Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 22:3 (Summer 2008)
Article: Vocational Identity and Direction: Hagar’s Word to Women in Ministry
Author: JoAnn Streeter Shade

PP 22:3 (Summer 2008) p. 23

Vocational Identity and Direction: Hagar’s Word to Women in Ministry

JoAnn Streeter Shade

JOANN STREETER SHADE has been a Salvation Army officer for thirty years, serving with her husband Larry in Ashland, Ohio, where they are developing one of the new Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Centers. Seasons: A Woman’s Calling to Ministry was published by The Salvation Army International Headquarters in 2007, while Hagar: Namer of God is scheduled for publication in early 2009.

Throughout the last quarter of the twentieth century, women began to enter the seminaries of the United States in record numbers.1 Upon graduation, many sought ordination and have served well in various ministry positions for many years. These same women now find themselves sitting on empty nests, entrenched in the “good old boys” network that makes up much of the patriarchal church structure, encountering a variety of “stained-glass ceilings,” and wondering if this is where they belong.

Typically, men in our culture have experienced what have been termed “midlife crises.” This passage for women tends to be defined in terms of the physical changes marked by menopause, but less has been studied and written about the changes in vocation, relationships, and passions that occur for women, particularly clergywomen, during the midlife years. As a veteran of thirty years in ministry, I knew those concerns were mine, as well as those of my clergy sisters. It is necessary to identify and articulate questions regarding calling, work, and relationship to the institutional church and to provide space to hear and interact with the voice of God.2 Who am I? Where do I fit in? How can my gifts be better utilized for the Kingdom? Can I remain in this denomination with integrity? What about the stained-glass ceiling?

The stakes are high. The church cannot afford to lose strong, gifted women in its leadership, nor can it have leaders who are hampered in their effectiveness by unresolved personal concerns regarding their ministry.3 As hard as so many fought to pry open the front doors of ministry opportunity for women, we must also work to shut the back doors of attrition. Research already indicates that fewer female seminary graduates remain in the pastorate than do male graduates, while, in one study, only 25 percent of female seminary graduates were currently full-time pastors in their denominations twenty years after graduation.4 The United Methodist Clergywomen Retention Study, begun in 1993 by the Anna Howard Shaw Center, Boston University School of Theo...