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BY BISHOP JOHN SCHOL

Today we celebrate and give thanks for women like Grace Bragg, who while president of the Women’s Division in 1944 prepared a report to the church about the wide spread discrimination of women in the church. Her work eventually led to the formation of COSROW (the Commission on the Status and Role of Women) in 1972.

The fair treatment of women has been a long journey filled with courageous and distinguished women confronting a resistant church.

• 1770 Mary Evans Thorne was appointed class leader by Joseph Pilmore in Philadelphia, probably the first woman in America to be so appointed.
• 1787 despite the objections of male preachers, John Wesley officially authorized Sarah Mallet to preach.
• 1835 Phoebe Palmer, one of Methodism's famous women evangelists, conducted a weekly prayer meeting in her home.
• 1847 Charity Opheral is granted a preacher's license by the United Brethren Quarterly Conference.
• 1851 Lydia Sexton is recommended as a "pulpit speaker" by the United Brethren General Conference.
• 1866 Helenor M. Davison is ordained Deacon by the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, probably making her the first ordained woman in the Methodist tradition.
• 1869 Margaret Newton Van Cott is the first woman in the Methodist Episcopal Church to receive a local preacher's license.
• 1873 Anna Howard Shaw acquires a local preacher's license in a Methodist Episcopal Church.
• 1876 Anna Oliver is the first woman to receive the Bachelor of Divinity degree (from Boston University School of Theology).
• 1880 Anna Howard Shaw and Anna Oliver sought ordination rights from the Methodist Episcopal General Conference, but were refused. That same year Shaw joined the Methodist Protestant Church and was ordained by its New York Annual Conference.
• 1870s and 80s Lucy B Webb Hayes (the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes) was instrumental in the Methodism movement to serve the poor
• 1880s Elizabeth Jane Bancroft was instrumental in founding Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C.
• 1884 The African Methodist Episcopal Church approves the licensing of women as local preachers, but limits them to evangelistic work.
• The Methodist Protestant Church rules Anna Howard Shaw's ordination out of order.
• 1885 Isabell Thoburn was one of the first Methodist missionaries to India.
• 1889 Ella Niswonger is the first woman to be ordained by the United Brethren Church.
• Late 1800s and early 1900s Kate Savin was an early pioneer in our mission work in China.
• 1920 The Methodist Episcopal Church grants women the right to become licensed as local preachers.
• 1924 The Methodist Episcopal Church grants women limited clergy rights as local elders or deacons, without conference membership.
• 1930 A petition to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South for full clergy rights for women is rejected.
• 1944, 1948, 1952 The Woman's Division of Christian Service (forerunner of UMW) of The Methodist Church petitions General Conference for full clergy rights for women, but is rejected each time.
• 1946 Women are denied ordination in the newly formed Evangelical United Brethren Church.
• 1956 The Methodist Church grants full clergy rights to women. Emma Burrell of the Washington Conference is ordained that year.
• 1967 Margaret Henrichsen is the first American woman district superintendent.
• 1980 Marjorie Matthews is the first woman to be elected bishop of The United Methodist Church.
• 1988 Susan Morrison of the Baltimore-Washington Conference is elected bishop
• 2004 BWC COSROW presents findings from a ground breaking study of the BWC. All recommendations are implemented.
• 2008 Peggy Johnson of the Baltimore-Washington Conference elected bishop.

In the Baltimore-Washington Conference we have been a leader. We have more clergywomen, more women leading commissions, boards and committees, more district superintendents, and more women in executive conference staff leadership than most conferences within not only United Methodism but in the church in general.

Presently 50 percent of the conference executive staff leadership is women. 100 percent of our regional team leaders are women. This July 60 percent of our Cabinet will be women. Also 20 percent of our executive leadership, and as of July, 25 percent of the Cabinet will be African American women.

BWC's strong gains in women's leadership is because of the courageous women leaders in the Baltimore-Washington Conference. Their prayerful courage has made the difference. They include women like Emma Burrell, Barbara Ricks Thompson (the first General Secretary of COSROW from 1972 – 1978), the Revs. Mary Brown Oliver, Kay Barger, Mary Jane Coleman, Mary Kraus, Linda Jacobus, Bishop Susan Morrison and Bishop Peggy Johnson.

Today we celebrate this important legacy and commit to continue to make a way for future generations of women, lay and clergy, to lead our church forward. Today we give thanks to God for COSROW and its mission within our church.

We also repent of our sin, for it took too long to recognize that God created us equal, male and female, and that God has called men and women equally to serve the church. Let the celebration begin in the name of the one who is creator, redeemer and sustainer, three in one, for she is our God. Amen!

Bishop John Schol delivered these remarks to the 40th anniversary celebration of the Commission on the Satus and Role of Women March 10, 2012, at the Conference Mission Center.