Posts

Holodomor and Thanksgiving

Every November, as many in the United States prepare their Thanksgiving turkeys and make plans to gather around the table with friends, family and perhaps too much food, the world also commemorates Holodomor, the devastating forced famine imposed on the Ukrainian people by Joseph Stalin’s regime in the early 1930s. This dark chapter in history […]

Celebrating Halloween, All Saint’s Day, and Juliette Gordon Low: How the Girl Scouts Shaped Me as a Young Clergywoman

In the Girl Scouts, I’ve found a place where I don’t have to leave any part of myself at the door. In contrast to the church, which often adheres to a patriarchal structure, Girl Scouts provides a nurturing and inclusive atmosphere. I’ve never felt that I needed to be someone I’m not in this organization. […]

When Personal Grief and Public Ministry Collide

I was sitting at one end of my church’s Fellowship Hall, surrounded by a pile of opened gifts and resting a plate laden with cake on my swollen, pregnant belly. I looked out upon the faces of fifty or so women and girls who had come to celebrate the impending arrival of my daughter. I […]

How to Boss Up

One of the reasons Young Clergy Women International exists is to offer a space for young clergy women to seek support, share ideas, and build community. Last week one of us posed this question in our Facebook group: I need some help preparing for confrontational conversations. AKA: Help me Boss Up.   She went on […]

Parlor and Kitchen Stories

This spring, I took a job in a new church context. There is something so unique and exhausting about the first couple of months of a new job, trying to memorize names, make connections, and meet expectations which may or may not be spelled out. One major aspect of any new job is listening: getting […]

The Stained Glass Cliff

Like many of my fellow clergy women, I was shocked when the news broke last week that the Rev. Dr. Amy Butler was leaving her pulpit at the storied Riverside Church in New York City after only five years. This is a short tenure in the life of such a famed institution, and the announcement […]

Submit? I’d Rather Not

As a pastor who leads day in and day out, I feel comfortable when I am the primary authority, giving vision and guidance to others on how things need to be done. But as a woman in an egalitarian relationship with a man, I feel less comfortable—all right, I admit it: I feel very angry—when […]

Fewer Gender Binaries, More Expansive Leadership

We are saddened and frustrated whenever male colleagues in ministry seem to be suffering amnesia about the power of women’s leadership in shaping the church. Recently, a United Methodist clergyman penned a commentary for a forum run by the United Methodist news service on the role of women and men in the church. In it, […]

Here I Sit

I have spent my final year on the Board editing the column, “Here I Stand.” It has been a joy and a privilege to share the stories of my sister clergy women, their convictions and the remarkable experiences of their particular and diverse contexts. As I come to the end of my time as a […]

Naming the Desert

There are moments in ministry when I feel marvelously competent: when a child interrupts my Sunday School lesson to make a connection to something we learned weeks or months ago, when I preach a sermon that I know said what needed saying, when the kids I work with lead such a great Ash Wednesday worship […]