United Methodist project develops clergywomen

United Methodist News Service
A new United Methodist project aims to support clergywomen who lead churches with more than 1,000 members, research their leadership styles and establish a mentoring program for women who have the potential to serve such churches.
“After having a great celebration of 50 years of full clergy rights of women in Methodism in 2006, I believe that now is the time to reflect on something new and creative,” said the Rev. HiRho Park, director of continuing formation for ministry at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.
“Many clergywomen have been thriving in a context where the congregation and the surrounding community are accustomed to male lead pastors, while others have experienced difficulties as the first female lead pastor in their church,” she said.
Of the 44,091 clergy in The United Methodist Church, 9,749 are women, and 64 have been identified as serving churches with membership of more than 1,000. A retreat for lead women pastors of large churches will be held Sept. 14-16 in Nashville, Tenn.
The Lead Women Pastors’ Project has tremendous potential to increase understanding of the growing edge leadership for the church, thereby benefiting the whole denomination, said the Rev. Susan Willhauck, associate professor of Christian Formation at United Methodist-related Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.
“I think we are approaching a time when rather than focusing solely on how female clergy are different, we can move the discussion to how clergywomen are effective and what they are contributing to the denomination in terms of leadership,” Willhauck said.
The project will ask: How is the increasing presence of female pastors changing the church? How are clergywomen redefining leadership expectations?
The Rev. Patricia Farris, 56, who has been senior pastor of the 1,500-member First UMC, Santa Monica, Calif., for 10 years, says like many women leaders, she is accessible, collegial in style and relational in approach. She highly values partnership with laity.
The Rev. Susan Willhauck is convinced that lead women pastors are an untapped resource for the formation of leadership for denomination.
“We are trying to get at what they do, ways they lead,” she said. “Rather than measuring pastoral effectiveness against already established criterion, usually male-defined, we are looking at ways lead women pastors are re-defining pastoral effectiveness on their own terms.”