Episcopal Press and News
Planning For Ecumenical Women's Decade Begins
Episcopal News Service. October 15, 1987 [87207]
STONY POINT, (DPS, Oct. 15) -- The World Council of Churches has begun planning for the Ecumenical Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women and Anglican participants are taking an active role
The Sept. 15-17 meeting here was called by Anna Karin Hammer of the WWC and organized by Church Women United (CWU), included staff of denominational women's ministries and officers of women's church organizations from the United States, Canada and the Philippines. The meeting included evaluation of the UN Decade and its impact on the churches, identification of advances in the status of women within the churches, identification of obstacles to the Forward Looking Strategies (passed at the 1985 UN meeting in Nairobi) within the churches and future planning for addressing the obstacles and facilitation of the churches' deeper commitment to solidarity with women.
In a meeting framed by worship offered by women of many diverse traditions, women at Stony Point developed and approved plans to begin working with the NCC to establish a Women's Office at the New York headquarters. The office will facilitate existing women's working groups and act as a coordinating center for Decade activities in the US and provide input and support for work at the WCC Decade activities. As well as facilitating the gathering of the Churches, the office would consolidate the work currently being duplicated by women's organizations in the denominations into common resources, which will increase availability and facilitate solidarity.
During the wider meeting, Anglican women met together to discuss how the Ecumenical Decade could be experienced throughout the Anglican Communion and by Anglicans in concert with the other churches. Women representing Anglican Communion churches and Anglican women representing other organizations present at the meeting were invited to participate.
Present were Jeanne Rowles and Marjorie Powles from the Anglican Church in Canada; Jane Burton, Pam Chinnis, Marge Christie, the Rev. Betty Bone-Sheiss, the Rev. Claire Wolterstorff and Claire Woodley from the Episcopal Church. Present at the WCC meeting but unable to attend the Anglican meeting were Donna Hunter of Canada and Ann Smith from the USA.
The women from the two Provinces recommended that a letter be written to solicit support of the various women's organizations, ecumennical groups, and other networks for the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women.
They also agreed to develop liturgical, educational and faith-in-action materials for Easter 1988 centering on the theme of the Women at the Empty Tomb (Matt. 28: 1-10) to help Anglicans celebrate the beginning of the Decade and to begin planning their participation. Materials will be solicited from the various women's organizations in the two provinces and will offer a variety of ways in which support for the Ecumenical Decade might be expressed and the challenges it presents can be lived out on parish, diocesan and provincial levels.
Other plans include:
- Three meetings of Anglican Women in the Western Hemisphere to be held in 1990, 1995 and 1988. The meetings and representation will be arranged by Anglican women. All women's groups will be urged to commit themselves to inclusive representation, (ethnicity, age, class) from the planning stage onward.
- Efforts to work towards establishing an Anglican Women's Network.
- Exploring the possibility of three world-wide Communion meetings of Anglican women, possibly in concert with the Anglican Consultative Council Meetings, or in concert with WCC meetings.
- Developing an instrument similar to that used by the WCC to be distributed throughout the Communion to discern the status of women's participation in the Church. Questionnaires will be distributed immediately with a requested return of Advent 1987.
- Creating a support network for bishops in the USA and Canada to enable them to identify and support one another's work in affirming the ministries of women. Enabling and supporting the bishops' working together collaboratively to address issues affecting women's lives and ministry and to improve the status of women in the Church through legislation and effective implementation of legislation. This is to be done especially in regard to the upcoming General Convention in the USA and for the Lambeth Council Meeting in 1988.
- Assisting women both within and without organized women's church groups in the parishes to gather, discuss and participate in the Ecumenical Decade and in meetings to be held by Anglicans.
- Seeking greater communication, sharing and commitment among Anglican women across race, class and governmental divisions and promoting solidarity and support between women of the developed nations and women of developing nations.
- Affirming the vision of women biblically, theologically and existentially, affirming their authority and presence within the Anglican Communion and seeking to live out, ever more fully, the pluralistic vision and opportunity of the Anglican community's ministry in Christ Jesus.
The preliminary agenda identified by the women at Stony Point will be presented to the leadership of the women of the Church at the Council for Women's Ministries Meeting this Dec.3-6 in Puerto Rico. At the Council meeting, it will be discussed and distributed for use to the various women's organizations. It will also be utilized by ecumenical working groups and organizations within the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion.