The Young Clergy Women Project
A network of the youngest ordained clergy women.
Before I was ordained, I spent time as a seminarian intern and youth minister in a total of seven congregations. The jobs of baptismal preparation and of talking to parents about how to raise Christian children, often fell to me. In order to have something to put in people’s hands, that would sum up the [...]
It didn’t start out as an intentional project. I didn’t sit down one day and say, “I need a tribe”, and then set out to collect various individuals to gather around me as I moved through life. It just sort of happened. I read the book, Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation by Carol Howard Merritt, and saw myself [...]
“Overly educated, though not overly snobby. Interested in Friday night dates and Saturday adventures to quirky festivals while sharing a funnel cake. Foodie (but not a cook) with opinions on Bluegrass, bourbon, and Big 10 basketball. Easily won over by the perfect Manhattan or a glass of Chandon during cocktail hour, but not a homebody. … Side-show [...]
The small but friendly community of First United Church of Christ occupies one of the oldest buildings in West, Texas. Young Clergy Woman Kyndall Renfro served as interim pastor there, but now the church relies on supply preachers from nearby seminaries including Truett, Brite, and Southwestern. I preached there on Easter Sunday of this year. [...]
There’s a moment in every area clergy gathering or general church meeting I’ve come to expect over the past few years—it’s that second when there’s a pause in conversation and I begin to look around the room of gathered religious leaders and suddenly realize I’m either a) the only person under the age of 55, [...]
It has been just over two weeks since we all heard the terrible news of explosions in Boston. In a timeline that seems too familiar these days, a few panicked reports of an explosion, then two, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon bloomed across the internet and television news channels into cellphone video [...]
On one recent Tuesday, these are the things people gave me: one bag of figs, one homemade toy tractor, one piece of chocolate cake, and one giant box of saltine crackers. The figs were from some church members with a tree in their yard. Turns out my daughter loves figs. The toy tractor was a [...]
I attended my first Young Clergy Women Project (YCWP) conference last summer, in Chicago, IL. I had followed Fidelia’s Sisters for years after graduation from seminary, and when a call for new members of the Editorial Board was posted I realized I might “age out” before the next opportunity. Suddenly I was the newest editor [...]
I am a newcomer. That is an identity that I haven’t worn in 18 years. But as a newly-staying-at-home mom who also happens to be an Episcopal priest, a priest whose family spent several months seeking a church home, I see church through new eyes….the eyes of one sitting in a pew. My husband, two [...]
God Above All Things, In these moments while the document loads and my fingers rest on the keyboard grant me first an emptiness. Remove the to-do list that waits impatiently in the corner of my mind. Quiet the voice saying, “You’re not ready, you’re not good enough, you don’t have anything to say.” Shield me [...]