In recognition of the 50th anniversary celebration of the United Church of Christ, Women: Finding Voice offers readers an opportunity to learn more about the fascinating lives of the clergywomen who have been named as former recipients of the Antoinette Brown Award.
Prefatory Note/Nota Preliminar
Introduction/Introducción
May 2008
Leila W. Anderson, Pilgrim Circuit Rider/Conductora del Circuito Peregrino
Leila Waite Anderson held a traveling national staff position in Christian Education that led her through the Convention of the South, the northern prairie and then from New York to the Hawaiian Islands. She drove a station wagon that served as home and office.
Changed attitudes and practices in people's lives are more important than the mouthing of theological phrases; therefore Christian education should help individuals and groups to make Christian choices when confronted with alternatives of thought and action.
A teacher is a person who can guide a group in finding its own answers.
April 2008
Barbara Mosley de Souza, Missionary in Brasil (Brazil)
Barbara Mosley de Souza founded the Association of Community Health Educators in Rio de Janeiro in 1996. The health clinic offers medical treatment, health education and disease prevention to the whole shantytown community. Where knowledge is so scarce, it is critical to teach people to understand in their own terms in ways they can communicate with people of their same level of experience.
Education is empowerment. In the midst of corruption and violence, we are bringing hope and we have proved that with unity, we can accomplish a lot.
March 2008
Jan Griesinger, Campus Ministry/Ministerio Universitario
Justice is the strongest sense of God for me. Faith has to be lived out. My life has been a journey of doing what needs to be done in this long struggle.
Activist movements, particularly women's liberation, have shaped most of Jan Griesinger's life and work as a campus minister and lesbian pastor. The first Antoinette Brown Award recipient chosen because of her lesbian activism, she was active in the UCC Gay Caucus and National Co-Coordinator of the Coalition (1984-1997).
February 2008
Joyce B. Myers-Brown, Missionary for Justice and Peace/Misionera de Justicia y Paz
Ministry has given me the privilege of entering into people's lives—helping them grow spiritually and personally. Yet as a pastor I am deeply concerned about social justice issues. It is rewarding to be doing something and saying something that you really care about and you think and hope will make a difference.
January 2008
Beatrice Weaver McConnell, First Ordained Woman in the Evangelical and Reformed Church/Primera mujer ordenada en la Iglesia Evangélica y Reformada
Farthest from my mind then, as now, was the intention of leading a feminist movement for the so-called "emancipation of women" in the church. The church's expectations about the non-ordination of women ministers were neither written nor spoken about. The only ferment was in the minds of those women who wanted to be ordained. - The first woman from Lancaster Theological Seminary to be ordained.
December 2007
Mary Ann Wilner Neevel, Ptaya Owo Owo Klake (Talking Together)/Conversando Juntos
If an adventure opens up for you that leads you into a larger understanding of the church, go. . . . Long term pastorates – if you can keep yourself finding what is fresh – are an amazing thing to have. You know people from the time you baptize them and marry them then baptize their kids.
November 2007
Anne Pearse Smith, Ministry of Christian Education/Ministerio de Educación Cristiana
Women are a vital part of the church -- not just an appendage. Wherever she went, she gained the confidence of church program participants. Her training and ability to relate to people of all ages overcame the sexist hostility of the 1930s. Although the Navy did not hire its first woman chaplain until the 1970's, she acted as 'chaplain' to the serving women.
October 2007
Henrietta Spring Stith Andrews: A Ministry of Presence/Un ministerio de presencia
I knew as a young woman that I wanted work where I could have freedom to be myself, work that I could not wait to get up in the morning for and that I didn't mind putting in long hours. God answered those prayers in conference ministry.
September 2007
Marilyn Stavenger: Seminary Professor, Pastor and Advocate/Profesora de seminario, pastora y defensora (de las causas de justicia)
What I knew from early on is that I wanted to help people. I want to communicate that there is no better gift to give than to be there for someone when it really counts. As Eden's Professor of Field Education and the Practice of Ministry (1988-2003), she married her passion for pastoral ministry with seminary work.
August 2007
Barbara Warren McCall: In Her Own Words/En sus propias palabras
Human liberation means just that: full personhood for all. For a number of years, Barbara Warren McCall was a minister-in-waiting. Then she served as a bridge woman who caught the vision of feminism through her own professional pilgrimage.
July 2007
Rosemary McCombs Maxey: Losemale Makomps Makse cvhocefkvtos/Justice Journey
"The justice issue seeks you out," reflected Rosemary McCombs Maxey, first American Indian woman to be ordained in the United Church of Christ. Today she teaches the MVSKOKE language in order to keep it alive. On Mondays, she makes her weekly three-hour drive as chaplain to Native Hawaiians incarcerated at Watonga. "In order to get along, we need not get rid of people's differences but honor them as uniqueness."
June 2007
LaVerne McCain Gill: Ministry of Empowerment/Ministerio de capacitación
Whatever her storytelling form of expression—writing, media production, orating or preaching—LaVerne McCain Gill's lifework offers an invitation to explore. She brings together women of all times with stories that share how oppressed persons, particularly African women and African American women, have met hopelessness with hope.
May 2007
Dosia Carlson: A Christian, an Alleluia/Una cristiana, un aleluya
A disability weaves its way into and through everything that happens in a person's life. It added a particular texture to Dosia's whole be-ing. While only one thread of her unique fabric, her personal battle was to permeate all that she would do and become.
April 2007
Joan Bates Forsberg Bridge to Understanding/Puente al entendimiento
"Out of the blue, I was invited to go to the Divinity School. Twenty-eight women students had told Dean Colin Williams that they needed a faculty woman with whom they could talk "when things are really bad and we need an advocate.' He said, 'You're right.'"
She soon was promoted to Assistant Dean and then to Associate Dean for Student Life, where she continued to advocate for women.
March 2007
Eleanor S. Morrison - Early Sexuality Educator/Educadora de sexualidad temprana
Take a look at this list: Early sexuality educator; advocate for justice for the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered community; author; and retreat leader in areas of racial justice, human sexuality, parent effectiveness, feminist theology and spiritual development. That's Eleanor Shelton Morrison!
February 2007
Davida Foy Crabtree - Ministry of the Laity/Ministerio del laicado
I gain my energy from, and give my energy to the wonders of life rather than to our failings as human beings…. When a word needs to be spoken over against some forms of sin or injustice, I do speak it…. Still, I believe that the primary word from God is a word of blessing.
January 2007
Gretchen DeVries - Seed-Planter/Plantadora de semillas
My call to the Christian ministry was a gradual unfolding and awakening. At almost forty, I was reminded that as an individual one must continually plant the seeds that later come to fruition through the work of the Holy Spirit.
December 2006
Ruth C. Duck - Birth of a Hymn/Nacimiento de un himno
I discovered, not without tears and anger, that the church had far to go to be just toward women and other humans. I began to make connections between the church's many masculine images for God and its historic exclusion of women from ministries. Read on to learn what gift she used to make a difference.
November 2006
Rhoda Jane Dickinson - Pastor by Adoption/Pastora por adopción
I was among the earliest clergy women in the Congregational Church. The turn of the century (1900) was a daring, expectant time when "Pioneer Spirit" gained new meaning. Some church members lived a hundred miles from the church. Black Beauty, my pony, and I traveled many miles together visiting them.
October 2006
Laurie Whinnem Etter - A Day in the Life of a Prison Chaplain/Un día en la vida de una capellana de prisiones
As a youth, I could always spot something attractive or positive in whoever it was. I can see the potential. As a chaplain in a women's prison, I deal with poverty, domestic violence, sexism, child abuse, mental illness and addiction -- all in one place, all the worst issues women have to deal with.
