Advancement
Associates News
6/10/2009
Fewer women in leadership roles seen
Group is asked to increase advocacy within MC USA
By Patricia Burdette Mennonite Women USA
Reprinted with permission
STURGIS, Mich. — In some parts of Mennonite Church USA, there are fewer women in leadership than in previous years.
That was the observation of several of the 30 participants of the Mennonite Women USA Strategic Planning Retreat at Amigo Centre March 27-28.
Participants urged the organization to speak out for more women in leadership within the church and its agencies.
Elizabeth Soto, a theologian, said women have a prophetic voice for the church that is being silenced.
Mary Shertz, a professor at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, said fewer women are in leadership positions at the school now than there were a decade ago, according to a recently completed AMBS self-study.
Twila King Yoder, assistant to the president of Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., and MW USA board member, said women in church leadership did well for some time, but that this is no longer the case.
She noted that a few years ago, two Mennonite higher-education institutions had women presidents, yet today all of the presidents are men. This fall, she said, she will be the only female member of EMU’s president’s team. Her home church previously had a male-female pastoral team, but the team is currently all men, she said.
She wondered whether women are just “tired of pushing” or whether “we are not training — and failing — ourselves.”
Yoder said some women are saying, “I’ve been trying to use my gifts for the church, but if they are not valued in the church, I’ll use them somewhere else.”
Though Sharon Waltner, a woman, currently chairs the MC USA Executive Board, all four churchwide agency boards are chaired by men, a participant noted. At least two were chaired by women two years ago.
At the gathering, participants also heard a “state of MW USA” presentation. They reviewed the mission and vision statements and endeavored to envision needs of women — within and outside of the church — that are best met by other women.
As they worked on a new vision statement for the coming three to five years, themes emerged:
- “advocating for women in the church,”
- “taking risks,”
- “empowering women,”
- “working from the margins to the margins,”
- “valuing our diversity” and
- “using the prophetic voice of women.”
Becky Drumm of Advancement Associates in Bellefontaine, Ohio, led the strategic planning portion of the retreat to guide MW USA in its work for the coming five to 10 years.
Women from across the United States participated in the planning group, which included 25 percent women of color.
The price of advocacy
Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Goshen (Ind.) College professor and MW USA board member, spoke about advocacy.
“Active advocacy is scary, lonely and takes a toll on those at the forefront,” Stoltzfus said. “There is a backlash when people speak out against unjust structures.”
She also asked several questions: “How radical — that is, how willing to go to the root of unjust structures — is Mennonite Women USA willing to be? How much risk-taking are we willing to do? How willing are we to not be liked for what we are doing?”
Donna Mast’s programming that facilitates intergenerational friendships and mentoring sparked a conversation on the importance of women mentoring one another.
Ruth Guengerich told some of the history of the work of former generations of women within the churches. That led to a discussion of needs that sewing circles meet, as well as acknowledging that as society changes, ways women meet together will also change.
During the last session of the retreat, Shertz said she was hearing the participants indicate that perhaps MW USA’s newest program area, Sister-Care Seminars, may become a new way to meet the needs of women in the church as “sowing” circles.
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