WOMEN AND CHURCH MINISTRY: REPORT TO METHODIST SYNOD

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 September 1949, Page 8

WOMEN AND CHURCH MINISTRY: REPORT TO METHODIST SYNOD

INVERCARGILL, September 2 (P.A.). —“When one of the outstffheh ing women of the church, oilers nerself for service to the ministry, the question will become a very live matter,” said the Rev R. Thornley, in moving the adoption of a report on women and the ministry at the final session this morning- of the Synod of the Otago-Southland Methodist Church. The 1948 conference declared its readiness to accept women into the ordained ministry, the standard of acceptance to be equal to that of candidates for the ministry, stated the report. It also declared that the normal training, at Trinity College, would include the basic curriculum and that the main avenue of approach to the ordained ministry should be through the deaconess order. The committee was asked to investigate the practical issues which would be involved if women were accepted, such as the avenues of service, the effect of marriage and other relevant questions. The committee has come to the following conclusions: the most favourable avenues of service to a woman minister would be as a colleague in a large church or in a circuit with two or more ministers. This would afford her full right and opportunity to exercise a normal pulpit ministry and pastorate, giving special attention to women’s activities and the more intimate aspects of pastoral office for women. The committee visualises a special field of service on the staff of city missio nsfor women with specialist training and high qualifications. It is probable that those offering would be women of outstanding capacity in some field, and a field of service should be found corresponding with those special gifts. The question of marriage was receiving the closest investigation in other churches, and the committee recommended that their decisions be awaited. Other relevant issues would arise at the time of women’s actual candidature, the report concluded.