Women Juggle Life on the Road to Ordination

Six San Diego women, trained in drama, political activism, social work, education or music, are changing direction to embrace a career that until a few years ago would have been barred to them.

Each is studying to be a minister.

Susan Gregg-Schroeder, Sue Farley, Pam Daniel and Katherine Gara are Methodists; Susan Tobias is an Episcopalian, and Carol Rawlings is a member of the Disciples of Christ. They represent a growing female enrollment--24.4% of the total--at Protestant theological seminaries across the country.

They attend classes at Claremont Theological Seminary, an ecumenical graduate school. When they have completed studies at the seminary they will be examined by their own denominations before being ordained.

The women face a two-hour commute several days a week.

“We meet in a church parking lot at 4:30 a.m.,” said Gregg-Schroeder, who, with Farley and Gara, makes the round-trip commute twice each week. “The church put up lamps for us because it’s pitch dark.”

The three other women--Daniel, Rawlings and Tobias--stay on campus three days each week.

Life as seminarians is far from peaceful for these women. They must make quick changes, juggling studies of Greek, the Old and New Testaments and theology with grocery shopping, vestry meetings and dental appointments for their children.

“We live a schizophrenic existence,” said Gara, a mother of boys 10, 12 and 13. “People at seminary have the same expectations of us as they do of other students. Then we drive two hours and suddenly we’re family members, wives, mothers, church members, den mothers. The two worlds don’t meet.”

An Emotional Issue

Ten years ago, the ordination of women was an emotional issue within many denominations. Today, an estimated 16,000 women clergy (5% of all clergy members, compared to 6,000 women in 1973), are part of a nationwide trend toward women achieving equality with men in placement, leadership roles, salaries and impact on church policies.

Precedents differ on the ordination of women within various denominations, but the call for change is being heard even in denominations staunchly opposed to admitting women clergy.

And the movement has spread to other religions. Women are increasingly lobbying for more authority within the Catholic Church and in February, the Assembly of U.S. and Canadian Conservative Rabbis broke with tradition and voted to admit both males and females ordained in Jewish seminaries. (A similar resolution recently passed the General Synod of the Church of England.)

An important mark in the movement came in 1976 when the Episcopal Church first officially sanctioned ordination of women. That followed a controversial, unauthorized ordination of 11 women that took place in 1974.

Nationally, some 600 women are now ordained, with many more in seminary training. Moving up the career ladder into top level positions within the church, however, has proved to be more difficult. But Bishop Edmond Lee Browning, newly elected Episcopal presiding bishop in the United States, said he is “tremendously committed to enhancing the ministry of women.”

One woman deacon and one woman priest work in the San Diego Episcopal Diocese, and Tobias is one of two female candidates for ordination.

In contrast to the street clothes worn by the others during a recent interview, Tobias wore the traditional black clerical garb required for her summer intern job at Episcopal Community Services, the thin black strip down the center of her white collar marking her status as a seminarian.

“Electrical tape,” Tobias smiled.

The Disciples of Christ, to which Rawlings belongs, has been ordaining women for 75 to 80 years, primarily for work as missionaries or with social agencies. It has 500 ordained women on the national clergy mailing list.

Long Methodist Tradition

The Rev. Clarice Friedline, Disciples of Christ associate regional minister, said, “Ten years ago, there were no more than a handful of women working as senior pastors or heads of entire congregations. In the last few years, the situation has snowballed nationwide. In our region alone (Southern California, Hawaii and Las Vegas) there are 24 ordained women, 17 of whom are employed. We’ve placed four women in full-time senior pastorates in the last 12 months. That’s significant growth.”

The Methodist church of the other seminarians has ordained women since the late 1800s, but women were not granted full clergy status and rights until 1956. Today, women make up 8.2% of the total number of pastors nationwide. At the 13 Methodist seminaries across the country, 36% of the students are women. Women also hold 29 of the district superintendent positions.

The Rev. Faith Conklin, San Diego’s Methodist district superintendent, is the first woman to have come up through the ranks of the Methodist hierarchal system in the area.

“In the past 10 years,” she said, “there have been increasing numbers of women who are second-career people going into the ministry. There is still prejudice. Some women are still harassed when they make a decision to enter the ministry. But our California Pacific Conference has a good record, with growing numbers of women clergy part of the church.

Episcopalian Tobias foresees a unique contribution women can make to the church in general. “Women will broaden our understanding of the ordained priesthood. I would like to see the church get past the point of making an issue about the sex of our ministers, our priests, and get on to the really substantive issues that the church should be dealing with, such as hunger and peace. By women becoming a part of the ordained leadership of the church, we hope to hasten that day.”

“It’s a feminist issue for me,” said Methodist Daniel. “Learning to trust your perceptions of how it can be, rather than the image of the way it always has been.”

The women’s perceptions of post-ordination roles differ as much as their backgrounds. Several left lucrative, secure careers to accept the uncertainties of the ministry.

Tobias, 42, spent 17 years as a social worker dealing with troubled youths and their families, international adoption and social service administration. She leans toward chaplaincy as “a vehicle for involving lay people as well as clergy in ministry by developing volunteer training programs for all of the San Diego diocese.”

Daniel, also 42, worked extensively with Common Cause, the political action group, before entering the seminary and said, “I would like to be affiliated with a group of religious people to do political lobbying on issues such as hunger and peace.”

“What frightened me more than anything else was preaching . . . “ said Methodist Gara, 38, who has had long experience as a church musician, fine arts specialist and public school teacher. “The idea of presuming to proclaim the word of God was overwhelming. But in taking the preaching classes, I have been affirmed that this is a gift I have. I’m really eager to be in the parish ministry.”

Rawlings, 40, has worked in professional theater and loves working with parish congregations. But other options also beckon--pastoral counseling, going on for a doctorate and ultimately teaching at the seminary level.

Taught for 15 Years

Gregg-Schroeder, 37, left behind a 15-year career as a kindergarten teacher. She has written liturgies and published a book of poetry.

While she considers pastoral ministry an option, Gregg-Schroeder is also drawn toward hospital chaplaincy. As an outgrowth of her own 7-year-old son’s health problems, she published a book of prayers for hospitalized children.

When asked her age, Methodist Farley, 35, deadpanned, “I have no problem with that. . . . I’m the youngest!”

Farley didn’t follow her instinctive pull toward the ministry at 20 because, she said she thought, “Women can’t do this.” Instead, she went into preschool teaching. A seminarian at last, she has opted for ordination rather than a “diaconate,” a traditional position for women in the Methodist church, because, “If you’re working with a family, you cannot baptize a child, you cannot go all the way with your faith without being ordained.” She sees herself in a local pastorate eventually, yet has also considered working within ecumenical agencies such as METRO, the social service arm of the United Methodist Churches in San Diego.

Humor bonds all six of the divinity students, helping them to cope with the pressures of combining seminary and personal lives.

“If we couldn’t laugh and be crazy together. . .,” said Gregg-Schroeder, “if it weren’t for the support and love of these women, I can honestly say I wouldn’t make it. This group has made it possible.”

On their late night return home, “We laugh and cry in the McDonald’s (the halfway point) rest room . . . the crew comes and checks on us,” said Farley. “We’ve joked and said we’re going to invite them all to our ordinations.”

Tobias commutes alone but shares a close friendship with the other seminarians.

Daniel leaves her husband and children to stay with her parents in Monrovia, near Claremont. “I’m missing part of my family, but on the other hand, I’m with my parents. That’s nice for them and for me. They just can’t believe that I’m doing this.”

“None of us is going to seminary alone. Our families are part of it,” said Gregg-Schroeder.

With her mother as minister, Gregg-Schroeder’s 10-year old daughter hopes she’ll have the inside track to a role the Christmas play.

Each of the women’s families has made radical changes to accommodate their commuting schedules, with both negative and positive results.

“The last two years have involved intensive training and re-education for us and for our families,” said Farley. “All of us have had to . . . evaluate what works and what doesn’t work.’

Daniel’s 17- and 19-year old sons are somewhat relieved that they will escape, by virtue of their age, having to be tagged “PK’s (preachers’ kids).

Pressure on the Children

“There’s a lot of pressure for our children, a lot to live up to,” said Rawlings, whose three children, ages 6, 8 and 10, wave from the driveway as she sets off in the early morning. “It’s good for children to see that not everything is easy for adults. Mom really has to work to get good grades. . . .

While none of the women’s husbands are in the ministry, all six women indicate their husband’s support as a crucial factor.

“There is no way we could do this without husbands willing to do more than many husbands would do . . . holding us up when we’re ready to crack . . .,” said Gregg- Schroeder.

Daniel’s husband, a physician, has rearranged his schedule to be home more when she is not.

Tobias’ husband and 13- and 15-year-old daughters have organized day-to-day responsibilities--laundry, cooking, ironing, car pooling, meal preparation and care of the animals. “My family could make it so easy for me to stop. We all respond to guilt.”

“It’s a constant struggle--evaluating whether the amount of stress and effort required of my husband and my children is right and appropriate for what I’m called to do,” said Rawlings.

Logistical nightmares aside, the combination of the loss of a second salary, school tuition ($5,000-$8,000), and child care can also drain as much as $30,000 from family incomes.

As returning mid-life students, the women face frustrations--procedural hassles, scholarship limitations and course prerequisites which are not geared to the second-career student.

A typical snag: being asked to list professors from undergraduate school on an application form. Said Rawlings wryly, “We’ve been out of school for years! Half our professors are dead!’

For older students with extensive church experience, certain introductory classes, observing what a minister does, for example, may be too elementary. “Schools are not ready to recognize that you may have had some life experiences which totally invalidate a class,” Rawlings said. “We’re not saying give us credit--but let us take another class which will plug into an area we don’t have experience in.”

Tobias said, “It makes sense that the students coming in have a legitimate right to share in the planning for their educational needs.”

As part of their growth, the seminarians have had to relinquish old attitudes and beliefs about control, standards of perfection, and approaches to problems.

Farley had previously defined her response to God in terms of maintaining balance, developing her own potential, being whole--”walking without tottering,” she explained. “Suddenly, a new image came to me. Maybe it’s not about being balanced. Maybe it’s about dancing . . . knowing that there can be a rhythm, a pace, not just a calm step by step. This new image is much more creative for me, more experiential, more what my life is now.”

“Dancing is an image that I can relate to,” Tobias agreed. “What we’re expressing is what lots of second-career people in their 30s and 40s go through: “I’d better do it now--there isn’t much more time!”

“The most important thing I’ve learned,” said Daniel, “is to give up perfectionism and trying to fulfill everyone’s expectations. I just gave it up. It frees you.”

Each of the women faces oral and written exams, psychological evaluations, ordination and other hurdles before eventual permanent placement in the church.

“It’s a tremendous risk . . . three years of graduate school with no guarantees of a career in the church,” Tobias said. “Across all our denominational lines, it’s an enormous leap in faith.”