In the latest United Church Observer there is a small piece with the heading you see above. It is about a "first" for Emmanuel College, one of our UCC seminaries which trains people for ministry. Last Fall fifteen female first-year students enrolled, and a grand total of zero males.
The article also has a chart looking at the number of males and females in first year dating back to the 1920's. In 1929 there were no women because the United Church didn't ordain women (this is the M.Div. program we're talking about.) Over the next few decades there were two or three per year, although in 1969 there were none. The era during which I was enrolled at Emmanuel (as was my predecessor, Nancy Knox) there was the biggest contingent of students ever, and roughly 30% were women. For the next two decades women outnumbered men, and now men are MIA.
Obviously the church managed to get by when men were the majority, but we felt it was a move to inclusivity and gender balance when an increasing number of women were ordained and commissioned. So what does this mean for the future of the UCC, especially when the number of men in worship is diminishing in many congregations. We're told that the majority of men in ministry will retire over the next decade. There were certainly lots of men at St. Paul's when Nancy was here, so maybe it doesn't matter as long as there is strong leadership.
Any observations or reactions? I couldn't resist the Vicar of Dibley photo above!
3 comments:
Interesting that as the United Church is "benefitting" from "working" women as you describe so too it seems that a piece of this same societal trend, "working women", is one of the biggest perceived deterrents to church attendance among families who no longer feel they have time for church and thus our dwindling congregations. A bit of a Catch-22 ?
That's a very worthwhile observation Laura. Sociologist Reg Bibby told us in January that the shift to two wage earners in households has had a significant impact on the contribution of time to various worthy causes, as well as churches. And yet, as you point out, our denomination has benefitted from the vocational choice of ministry by women.
Diaconal ministry in the United Church has historically been a women's ministry, dating back to deaconesses. We now have a few men graduating as Diaconal ministers and this is a step forward.
Over all though, men do seem to be disappearing from our churches. We have a proposal coming to our conference annual meeting seeking a more balanced representation of men and women at conference. It will be interesting to hear the conversation. It's not like we have people beating down the doors to become Presbytery reps, and increasingly there is an imbalance among ministry personnel.
I wonder, if like many caring professions, like teachers and social workers, the presence of men will become rare. Sad.
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