORS 2002 27% 2012 48%

WOMEN ENTERING MINISTRIES IN ALL DENOMINATIONS 2003 37% 2013 33%

Emily Schappacher

D

uring the past decade, more women clergy have found their home in the UCC than ever before, comprising nearly 50 percent of all active, ordained UCC ministers in 2013. Since the UCC became the first mainline denomination to ordain a woman in 1853, the church now supports more than 3,500 women called to serve their congregations and communities.

“The UCC has always been in the vanguard of women in ministry,” said the Rev. Holly MillerShank, team leader of the UCC’s Ministerial Excellence, Support and Authorization (MESA) team.

In the last 10 years, the number of active ordained UCC female ministers increased by more than 19 percent, from 27 percent in 2002 to 46 percent in 2012 (2013 UCC Statistical Profile). In 2012, more than 35 percent of all senior pastors were female, compared with just 27 percent 10 years earlier.

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While the increase in female ministers in the UCC is significant, the majority of them continue to serve in supporting roles.

In 2012, 54 percent were co-pastors, 64 percent were associate or assistant pastors, and 48 percent were interim or supply pastors, compared to 47 percent, 60 percent and 27 percent, respectively, in 2002.

The UCC’s statistics on women ministers are in stark contrast to the numbers representing the overall state of women entering ministry.

According to research from the Association of Theological Schools (ATS), an organization of more than 270 graduate schools of theology representing 74,500 students in the United States and Canada, 37 percent of students who graduated from all theological programs in 2003 were women. This number dropped to 33 percent in 2013.

“Whether it’s a call toward local church ministry or ministry in a specialized setting, God doesn’t only call one demographic, God calls all people.”

While this 4-percent decline could be attributed to a number of factors, MillerShank says we could be seeing a “leveling off ” effect: “A few decades ago, not all Christian communions allowed women to serve in leadership positions, so for women who had a call to ministry but never thought it would be realized, there was now an opportunity to get theological education and opportunities for full-time employment as a pastor. Now that the majority of denominations allow female leadership, once that ceiling was broken, the initial influx of women seeking theological training has leveled off.”

But MillerShank also believes that the inclusive, progressive viewpoints of the UCC could be helping to draw more and more women into its ministry. According to an ATS survey of 2003 seminary graduates, 35 percent of the women described their change in theological position as “more liberal” upon completing their studies, a number that increased to 37 percent in 2013.

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The UCC’s open-minded views on issues such as same-sex marriage, economic justice, immigration reform, and women’s reproductive rights resonate with younger generations, MillerShank adds, and could attract more women as they progress in their theological education and come to more fully realize their call.

“As women from other denominations experience theological education and discover the UCC, they are attracted to its bold theological witness and seek authorization as a UCC minster,” she said.

Regardless of the reasons, diversity in ministry is a good thing, MillerShank says, and the UCC celebrates those who are called to enter local church ministry, as well as specialized settings such as college, hospital, prison and military chaplaincy. For women considering a career in ministry, MillerShank says full and active participation in all settings of the church is essential to understand the true depth and breadth of ministry, and to experience examples of women serving all settings of the church with integrity and success.

“Whether it’s a call toward local church ministry or ministry in a specialized setting, God doesn’t only call one demographic,” MillerShank said.

“God calls all people.”

EMILY SCHAPPACHER is communications specialist for the UCC’s Publishing, Identity and Communication Ministry.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SEMINARY PRESIDENT

“If you had asked me when I was 15 years old if I thought I would ever be a seminary president, I probably would have laughed out loud. But, at that same time, I knew God had a call on my life.”

Sarah Hunt

Photo courtesy of Chicago Theological Seminary

I remember the Sunday Alma Hunt preached at my Church—First Baptist of Boaz. Now, you should know, they would not call it preaching—because she was a woman and women are (still) not allowed to preach in Southern Baptist churches. But preaching is exactly what she did. That was the day it crystallized for me that God was calling me to ministerial leadership.

I

f I had been male, I would’ve recognized more clearly that God was calling me to ordained ministry.

But our Southern Baptist institutional system was (and still is) suffering and causing suffering and, because I trusted in that system more than I trusted what I understood of God’s call to me, I assumed God must be calling me to something else. I clearly remember giving myself that day to whatever God wanted of me.

Ordination came—but it was a while off.

I was ordained thirty-two years later in the historic Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee, and now I am also privileged to have dual standing with the United Church of Christ through the Chicago Metropolitan Association. I am proud and thankful to be a clergyperson in our United Church of Christ.

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I came to the presidency of Chicago Theological Seminary through a circuitous route—starting out as a high school math teacher, moving to being a systems analyst/programmer for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, and finally pursuing my passion by getting first a master’s degree and then my Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University. Quite accidentally, at least on my part, I began my employment in theological education as academic dean of Vanderbilt’s Divinity School. It turned out I had some administrative and leadership gifts and ended up serving there for seven years before I was lured away by the most awesome seminary in the world—Chicago Theological Seminary! I am currently in my seventh year here as president and absolutely love this community of learners and the work we are about.

S

o what is my life like as a seminary president? Busy.

Challenging. Hard work. An exciting opportunity during a time of rapid change. Fun. Basically, my work at Chicago Theological Seminary is two-fold: I am a manager and I am a leader. Both role are necessary. Management, in my understanding, is stewardship of what is already in place and has to do with predictability, reliability, control and problem-solving.

Management requires infrastructure and seeks to have things run smoothly. Chicago Theological Seminary is an institution with a long history; we are in our 159th academic year and so I spend part of my time shepherding us through our infrastructure, making sure we excel at our work. At the same time, our world is changing at a rapid pace. And part of my job is to lead. Leadership, in my understanding, is creating space for the new to come forth; it is the work of an artist. Leadership is dealing with conditions and creating possibilities. So I am about making sure that Chicago Theological Seminary is responding to the possibilities and needs of the world for today and for the future.

All of my work at CTS springs forth from my life passion, my ultimate calling—I need to be wherever I can be to have the biggest impact in bringing about a new way of being in the world—a way that creates space for the thriving of all God’s creation. As I understand it best at this point in my journey, my work should be about interdependence. The theological grounding for this vocational calling is found in Hosea 4:1-3: Hear the word of God, O people of Israel; for God has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land Because there is no truth; because there is no kindness; and because there is no knowledge of God in the land.

Swearing!

Lying!

Killing!

Stealing!

Faithlessness!

They break through. Then blood reaches blood.

On account of these things, the earth mourns.

God is calling us to live in and through and out of our interdependence with all of God’s creation. As I see it, we understand the concept of interdependence but we seem to have a hard time allowing it to form the basis for our lived lives. The concept of the word ubuntu helps express interdependence —I am because we are.

We are interrelated with

We are interrelated with everyone and everything. We get the concept; but somehow it does not inform the ways we live our lives. My life’s work then is to be about helping interdependence become the basis for our lives. everyone and everything. We get the concept; but somehow it does not inform the ways we live our lives. My life’s work then is to be about helping interdependence become the basis for our lives. And serving as president of Chicago Theological Seminary is where I can have the most impact in achieving my life’s work right now. By making sure CTS is thriving, by making sure that CTS is meeting its mission of rigorously preparing women and men as religious leaders who will transform the world for today and tomorrow, I have an active hand in helping all of God’s creation to thrive.

My work is no small thing. But I am fired up and ready to go! I take inspiration from the seventh president of CTS, Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Jr., who wrote the first history of Chicago Theological Seminary in his book, No Ivory Tower. In speaking about the founding of the institution, he said, “If they had known what they were undertaking, they would never have dared. This is where the world gains by the rash adventures in the realm of faith.”

All who live in it languish; along with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.

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LookSharp

“ Drab, aggressively sexless, sartorially clueless people in any profession make a statement by their very presence, and that statement is not a good one.�

Street scene in Nebaj.

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Victoria Weinstein, a Massachusetts Unitarian Universalist minister, is also a prolific blogger who writes cultural commentary, theological reflections, and observations on the state of the church at her wildly popular blog, “PeaceBang.”

In addition, she writes on “clergy image, attire and persona” at a blog called “Beauty Tips for Ministers,” which is exactly what it says it is, plus Weinstein’s wit, compassion, and commitment to “fight the frump” among clergy (male and female, but mostly female). Weinstein is troubled by frumpiness in clergy for a host of decidedly non-shallow theological reasons. Read on to find out why.

Dressing Like You Mean Business . . .

Even if You’re a Minister Victoria Weinstein

I

was talking with a friend who is being installed as the Senior Minister of a large and well-endowed congregation. Like many women in ministry, she began her parish ministry life as the Associate to a male senior pastor. She is now moving into a position of more authority and power, and she wants to make sure that her public image matches her role.

We were talking about her outfit for the Installation, for which she had chosen a tailored and pretty skirt and jacket combo. I recommended that she switch out the nice gold necklace she had chosen for something bolder and that she consider a pointier toe on her shoe. That got me thinking about how angular shapes and sharp edges in our attire can communicate power and authority.

Consider the classic male business suit. There are a lot of sharp edges: the triangular edge of the collar, the pointed edges of the lapel. Then there’s the classic businessman’s clipped hair, the slightly squared toe of the shoes.

This all communicates “sharp” in a very literal way. Picture Mad Men’s Don Draper at the office. He is sharp, buttoned up, clean lines, discipline, elegance and speed. He radiates power, authority and professionalism. There is never a single “off-duty” aspect to his appearance at work. He is literally ready for business.

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Power, authority and business are not bad values for a religious leader to have. We must stop thinking that they are, and identifying ourselves as having no connection to those qualities. Spiritual work involves power—if we don’t think we’re working on behalf of a powerful God, what are we doing in this work? Isn’t healing a powerful thing? Bet your bippy it is.

Do you not wish to be a powerful preacher, a sharp leader, a person who can use authority well and wisely on behalf of the better world we imagine and work toward? If not, why the hell not?

How many clergy people do I see who are all soft edges, puffy haloes of frizzy hair, sloppy, dragging pants hems, elastic-band floppy skirts?

Not one sharp element of their appearance. Women favor quilted floral handbags, round-toed little slippers for footwear.

If God dressed and sent an advocate for poor and voiceless people at the community development meeting, what would her handbag look like?

It’s all very benign and squishy soft.

But introduce some clean lines: angular, bold necklace, tailored purse, and . . . bam.

Structure. Elegance. Heft. No one is carrying important work in a quilted floral bag. Not that knitting isn’t important work, but you know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the budget meeting where you want to make a case for a life-saving and life-giving community initiative and you have opponents who are going to be showing up in suits with a very different agenda.

Next time you’re shoe shopping, compare some sweet little roundtoed flats to a pair with a more pointed toe. That bit of a point communicates a subtle something. They’re actually sharper.

Add a bit of edge to your outfit. See how it makes you feel.

This does not mean dressing like Don Draper. It means paying attention to all the soft, round, flowery, untucked, elastic-waisted, comfy-round toed, sweet little items in your closet that communicate how unthreatening you are, how smooshy and comfy you experience the world to be. Meanwhile, the people who are claiming their power are wearing structured, buttoned up, angled, sharp outfits and running the world.

If God dressed and sent an archangel to advocate for poor and voiceless people at the community development meeting, what would her handbag look like? Would it be a beat-up backpack? A soft quilted floral number? That’s up to you and your imagination. But remember: Until the angels get directly deployed, God sent you.

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Weinstein

I have been writing this column for several years now, and it makes me sad that so many clergywoman still write me letters accusing me of being materialistic and sexist and judgmental when really, I’m just reporting how public image works and is interpreted in the dominant culture. If religious leaders want to have a positive influence in the world, it really helps if we understand—and accept—how the world works.

There are many clergy women who seem to be either afraid of being polished and put-together, or don’t know how to be, or have internalized the pernicious and naive message that “those things” don’t matter.

As PeaceBang is always, always affirming, “those things” do matter. They matter tremendously. Some of the non-verbal statements such appearance makes are:

1 2 3

Add a bit of edge to your outfit.

See how it makes you feel.

I do not want anyone to look at me.

I don’t deserve attention; being noticed is something I am not prepared to accept and a responsibility I do not want.

I am harmless; in fact, I am passive. The world is happening around me and I hope to be invisible in it.

4

I don’t care. I occupy an alternative universe where appearance doesn’t matter—and if you notice that I am frumpy, it must be because you are not as holy as I am.

5

You should be enlightened enough not to be distracted by my terrible clothing and ill-fitting undergarments: what’s the matter with you? This isn’t my problem, but yours.

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Please do not mistake me for a leader. Isn’t it obvious from my demeanor and my attire that I have no desire to represent any ideal higher than that of personal comfort? If there were camera crews outside covering today’s event, my on-camera appearance would immediately communicate to the public that nothing of real importance happens in here.

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“What we need from Antoinette Brown, and what she needs from us, is not to be a symbol or cipher, but to be a saint in communion.”

DECIPHERING ANTOINETTE

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COMMUNING WITH ANTOINETTE BROWN, A SISTER-IN-MINISTRY Jennifer Mills-Knutsen Sometimes, I talk to dead people.

I don’t hold a séance or sit with a Ouija board, but when I miss the people that I’ve loved and lost, I start the conversation and imagine their voices in response.

In The Spiritual Practice of Remembering, Margaret Bendroth says this is the communion of saints: “Our religious traditions come with an endless array of talking partners, people from the past who might challenge or delight us, frustrate or anger us—but are still speaking the same language of faith.”

My conversations are an act of communion with saints who’ve gone before me.

Recently, I found myself talking to the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first ordained woman since the early church, ordained by our own United Church of Christ in 1853. I’d been turned down for a leadership opportunity, and I was convinced that my gender had something to do with it. “Oh, Antoinette,” I found myself saying.

“How did you do this all alone?” I could almost hear her sigh from beyond: “It was so hard. I was so lonely.”

I wanted to befriend Antoinette in that moment, to be sisters in ministry together. I wanted to commune with her as one of the patron saints of ordained women. (Or should that be “matron” saints?) The problem was, I didn’t know anything about her. I was even serving on a UCC group re-imagining the Antoinette Brown Award, traditionally given to pioneering women in ministry—but all I knew about Antoinette Brown was that she was ordained before anyone else.

Antoinette Brown was a cipher, a two-dimensional picture captioned “First Ordained Woman,” not a real person with passions, opinions and foibles.

No wonder she sounded so lonely in my head.

Everyone talked about her, but no one talked with her. You can’t commune with a cipher.

Saints, on the other hand, are dead people who are good at conversation. Saints chuckle at your clergywoman antics, chastise you for laziness, warn you of danger and encourage you when you falter.

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I knew then that I needed to de-cipher Antoinette Brown, to get past the symbol to the person and pastor. I needed her to be a saint, not a cipher, which meant getting to know her, opening her personality and her life to scrutiny and conversation.

I was eager to learn about her pastoral ministry.

She was called and ordained by the Congregational Church of South Butler, New

How long did she serve as a pastor? Did her family and friends encourage her? Did her congregation trust her to lead? Did she go on to serve other congregations, or was she denied further opportunities? Did her ministry bear any resemblance to my own?

for nearly 20 years and never knew that Antoinette Brown’s church was just a few miles down their little country road. I could picture her traveling a familiar landscape, making visits, praying with the sick, preparing sermons, accepting dinner invitations, conducting weddings and funerals.

York. I looked it up on a map, and discovered it’s right down the road from where my husband’s family lives. I’ve been visiting them

As a small-town pastor myself, I felt that Antoinette and I were kindred spirits. She even described church life in words similar to my own:

“She talks a lot about men and women She was ahead of her time on that one,

Antoinette Brown’s childhood home is located in Henrietta, N.Y. Built in 1830, it is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Until I could learn more, my conversation and communion stood at a dead end. A quick internet search turned up a biography by Elizabeth Cazden from 1983, still available and full of Antoinette’s own letters and writings. (Antoinette Brown Blackwell: A Biography, The Feminist Press.) Just a few pages deep, my conversation with Antoinette resumed.

Her brother’s memoir recounts a time when young Antoinette, age 8, spontaneously prayed at family worship time. When her brother asked why, she simply answered, “Because I think I am a Christian, and why should I not pray?” I laughed, and remembered similar stories of my own spiritual precociousness as a young girl. I knew Antoinette and I would have understood each other. Her dogged determination to go to school, the discrimination she faced in the theological program at Oberlin, her friendships with the great reformers and suffragettes of the 19th century impressed and inspired me.

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“My little parish was a miniature world in good and evil . . . . It makes one thoughtful and rolls upon the spirit a burden of deep responsibility.”

The microcosm of the church contains untold pain and promise, and the burden and beauty of ministry is our calling to bear witness to God in all of it. I imagined Antoinette and I sharing stories of our miniature worlds, and the glimpses of God in them.

When I discovered that she resigned her parish after just two years, I was heavy-hearted. Maybe we weren’t kindred spirits after all. Maybe she wanted to be a pioneer more than a pastor. Could she have lasted longer in parish ministry if she had fellow clergywomen and friends to help? Could her crisis of faith have been averted with more support? If I had been there for her, in the way I now hoped she would be there for me, would she have stayed in the pulpit?

She went on to preach and lead in other ways, but yearned to return to the parish. Sadly, she could not find a church that would call her. They could not see her as a saint struggling for faith, but only as a cipher, the ordained woman.

Her friends from the reform movements, suffragettes and abolitionists, urged her to give up

on the church as a hopeless, patriarchal institution. They did not understand how she could be so religious. Her religious friends urged her to give up on her political organizations.

They could not understand how she could be so strident.

Antoinette Brown did not quite fit in anywhere.

Thanks to the abundance of words she left behind in her letters, books and speeches, Antoinette and I can have a lot of conversations now. One of her favorite topics is how to balance being a pastor and mother. She also talks a lot about men and women sharing equally in household responsibilities, which she and her husband tried to do as they raised five daughters. She was ahead of her time on that

The living room, bathroom and two bedrooms of the Fremont Hibbard Home in South Butler, N.Y. are the original rooms that comprised the Congregational Church where Antoinette Brown served as pastor.

Photos courtesy of Butler Historical Preservation Society

I tell her that today there are many of us like her, committed to our faith, our family and our feminism. I wonder if we might befriend her now, to ease her loneliness and ours, and spare each other the isolation of ministry.

sharing equally in household responsibilities . . . and probably ahead of our time, too.” one, and probably ahead of our time too. Antoinette shares her nagging fears and self-doubt, and I nod knowingly, acknowledging that I wrestle the same questions about ministry and motherhood. We understand each other.

The former Baptist Church of South Butler, N.Y., where Antoinette Brown was ordained.

When the Congregational Church across the street refused, the Baptist Church volunteered to hold the historic ordination in its sanctuary.

Deciphering Antoinette has transformed her into a partner in ministry, a voice of encouragement, a challenging companion, a demanding example, and a sister clergywoman following her call. Perhaps that’s why, when the Antoinette Brown Award group met, we talked not of pronouncements and speeches, but of opportunities to commune, to work together to support women’s ministries, to network and build relationships. We even talked about an Antoinette Brown Society, bringing together men and women for just that purpose.

What we need from Antoinette Brown, and what she needs from us, is not to be a symbol or cipher, but to be a saint in communion. I’ve talked to her, and I think she’d welcome the deciphering, and the companionship.

Rev. Jennifer Mills-Knutsen is the pastor of St. Luke’s United Church of Christ in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and she blogs at http://forthesomedaybook.wordpress.com. She finds God most often in a good book, an imperfect church, the sights and sounds of the ocean, and time spent writing.

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: N O I T U A C

Contents may become extremely hot.

Especially in small-group discussions.

N O I T U A C

Eight Preachers Go to Hell: Reflections on the Place No One Wants to Go Think you know everything you need to know about hell?

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Their discoveries just might surprise you.

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Pastors Sound Off: Causes We Can’t Keep Quiet About

Join eleven pastors and preachers on their soapboxes as they sound off on issues that get them so worked up they can’t shut up! Perhaps you feel the same about racism, homophobia, and immigration, or you might find a new cause to rally around. Whatever fires you up, go ahead— be bold and speak out.

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Snapshot

In the UCC,

50

%

(approximately 3,500) of our active, ordained clergy are

women.

“You just have to make sure that the love wins . . . that your message is louder.”

The average annual

COMPENSATION DIFFERENCE between male and female clergy is

$10,000.00 $25,000.00 with a

difference in full-time senior pastor salaries.

Managing Your Church, Churchlawandtax.com

{ Sex

“People talk all the time about their gall bladders, their cancer treatments . . . but our sexuality is still, for many people, behind a hidden door.”

Verlee A. Copeland, co-author with Dale Rosenberger of Sex and the Spirit: The Romance of Heaven and Earth.

Marchae Grair, UCC Social Media Associate, on people who make anonymous hateful comments on social media.

“If you really want to minister to the multitudes, this would be the place.”

Leticia P. J. Rouser, Command Chaplain for Headquarters & Support Battalion, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

“Spiritual work involves POWER—if we don’t think we’re working on behalf of a powerful God, what are we doing in this work?”

Victoria Weinstein, on tendency of clergy to avoid dressing in a way that conveys power and authority.

“She was ahead of her time on that one [housekeeping] , and probably ahead of our time, too.” Jennifer Mills-Knutsen, on Antoinette Brown, first woman ordained as a Christian minister.

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GENERAL SYNOD 2015 June 26-30, 2015 Cleveland, Ohio

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