The ladies are joining the leadership of the Congregational Churches in the Tri-Town area.
The First Congregational Church of Marion recently announced that the Reverend Sheila Rubdi was selected, out of 165 applicants, to serve as their settled pastor.
“I’d say approximately two-thirds of the applicants were women,” said Phyllis Washburn, a member of the search committee for the First Congregational Church of Marion.
Applicants, both men and women, often as their second career, decide to go into ministry after retirement, being laid off, or as a new start. According to Ms. Washburn, the new Marion minister is a “lifetime” minister – meaning that ministry is her only career choice. Ms. Rubdi is currently serving as Pastor of the First Congregational Church in Milford, NH and will join the church in late January.
Ms. Rubdi joins several other nearby female congregational ministers at their churches in Mattapoisett and Fairhaven. The Reverend Amy Lignitz Harken is the pastor in Mattapoisett and Bette McClure in Fairhaven.
Bette McClure, pastor of the Fairhaven Congregational Church, has been in her position over 10 years. “I was ordained into ministry in 1999,” said Ms. McClure. “It is a second career for me… I was a social worker before that.” Ms. McClure estimates that 60 percent of her graduating class at Andover Newton Theological School were women. “And of that, most of us were over 40 [years old] and entering ministry as a second career,” said Ms. McClure.
When asked why more young people weren’t entering the ministry out of college, Ms. McClure said, “my guess is that it isn’t lucrative… the pay isn’t good and for a young man or woman thinking of supporting a family… it isn’t attractive from a financial standpoint.”
Ms. McClure was raised as a Roman Catholic but later joined a Congregational Church to meet new friends after moving into a new town. “I fell in love with the church and its mission and the rest is history,” she said, adding that joining the ministry wasn’t an option in the Catholic Church.
“Changes in our society in general, allowed women to enter what was traditionally a man’s field,” said Dale Thackery, a Marion native and an ordained minister. Ms. Thackery is a Chaplain at Jordan Hospital in Plymouth. According to Ms. Thackery, earning a Master of Divinity takes three years on a full time basis, but many attend part time while working and attend part-time for several years before graduating.
“Women have always felt the call and served the church through mission work and other ways, but now this opportunity has presented itself and women are taking advantage of it,” said Mr. Thackery. “Ministry is a nurturing profession and women are drawn to it,” she said, adding that the profession can be demanding and is a round-the-clock, on-call position.
“Ministry isn’t something you choose. It chooses you,” said Rev. Amy Lignitz Harken, who became the pastor of the Mattapoisett Congregational Church in March of 2011. “I’m a former journalist… This is my second career.”
“I think women are very intuitive and perceptive and can see beyond the obvious… probably due to social conditioning,” said Rev. Harken, who received her Master of Divinity degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. “More and more women are being called to serve and are able to provide a depth of spirit to their congregation,” said Ms. Harken.
By Joan Hartnett-Barry