Report of the Deputy General Secretary
A Love Letter to United Methodist Women and the Women's Division
Click here to download this Speech (PDF format)
by Jan Love
What a joy it is to be here tonight and to see you all in this room together! As I have come to know members of the Board of Directors across more than two years, I have been deeply grateful for the gifts, talents and commitment you bring to your work. Tonight I am also particularly excited to have so many conference officers who, with your mission teams, constitute a significant part of the backbone of the whole organization of United Methodist Women. We give thanks to God for your leadership, your dedication to God's mission, and your commitment to this remarkable organization. Please give our heartfelt thanks and our best regards to your mission teams back in the conferences, without whose support, none of us would be here.
I am also delighted that Peter, my husband, and Rachel, our daughter, can be here tonight. They have heard a whole lot about you all, as you have heard about them, but they have not had many chances to be with you. I am grateful for their presence tonight.
On March 19, 2004, the night of my election to the position of chief executive of the Women's Division, I waited outside in the hallway until the ballots had been counted and the vote announced. I was quite relaxed, but Lois Dauway, who was graciously sitting with me, hosting me, was fidgeting and a bit fussy. It's taking too long, she lamented. I lightheartedly and calmly reassured her that everything would be okay. She's been doing the same for me ever since.
Once the election had been announced, Joyce Sohl came out to get me and said, "They just elected you unanimously. As Theressa told me when I was first elected, enjoy it. This ballot happens every year, and it will never be unanimous again."
We laughed. She took my hand. We walked down the aisle together and up to the podium. It was a powerful symbol of the changing of the guard and the support that women leaders give each other.
I was grateful to Joyce then, as I am now. She has offered advice when I requested it and took no offense when I didn't follow it. She has supported and upheld me. She has given freely of her labor when we in the division needed it most, and she continues to live out her passion for mission in music, the gift of which will benefit us all next summer in the upcoming spiritual-growth study.
When I got to the podium that night, I asked Genie Bank if I could say a few words. She nodded, but I all of a sudden hesitated. I felt a wave of emotion come over me. All of a sudden I realized what had just happened. I wasn't sure I could measure up. I thought to myself, "I'm stepping into the position that Theressa Hoover held, one of the great saints of the church. Lord, have mercy!" I took a very deep breath and carried on in what I recall was a fairly weak voice. Here is an excerpt from what I said:
This election is a great honor for me and a high moment in my life…I …want to thank you as members of the division. For more than 30 years, I have regularly given thanks to God for your commitment to the fullness of Christ's mission of love, grace, justice and mercy; for your determination to claim your place and exercise your gifts and talents as women of faith; for your dedication to the nurture and rights of children; for your insistence that appropriating the Wesleyan tradition means holding high the intimate and inseparable bond between spiritual formation and the transformation of society; and for your bold willingness to risk stepping out on faith when you discern God's call to witness to a wounded world - even if others hesitate to do so or react with hostility.
Early in my life you inspired in me a deep passion for reaching out across those great chasms of difference that divide us in human communities and in the Christian family to help heal the hurt we inflict on each other both outside and inside the church....
I concluded my remarks by saying,
…I want to acknowledge the remarkable coincidence that you have elected me to this position exactly on the first anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq. For me, tonight is a poignant reminder that the world needs the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ more than ever... The challenges seem as daunting as ever they have been. But we know from long experience the amazing grace of the good news that Jesus Christ tells us: that love really does overcome hate, that right relations really do overcome injustice, that hope really does overcome despair, and that life really does overcome death. Only with this blessed assurance, and that of your support, do I, with great humility and gratitude, undertake this task with which you have honored me.
That night will forever remain etched in my memory as will other precious times we have had together. I continue to be deeply honored by the privilege of helping to lead you in the last two years.
This horrible war continues. It's gone from bad to worse, but United Methodist Women's unceasing prayers and work for peace continue with strength and determination. We pay tribute to the extraordinary sacrifice of the men and women in our armed forces, but increasing numbers of us who are family, friends and neighbors of the these soldiers are asking, is this war worthy of their sacrifice? Moreover, is this cause worthy of the hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries among soldiers and civilians on all sides? According to the Congressional Research Office, this war costs $1 billion a week. There are much better, life-giving ways to spend this money. What would it take to put an end to the madness of this war for which we as citizens of the United States are responsible? What would it take to put an end to the madness of other horrific acts of violence for which others around the world are responsible?
As United Methodist Women, the more we see pain and injustice inflicted upon the world, the more determined we become, with God's guidance, to be witnesses of Christ's love in word and deed. This has always defined us in the past and will in the future. Thank God some things never change.
On October 17, 2004, almost exactly two years ago, I stood before you to deliver my first address as the deputy general secretary. I began the speech with a story about Rachel and Peter. Remember? It's a good one that's worth repeating. It goes like this:
Some years ago…Peter, and I were helping my mother clean out things that had been stored a long time…Rachel, was about seven years old and was enjoying the experience enormously…. We came across a portrait of me at age 15. Mother and I didn't tell Rachel and Peter who it was. I had been in a beauty pageant during high school. One of my teachers in the little rural town of Livingston, Alabama, took a group of participants to the nearest city to have our formal pictures made. After a lot of primping, the results were gorgeous, idyllic portraits that made us look considerably better than the real thing…When we uncovered this treasure a few years ago, Mother asked Peter and Rachel to guess who they thought this young beauty was. Peter finally said, probably in self-defense, that he thought it might be me. Yes, Mother said, this was Jan in 1968. Rachel took the picture, looked hard at it, then at me, then at it, then at me. She said, "Mommy, is this really you?" I said, "Yes, it's really me," to which she replied with incredulity, "What happened?"
Roland Fernandes has kindly told me several times that he really liked that speech. He says that I have not given one that good since. Beginners luck, I suppose, but keep listening. It's just possible that I've got a few good ones left in me!
But what happened?! That's a good question for you to ask me tonight. Moreover, within a few months of taking the job, it was the question I was asking myself about the Women's Division. What happened?
Well you know the answer. I've given you in the Women's Division and in the General Board of Global Ministries some spirited debate, assertive assessments about the need to change, and even some grief. You've given me some, too. Yet, I have been deeply grateful that so many of you have embraced my leadership and contributions so enthusiastically.
We've been through some tough times together. You saw significant pain on the stage Friday night, along with deep faith commitments, wisdom, humor and good graces. These are all very real. I am deeply grateful that together in this gathering of directors, staff and guests, we can honor the extraordinary contributions of 33 colleagues as well as grieve their departure from our staff.
What you didn't witness Friday night is all the hard work, creative determination and pain it took across the last year and a half to reach this point. These changes have affected all of us deeply - staff, directors and members of United Methodist Women. One profoundly important part of this particular board meeting, however, is that we're actively turning the page. At the same time that we are honoring the past and telling some good friends farewell, we are also initiating and following through on some dynamic, creative and energetic programs and possibilities for the future.
Moreover, since we last met in April, we've experienced some amazingly wonderful times. My spirits light up every time I think of what a remarkably wonderful Assembly we had. We have an extraordinary new DVD, a communications tool with which to tell our story more enthusiastically and to recruit new members. We've launched on on-line community and have more than 1,400 members in it. We held a racial-justice discernment event that gave wonderful opportunity for United Methodist Women across many racial and ethnic communities to reach out to each other and learn about their common strength and witness. We just this afternoon established a Global Methodist Women's Center in Korea. Many of you have been involved or will soon be involved in the fall annual meetings of United Methodist Women in annual conferences all over the country, some livelier and bigger than they have been in years. More examples of tender, exciting, incredibly productive and fun times could be told.
Whatever else has defined our time together, it's been brief. Too brief for me -- in many respects, unbelievably brief. Leaving you after little more than two years still continues to startle me and cause me grief. I will miss you terribly, but I have no doubt that the course I've chosen is the right one for me personally and, I've come to believe in recent months, for the Women's Division, too.
We've packed a lot into two years. One staff member told me with good humor that she has whiplash from all the changes that have occurred since I've been around. My vision for our work together did not include giving anyone whiplash, but once I discovered the depth of some of the challenges that needed to be addressed, I poured every ounce of energy I've had into tackling them with the greatest ingenuity I could muster. I've given you my best, always praying that it was good enough. I feel that you've given me your best, too. Together we've dared to attempt great things for God, just as our foremothers asked us to do. You've certainly been willing to take some risks with me, and I'm so grateful. It's been a wonderful partnership, one that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Tonight in my last address to you as your chief executive, I want to leave with you some of the lessons I've learned. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but I hope it contains some useful insights.
One lesson is that if you ask them, they will give. United Methodist Women repeatedly demonstrate their remarkable generosity for mission. The per capita giving of those who attended the Anaheim Assembly is the highest in recent memory. The campaign for Repairers of the Breach demonstrated a heartfelt desire to reach out to those who experience disaster. We will continue to apply these funds to help those who endure such tragedy, both past and future. All these good but fairly small efforts demonstrate that we need to get over what shyness we have in asking for money. We need to cultivate Mission Giving more systematically, creatively and energetically.
Money entrusted to us demonstrates strong confidence in this great organization. Every year, even as income has declined a bit, United Methodist Women give more to Mission Giving alone than the whole church does to the GBGM-administered Advance program when you subtract UMCOR contributions. These programs are not in any competition. They all represent second-mile giving for the church and, for United Methodist Women, third- and fourth-mile giving. Historically, however, United Methodist Women have been the strongest supporters of mission whether in the local church, the conference, the nation or across the world. As our Long Range Planning document states it, "The overall mission work of The United Methodist Church, and particularly mission with women, children and youth, would be deprived of a crucial and dynamic source of vision, passion, creativity, commitment and resources without the active participation of United Methodist Women."
If you ask them, they will give. Ask with more passion, with more creativity. A more vigorous witness to Christ's mission in the world will be the reward.
A second lesson is this: If you offer an engaging, hospitable organizational environment, they will join. Religiosity is rising, as is the number of people being drawn to Christianity. Women in religion is a hot topic these days, as is women's interest in spiritual formation in the Christian tradition. These trends work in favor of us reaching out to new women to engage them in the work of United Methodist Women.
The rise in religiosity and interest in Christian formation, however, is occurring in an overall cultural milieu of many competing, interesting and worthy alternatives where women can volunteer their time and talent. Why should they choose us? What's so special about United Methodist Women? I know you have passionate answers to these questions, but we need to find more creative ways of communicating them. Moreover, we live in an era when basic trust in institutions has declined. Many opportunities await us, but taking advantage of them is not automatic or easy. We have to be deliberate. We in the Women's Division have, as you know, a number of creative initiatives under way to address these challenges, as have conference mission teams. We need to share the successful models evident in many conferences across the country and witness more boldly to the wonderful work we do.
If we are to be faithful to our understanding that evangelism is at the heart of mission, we need urgently to spread our message of women engaged in God's mission in more convincing ways that work for the 21st century.
As a third lesson, I have come to believe that the single most important threat to the vitality and growth of United Methodist Women is simple ignorance and indifference on the part of many United Methodists, including church leaders. Many members of our denomination do not know who we are or what we do. Many pastors, district superintendents and bishops -- female and male alike -- also do not know very much about who we are or what we do. If they did, they would get as excited as we are about the organization. In the last two years, I have met many leaders in our church who demonstrate a shocking lack of knowledge about what we do. I encounter much more ignorance and indifference than I do criticism or opposition. Some of this is the fault of the United Methodists who are simply not paying attention, but a lot of it is our fault.
We need to tell our story better than ever before. We need to have unmistakable, creative, fun, convincing and clear messages about the depth of our commitment to Christ's mission in the world. As our Long Range Planning document puts it, "In an 'information age' that permeates both church and society, careful, clear, passionate and effective communication is essential."
I hope that one of the things we have accomplished together in the last two years is the capacity to communicate with more clarity, conviction and creativity as we move into the future.
Moreover, as one who will soon be leading one of the official 13 seminaries in The United Methodist Church, I very much look forward to "raising up" a bunch of pastors who know, respect, love and fully embrace United Methodist Women!
I want to emphasize as the last lesson tonight something we all know well. As General Conference approaches in less than two years, I want to rehearse it once again. In March 2004, when I was first elected, I thanked you for your determination to claim your place and exercise your gifts and talents as women in mission. We need to continue to preserve the place we hold and the role we play in the church, even in the face of others' ignorance about or hostility to them.
You know our history well, most of you better than I do. Historic women's mission societies began because women had a passion to witness to the love and justice of Christ in word and deed. At the time, men refused to allow women to participate fully in the life of the church or its mission work. So, we formed our own organizations.
Across the last 137 years, many in the church have tried to abolish, absorb or co-opt our mission work. Many church officials all over the world especially like our money and property. For example, as you know, early in the 20th century, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South forced the Women's Foreign Missionary Society to transfer all its property from the control of the Women's Society to the church.
As you heard again from Mary Hunt, one of the speakers at our August 2005 Symposium on Envisioning the Future, United Methodist Women and the Women's Division are the envy of Christian women's groups across the country and the world. In April of this year, members of the General Board of Global Minstries heard Dana Robert telll us United Methodist Women is the best women's mission organization in the world. We still have what many of them have lost: a vibrant organization for laywomen that participates in vital outreach in mission. We faithfully abide by the provisions of The Book of Discipline, which give us authority and responsibility for making decisions about our programming and finances.
Women in the late 20th century and early 21st century do not face the same challenges in church and society that women faced in the late 19th century or the early 20th. As you know, in the 1960s and 1970s, on the assumption that a new day had dawned for women in church and society - and in part it had - other historic Protestant women's mission organizations were absorbed or co-opted into their denominations' main mission agencies. Now they no longer have vibrant women's mission societies at the local and national levels or life-giving outreach focused especially on women, children and youth. Moreover, the church no longer benefits from their educational work, their passionate outreach or their organized efforts to raise money. Everyone lost out - the women, the church, the nation and the world.
As a woman passionate about and dedicated to mission, I want to make sure we preserve our appropriate place in the church, a vital partnership with the General Board of Global Ministries, but clear authority of our own to direct our program and finances. This has been an excellent national base from which to help the church be its best, as our history of work in racial justice, peace with justice, interfaith relations, women's rights and so much more demonstrates.
Tomorrow you will deliberate on a resolution celebrating the 30th anniversary of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women. The resolution reminds us of our history dating back to 1944. I want to take a few minutes to recall some of our earlier history on a topic related to COSROW that we've been celebrating all year, the 50th anniversary of full clergy rights for women.
Travel back with me to 1931 - 75 years ago -- and a meeting of the Women's Missionary Council, one of the predecessor bodies of the Women's Division, which chose as a priority for its work in 1931 two themes: the ordination of women and the education and promotion of women for elective and appointive positions throughout the church. The council published more than six articles in its magazine on the ordination of women. Their titles included, "Cutting Through the Tangled Underwood of Old Traditions," "A Church Without a Curtain," and "If Christ Make Us Free."
Now move with me from 1931 to 1937. Again imagine a meeting of the Woman's Missionary Council. Minutes of this meeting emphasize that one of the major priorities of the organization was the ordination of women. The Minutes recite history of women's ministry going back to those who met and traveled with Jesus, up through and including the work of women's pioneering missionary efforts in India and Korea. These documents feature theological justifications for the ordination of women and summarize their findings with the following statements:
There is a growing consciousness on the part of women of their responsibility to the program of the whole church...Many women feel that our church should permit women to be ordained on the same basis granted men…They have a right to expect their church to put its approval on their labors.
Skip with me now from 1937 to 1944 and the study that's mentioned in the
COSROW resolution you will discuss tomorrow. The study was initiated by Grace Bragg, president of the Women's Division. It set the stage for repeated attempts at successive General Conferences to gain full clergy rights for women. In 1952, the issue came up in the closing minutes of General Conference. In her famous book, Women in Church and Society, Georgia Harkness gives the following account. She says that the matter of full clergy rights for women
was passed over rapidly with the usual rejection, to the accompaniment of considerable laughter…some of the women present resolved that it was no longer to be treated as a laughing matter! The consequence was action by the Woman's Division…which resulted in over 2,000 petitions on the subject to the General Conference of 1956.
And, as you know, the rest is history. Moreover, this is sacred history not only for us as women called by God to be lay participants in God's mission with women, children and youth, but also for clergywomen and men - indeed, the whole church.
As I have indicated in other presentations, I do not believe in the inevitable progress of humankind. I've seen too much back sliding in both church and society to believe that in the great march of history, societies and the human condition will inexorably get better, if only we put our minds to the task. Don't misunderstand me. I would be delighted if we as a whole human family used the best of our minds to create a better world. but I don't think a progressive view of history is a very biblical view of history. In my lifetime, we have witnessed a number of arenas in which remarkable positive changes have happened in the church and society. But we've also seen some significant reversals in that progress, some of them happening now, some of them having to do with the status and role of women as well as the health and well-being of children.
We are appropriately celebrating the founding of COSROW, our daughter in many respects. The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women is charged with being "an advocate with and on behalf of women individually and collectively within The United Methodist Church…" This is a high calling and a vital task.
We celebrate COSROW, but we are not COSROW, as our foremothers knew well. We have a different purpose. We are women organized for mission. As such, we organize ourselves into supportive communities where we deepen our understandings of our own individual and collective salvation stories. We use this supportive community as the basis from which we proclaim the gospel in word and deed in our local settings and across the world. We actively seek to participate in God's mission to redeem and restore all of creation to its divine intention. We actively seek to have God use us in bringing about God's reign.
Staying focused on mission with women, children and youth is a high calling and a righteous cause. If we do not fulfill this high calling across time and place; if we do not push the church to pay attention to the needs of women and children in poverty, war, health care, circumstances of racial injustice, human-rights violations, and so much more, we know from experience across these 137 years, we cannot consistently count on others to answer this call. I do not say this to disparage anyone else's work. I say it because women in mission have consistently, as individuals but much more importantly as an institution, refused to back down from this work even when it's really tough.
We know that it is God's will that all people share in the feast of God. And, by God's grace, all shall. We belong to an organization that for more than 137 years has literally saved and served the lives of millions of women, children and youth, and brought salvation to those who have not yet received the loving grace of Jesus Christ. We belong to an organization that seeks to demonstrate today and everyday that God lives among us now and for eternity.
Thanks be to God for United Methodist Women! We have a great history, and with God's help, we will have a great future. We're going to be fine, even with all the transitions in the Women's Division.
As my closest friends and family know, when I wrestle with tough tasks, especially personal ones, I often write letters. Now in the era of cyberspace, I write email messages. Writing helps clarify my thoughts and pour out my emotions more productively than I might if I simply try to converse. In many ways, these efforts of writing represent love letters that help me feel God's presence more calmly and closely in my life.
I've wrestled for awhile with what to say to you tonight, and I want to close with a letter, this time a letter I am borrowing and adapting from someone else. It helps express my feelings about the joys, wonders and struggles of this time I have spent with you.
I'm borrowing from Paul's letter to the Philippians. Biblical scholars tell us that Paul's letter to the Philippians is a particularly affectionate one, emphasizing koinonia, a Greek concept of fellowship, community and friendship for which these scholars say the English translation has no equally rich exact equivalent. I imagine, however, that the church in Philippi would know a lot of what we United Methodist Women mean by creative, supportive community. Paul speaks to the Christians in Philippi in a way that is unlike those to whom he addresses other letters. These folk are among his strongest supporters and dearest colleagues. I thought the opening and closing verses of the letter would be particularly fitting for conveying my love to you tonight, as I close.
I have adapted Eugene Peterson's translation of Philippians 1: 1-11 in The Message as well as 4: 4-9 from the New Revised Standard Version to render my own form of this letter addressed to close colleagues.
Dear sisters in the Women's Division, United Methodist Women and all the wonderful brothers who support our work,
I greet you with the grace and peace that comes from God, the very source of our being, and Jesus Christ, the one who rules our lives.
Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in your commitment to mission, believing and proclaiming God's message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.
It's not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality. You have, after all, stuck with each other and with me all the way - through the good times and the bad. All along we have together experienced the most generous help from God. God knows how much I love you and will miss you. Sometimes I think I feel as strongly about you as Christ does!
So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Continue learning how to love appropriately. Keep on using your head and testing your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and the God of peace will be with you.
Amen.