Conference on Ministry of Women Planned
Episcopal News Service. November 30, 1976 [76371]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- A national conference on the ministry of women in the Episcopal Church is being planned for St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 20-22.
Sponsored by the Task Force on Women of the Lay Ministries Program of the Executive Council of the Church, the conference is expected to draw up to 300 women who will participate in workshops on woman volunteer, consumerism, clergywomen/ laywomen relations, job finding, and responsible living.
Women of the Church, both lay and ordained, are invited to attend the three-day conference "to examine and affirm their ministry."
"Our expectation," according to Ms. Marge Christie, co-convenor of the conference, "is for a conference of no more than three hundred women -- one which then might be seen as a model to be duplicated in provinces and/or dioceses. Efforts are being made to include among these 300 women all possible viewpoints and disciplines." The Task Force would welcome contributions to support a scholarship fund to carry out this hope, she said.
The conference will be held at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, with a eucharist planned for Friday evening, Jan. 21, at Christ Church Cathedral. Dean Michael Allen and one or more women priests who expect to be ordained in early January under the Church's new canon will be concelebrants.
The Task Force on Women came into being three years ago when women from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada met to discuss the nature of women's ministry in the two branches of the Anglican Communion in North America.
Ms. Jan Pierce is co-convenor of the conference.
The registration fee of $35 includes two dinners and one lunch and should be made payable to Matthew Costigan, Treasurer. Registrations should be sent to: Barbara Ann Lucas, Task Force on Women, 815 Second Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.