Bishop Ward and Christi Dye discuss the role of the Commission on the Status and Role of Women (COSROW) in the conference.
Bishop Ward: Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ.
We in The United Methodist Church reach out to all people and love being in ministry with all God’s children. Christi Dye, one of our clergy members of the Annual Conference is the leader of The Commission on the Status and Role of Women. Thank you for stepping up to lead this way.
Christi Dye: Thank you Bishop Hope and we’re really excited that for the first time in a good number of years, the Commission on the Status and Role of Women is now active as a stand-alone committee in our conference and we’re grateful for that. So I’d like to share with everyone that the goal of the Commission on the Status and Role of Women is the full participation of women at every level of The United Methodist Church.
Now some of us can recognize, most of us, all of us, can recognize that we have made great strides in this. Of course, the fact that we’re both sitting here and you [Bishop] could tell many stories like that, but we also have realized that there are still ways that we need to live into our vision. The first goals of the Commission on the Status and Role of Women is to make our presence and work and purpose known in the conference. We’re having a series of listening sessions in every district where women and men can come and share their experiences and their observations and then from there, we’re going to set priorities to see where our work needs to be. Maybe it’s in appointment making. Maybe it’s in small churches. Maybe it’s gathering groups of women together. Maybe it’s gathering groups of men together. So we’re excited about all those things and we’re also working in partnering in leadership with different members of leadership in the conference to see what they see and maybe we can all move forward together. It’s a great opportunity and we’re grateful not just for your support, but we’re looking forward to the support of the whole conference so we can move forward together.
Bishop Ward: We’re grateful for new beginning. At annual conference, there was a wonderful breakout session where the conversation began and yesterday over 70 clergywomen gathered for the morning to talk about our lives in Christ and our ministry out into the world.
Thank you for your partnership as we all seek to be God’s people, a beloved family together, reaching out in concern and service in the world.