Women in the pulpit

Mennonite conferences differ on what pastoral roles – if any – women can hold. Canadian MBs are discussing change.

Karen Heidebrecht Thiessen didn’t want to break the rules, and she didn’t want to leave the Mennonite Brethren. But her desire to follow God’s call led her to unexpected places.

“I didn’t want to be a quitter,” said Thiessen, pastor of West Abbotsford (B.C.) Mennonite Church. “I left with a lot of regret. I feel like I lost my family.”

Her new family is Mennonite Church Canada, which allows women to serve as senior pastors. The family she left, the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, does not.

But there was an exception: Thiessen herself. For most of the time that she served River East MB Church in Winnipeg, Man., from 1990 to 2000, she was the lead pastor.

The Conference’s Board of Faith and Life eventually decided to “grandmother me in,” Thiessen said, rather than disrupt a good pastor–church relationship.

But the MB restriction on women pastors remained. So when Thiessen and her family moved to Abbotsford, they switched to MC Canada.

“My concern is that women with leadership abilities are leaving the [MB] denomination,” she said. “I’m just trying to use my gifts as God has called me.”

Thiessen’s experience shows that, 30 years after the first ordination of a North American Mennonite woman, the issue of women in pastoral ministry remains a point of difference between Mennonite groups – and a topic of debate within some of them.

Only two Mennonite denominations – Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada – fully affirm women for all levels of pastoral ministry.

The Brethren in Christ, an Anabaptist group that participates in Mennonite World Conference and Mennonite Central Committee, also allows women in all pastoral roles.

In other Mennonite bodies, policies range from reserving all pastoral roles for men only – a position held by a variety of conservative groups – to allowing women to serve in all positions except senior pastor.

The latter position is held by the Mennonite Brethren conferences in the United States and Canada.

But that policy is being questioned by some MBs in Canada who are advocating full acceptance of women in leadership. As a result, the Canadian MB Conference is engaged in a discussion of how women can serve.

Revisiting the issue

The issue was sparked by a 2003 Manitoba provincial conference resolution that called for ending the ban on women senior pastors. The request went to the Canadian Board of Faith and Life.

The resolution essentially called for revisiting an issue last dealt with in 1993. At that time, U.S. and Canadian delegates rejected a recommendation to open the senior pastorate to women.

The current request from Manitoba, like the 1993 recommendation, does not call for women’s ordination. It simply would allow congregations the freedom to make their own decisions about women as senior pastors.

The Board of Faith and Life has responded to the request by scheduling six “learning and listening” meetings in different provinces.

The meetings are exercises in “interpreting the Bible in community,” said Walter Unger of Abbotsford, chair of the Board of Faith and Life.

Steps beyond the series of meetings have not been determined. “There’s a whole new generation of women and men who have arisen since 1993, and we owe it to them to revisit this issue,” Unger said.

Of the 477 pastors in Canadian MB churches, 55, or 12 percent, are women. In contrast to Canada, the issue of women in leadership seems dormant in the U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, said Lynn Jost, a member of the Conference Leadership Board.

“It’s not a issue we’re talking about very much,” Jost said. “There’s a certain comfort level with the status quo.” In U.S. MB congregations, women account for about 7 percent, or 23 out of 327, people in pastoral ministry positions.

If the Canadian MB conference lifted its restriction on female senior pastors, the U.S. conference probably would need to reopen the issue, Jost said.

The MB Confession of Faith does not dictate what the policy on female senior pastors must be. Therefore, it would be possible for the U.S. and Canadian conferences to have different positions.

Highest percentage

Acceptance of women in pastoral ministry is the greatest in MC Canada. Of 305 people serving in pastoral ministry, 83, or 27 percent, are women.

Sven Eriksson, denominational minister for MC Canada, said he saw an increasing acceptance of women in pastoral roles. But sometimes there’s a difference, he said, between stating an openness to women in ministry and actually hiring a female pastor.

Some congregations, Eriksson said, “would give lip service to [equality], but when push comes to shove, they would screen out women and accept men, for lead pastors in particular.”

In MC Canada’s sister denomination, MC USA, 16 percent of people in pastoral ministry are women – 384 out of 2,283.

That’s an increase from 10 to 15 years ago, when the percentage of women pastors was about 10 percent, said Diane Zaerr Brenneman, denominational minister for MC USA Congregational and Ministerial Leadership.

Brenneman is disappointed that the numbers aren’t higher.

“Women still aren’t being encouraged and called like men are,” she said. But women who feel a call are persistent, Brenneman said.

“I am amazed and awed by women who have been excluded by not having their gifts recognized, and they haven’t left, and they continue to offer their gifts,” she said. “I think that shows a tremendous strength of character.”

Acceptance of women in pastoral ministry varies in MC USA’s 21 area conferences. Western District has the highest percentage, 27 percent; followed by Central District, 24 percent; and Eastern District, 24 percent.

At the other end of the scale are Franklin and North Central conferences with no women in pastoral ministry.

Lancaster, MC USA’s largest area conference with 17,500 members, does not ordain women, but it has opened a new door to women in leadership.

Five years ago, the conference’s Leadership Assembly approved allowing women to be credentialed for pastoral ministry. Previously, credentialing was granted only for positions such as deaconess and chaplain.

Currently, two congregations have female lead pastors – the first ever in Lancaster. To serve in this role, they needed special approval from the conference’s Bishop Board.

Also five years ago, Lancaster placed a five-year moratorium on Bishop Board discussion of women in ministry. Now that the moratorium has expired, “we are anxious to begin the discussion again,” said Carol Oberholtzer, chair of the conference’s Women in Leadership Committee.

Besides MC USA and MC Canada, another Anabaptist denomination that allows women to serve at all levels is the Brethren in Christ. The church has officially affirmed women to pursue positions of ministry since 1982.

“The biggest drawback in the BIC is that when there are open positions for pastors, we do not have enough of our own males available, and instead of looking for women, we get men from other traditions who are opposed to women in ministry,” said Janet Peifer, an advocate for BIC women in leadership.

Remaining united

Several smaller, more conservative conferences limit the pastorate to men. In the Evangelical Mennonite Conference, a Canadian group with about 7,100 members in 52 churches, the constitution says only men can be ordained.

That hasn’t stopped a few congregations from hiring female pastors. Others in the conference don’t seem to object to this, even if they wouldn’t hire a woman themselves, said David Thiessen, conference pastor at the EMC office in Steinbach, Man.

“Officially we take a conservative stance, but in practice women have been well received as leaders in churches where they are called, and informally recognized in the conference,” he said. “Things are slowly changing, without causing ripples or division. We work hard at remaining united in spite of these differences.”

Three or four EMC congregations have a woman on the pastoral staff. None currently has a female lead pastor.

The EMC formally dealt with the question of women in leadership five years ago. The Conference Council discussed three papers that presented different views. Then a five-year moratorium was placed on discussion. The moratorium expired this year, but the issue hasn’t been reopened.

“Personally, I’m very open to women in leadership and hope that will continue to develop,” Thiessen said. “I don’t know what direction we will go, ultimately.”

The Conservative Mennonite Conference in the U.S., with about 11,000 members in 113 churches, has no women in pastoral ministry. Its constitution states that ordination and licensure are limited to men.

Moderator Ben W. Shirk of Goshen, Ind., said that as far as he knew, the conference had never considered changing that policy.

He said the policy was based on Scriptures that say women should not have authority over men.

The conference statement of theology says men and women are “equal before God as persons and distinct in manhood and womanhood, with male responsibility for headship in the home and in the church.”

The Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference – with 5,800 members in 54 congregations in Canada, Mexico, Belize and Bolivia – has no ordained female pastors.

It does, however, have women who serve congregations in leadership roles as worship directors or as counselors, and who would be referred to as pastors. In 2002, for the first time, a women was elected to the General Council, the conference’s top leadership body.

The Chortitzer Mennonite Conference, a Canadian group with 13 congregations and about 1,900 people who attend, has no female pastors.

But women’s teaching role has grown, said Dick Wiebe, conference bishop, in Steinbach, Man.

“It has been understood in the past that women do not teach men,” Wiebe said. Now, with the pastor’s approval, women are allowed to teach adult Sunday school classes that include men.

Conferences that address the issue of women in leadership should be commended for their efforts of dialogue and discernment, said Brenneman, the MC USA denominational minister.

“I understand and grew up myself with the teaching that women should not lead, so I know it’s a long journey,” she said. “We see that God gives leadership gifts to women, so we need to take our experience to the Bible and continue to study the biblical texts together.”

Paul Schrag is editor of Mennonite Weekly Review, based in Newton, Kan.