| Black clergywomen explore ministry challenges By Melissa Lauber UMConnection Staff  Integration has not yet come to the United States or its churches, the Rev. Katie G. Cannon told the 60 women at the sixth annual meeting of the Black Clergywomen of the United Methodist Church. Ive never experienced integration. True integration means the power structure has to change, said Cannon, the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (USA) and a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.  The black clergywomen met Sept. 16-19 at the Hilton in Columbia under the leadership of their chairwoman, the Rev. Cynthia Belt of New Beginnings in Severn.
According to denominational statistics, only 1 percent of, or 497, United Methodist pastors are black clergywomen. Many of us serve in churches that are miles away from other black clergywomen, said the Rev. Beverly L. Wilkes, a district superintendent in the Illinois Great River Conference. Its essential for us to come together to celebrate who we are and share our stories. Its an opportunity to not wear masks. Its a time of challenging, and a time for the healing of our spirits. In addition to hearing from a number of inspiring and informative speakers, the women also expanded on the conferences theme of building bridges by hosting an inter-ethnic panel to discuss challenges facing women in the ordained ministry. It was moderated by the Rev. Gennifer Brooks of the New York Conference. The Rev. HiRho Park, a native of South Korea and a professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., said that the difficulties faced by female pastors were systemic throughout the denomination. The church, she said, seems to function with some unspoken rules of tokenism. Park, the chairwoman of the Baltimore-Washington Conference Commission on Religion and Race, drew applause when she shared the Greek myth of Procrustes. Procrustes ran an inn with a very special bed that had the unique property of assuming the length of whoever lay down upon it, Park said. As he offered hospitality to passers-by, Procrustes did not mention that this phenomena of a perfect fit involved stretching on a rack the visitors who were too short or chopping off the legs of guests who were too tall. The United Methodist system today is like Procrustes, Park said, chopping up and stretching the gifts, abilities, and identities of its ethnic minority pastors to make them fit. Its time. We need to put Procustes into his own bed, she said, recounting the outcome of the story. The Rev. Laura Easto, chairwoman of the Board of Ordained Ministry of the Baltimore-Washington Conference, shared stories from early in her career when she worked as a summer chaplain at Yellowstone National Park. The only woman pastor in the park, she preached at seven services each Sunday. Not a Sunday passed without someone standing up while I preached and read aloud Scripture that they felt proved God had not called women to preach, Easto said. Her parents sent her a plane ticket home. She hung it on her wall with the note: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Easto, pastor of University UMC in College Park, rejoices that many women today do not face the trials of being the first woman pastor in a church. However, she believes that, as a group, women clergy have become fractured. Somewhere along the line we stopped supporting each other. We decided it was more important to advance politically, she said. But we need to gather. We need to hear each others stories again. We need to remember. The Rev. Tweedy Sombrero spoke of the trials of being a Native American female pastor of a white United Methodist church in Arizona. A Navajo, she wrestles with peoples perceptions of Indians as stupid or lazy, she said. The people tried to make me their mission project instead of their pastor, she said. I have to work hard to keep that from happening. Recently, I went to visit a parishioner in the hospital. They wouldnt let me in because they didnt believe I was the pastor, she said. The Rev. Dorothy Watson Tatum, director of urban ministries in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, represented an African-American view on the panel and stressed that these incidents, and womens history in the church, should be remembered. We may fall to our knees, but thats all right because we can hear God on our knees and then we can get up, she said. The women on the panel offered a number of ideas to improve the status of women pastors in the church, from nurturing specific leaders, to forming more intentional networks of support, and providing additional funding for education and other opportunities. We need to dream off the page and not worry about what we dont have, Tatum said. She encouraged women throughout the connection to come together in the halls of the mundane and share their everyday struggles. We need to identify leaders, Tatum said. But we also need to build the body so that if one gets struck down there are hundreds to step forward and serve. | 
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