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2008-04-15 issue:

Women in ministry trajectories continue

Zaerr Brenneman provides anecdotal evidence for trends in two surveys.

by Anna Groff

Print Article

Can Mennonite pastors who are women “church hop” easier now than before? Yes, according to a survey in which women pastors said it was easier to find a second placement. Fifty-eight percent of women who were pastors reported they found a second placement less than six months after deciding that a move was desired, and 73 percent found one within a year.

Diane Zaerr Brenneman helped place pastors—both men and women—for more than six years as staff person for Mennonite Church USA Congregational and Ministerial Leadership. She left that role in August 2007, and we invited her to reflect on some of the changes she has seen. We also asked her to comment on the trajectories described by the 1992 and 2005 surveys.



Diane Zaerr Brenneman

Women are reporting taking no longer than men to find a second placement, says Zaerr Brenneman. The unofficial word in the church 15-20 years ago was, “If you have a position as a woman, you better stay because you might not be able to find another,” she says.
Women mistakenly perpetuate the myth that it is more difficult for them to find placements, Zaerr Brenneman says.

“We tend to tell those stories among [women],” she says. In general, congregations are picking the candidate with the strongest qualities and compatibility, she adds.

For example, some congregations keep the name and sex of a candidate confidential during the beginning pastoral search process. Instead they list the candidate’s qualities and could potentially select a pastor who is a woman.

Full-time vs. part-time: There are also more women in full-time positions than in past years but still fewer full-time female pastors than full-time male pastors. By 2005, women in full-time positions increased to 37 percent from 26 percent in 1992.

However, we cannot say the church is less open to women because there are fewer full-time women pastors, says Zaerr Brenneman. In this age, women may be more open to full-time work, she says, but women still tend to choose part-time over men. Forty percent of women said they chose to work part-time over full-time.

Zaerr Brenneman provided examples of three women pastors who negotiated full- or part-time work:

-One pastor chose part-time because she has other interests for which she wanted to make time.

-Another pastor was half-time, and her congregation wants her to be full-time. But she wants to continue teaching.

-A third pastor serves a small congregation who wants a full-time pastor but wasn’t paying full-time salary and benefits. She negotiated that the church increase her salary a small amount but continue the increase over the next several years.

Overall, there is an improvement for men and women in leadership to be able to say what they need, Zaerr Brenneman says.

The 2005 survey also showed growth in “inner clarity in women pastors.”

This compares the results of a 1992 survey done by Renee Sauder. The 1992 survey showed that women lived with inner ambivalence because they grew up in a culture where women did not hold leadership positions, so having those gifts affirmed in oneself produced inner doubts, Zaerr Brenneman says.

“The theologically placed inner doubts are healing,” she says.

Now, Zaerr Brenneman says, women’s doubts are similar to those held by men and are externally focused: Will I be able to be a pastor? Can I handle the responsibility? What about my family life?

When it comes to second pastorates, women who want to stay in a certain region for family or other reasons may face difficulties.

Last year, Norma Duerksen decided to end her 14-year ministry at Oak Grove Mennonite Church in Smithville, Ohio, to allow the church to hear a new voice. She then began the process of finding a new pastorate. She wanted to stay in northeast Ohio for her husband’s job and faced the reality that few (less than five, she says) churches in that area were open to women pastors.

Duerksen says it is when the men on the list are not available that churches begin to ask, “Why not call a woman?”

Now Duerksen is the lead, half-time pastor at Summit Mennonite Church in Barberton, Ohio. She would have welcomed a full-time position but says working half-time gives her “breathing room” and time to garden.

“If we would’ve been free to move wherever,” Duerksen says, “I don’t think finding a pastorate would’ve been a problem.”

Marty Kolb-Wyckoff decided to move from her congregation in Indiana back to eastern Pennsylvania for family considerations and future retirement. When they moved in 2001, there were openings but limited options in congregations for her as a woman. She became the chaplain at Rockhill Mennonite Community, Sellersville, Pa. While there is still some resistance to women in leadership, there is more openness now, she says.



Marty Kolb-Wyckoff

Sometimes churches simply need time.

“Here in Franconia [Conference],” Kolb-Wyckoff says, “there are a number of women who have gotten into ministry on the condition that they don’t preach. But usually in time the congregation becomes open to that.”

Another variable in finding second or third pastorates—for both men and women—is experience, says Dorothy Nickel Friesen, conference minister for Western District Conference.



Dorothy Nickel Friesen

“Congregations will always tip toward the experienced pastors,” she says.

Nickel Friesen also notes that Conrad Kanagy’s church member profile, Road Signs for the Journey, reports that while 49 percent favored the ordination of women in 1989, 67 percent did in 2006.

Nickel Friesen says this attitude shift is profound and hopeful.

“You can’t move that much without excellence in pastoring by women,” she says. “If we had had disaster after disaster after disaster, those numbers would not have moved in this direction.”

Iris de León-Hartshorn, director of intercultural relations for Executive Leadership, says a reason few under-represented racial/ethnic pastors who are women responded to the survey could be because their experiences are different from Anglo pastors who are women.



Iris de León-Hartshorn

In the survey, de León-Hartshorn says, some questions were valid and applicable to them and others were not. Also, racial dynamics were not addressed. Women wonder, “Is it because of my gender or because of my race, or a combination?” de León-Hartshorn says.

Also, many under-represented racial/ethnic women serve with their husbands, serve in a conference where they cannot be ordained or are in their first pastorate. So it’s difficult for them to answer the questions, she says.

Michelle Armster, co-director of the office on justice and peacebuilding and pastor at St. Andrew Church of Christ, Lancaster, Pa., said that these women couldn’t relate to the survey’s questions because their vocation is either tied to their spouse’s or they have limited options.



Michelle Armster

Armster said she is an anomaly within underrepresented racial/ethnic people—being single and without children. For many other women, dynamics of family responsibilities and roles do not allow moving for a pastorate to be an option.

Overall in the survey, 48 percent of female respondents said balancing pastoral and family responsibilities is one of the three greatest challenges facing women in ministry.

Despite Armster’s singleness, she still knew finding a good fit at a local Mennonite church would prove difficult.

“I knew when I got out of seminary, I had no options within the Mennonite church within this area that would’ve been for me healthy and honest and faithful,” she says.—Anna Groff

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