The Young Clergy Women Project
A network of the youngest ordained clergy women.
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 [...]
My resurrection moment came, as I suppose they most often do, unexpectedly and unimagined. It was early March and we had a beautiful weather one Sunday – a teasing taste of spring at the end of a cold and windy winter. I did my normal Sunday morning thing – taught a class, led worship, had [...]
During the season of Lent, my church has been studying a variety of Christian Practices. Together – in sermons on Sunday morning, as well as book study groups throughout the week – we have explored practices like Hospitality, Discernment, Healing, and Testimony. Together, we have grown in faith. Together, we have learned about God and [...]
The new president of Princeton Seminary wrote an article last December, titled “Pastor, not friend.” In that article, he reflects on his relationship with a devoted elder of the parish who was shocked—and saddened—when Craig Barnes announced his leaving the parish. He said “friends don’t treat each other like that.” Craig responds, “He was right, [...]
Every time I bathe my one-year-old son, I think of baptism. Baptism leads my mind to community. Each time the water runs down his hair, I’m reminded of my changing community. When I was finishing Seminary, we had to write a 30 Page “CREDO” statement of our beliefs as a culmination to our years of [...]
For the first time this holiday season I’m celebrating without my father. They say the first year after the loss of a loved one is the worst. Holidays especially. The first year after my father died is coming to an end and the holiday season is upon us. There were, of course, many holidays and [...]
We just wrapped up a highly contentious election season here in the United States. Mud – and other sorts of muck – was flung freely between all of the political parties and their supporters. It wasn’t pretty. I suppose that much of that behavior was to be expected in the secular arena (which is a [...]
I come from a long line of strong women. While our last names and family trees follow the men in our lives; there is a deep current that runs through the women in my family. I am the great-granddaughter of Marie, who was born in 1892, and went on to raise 3 daughters and 6 [...]
Over my ten years of ordained work, I have discerned a call to intentional interim ministry, or as I sometimes put it, “love ‘em and leave ‘em.” I take both halves of this formula – which sounds strangely like the storyline for an old-school country song – very seriously. I am fully engaged with the [...]
Marriage means different things to different people. For some, it is a proclamation of love and a daily choice to love the one you’re with. For others, it’s an excuse to have an expensive party and be princess for a day. And for some, marriage is similar to a business transaction, ensuring a life of [...]