The new Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury elect Justin Welby, who is to be consecrated on March 21 2013 (the Feast of the Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer), has declared that the UK Church of England will soon have women Bishops. Just as they have a Queen who bears the title of Defender of the Faith and Head of the Church of England. But it hasn't happened yet.
The British press seems to be encased in a bubble of unreality, impermeable to the fact that USA Episcopalians and the Anglican Church in Australia have jumped the gun as far as women Bishops are concerned. It's all very reminiscent of how Australia led the way in the early 1900s, with Votes for Women.
For those still unaware of who and where Australia's three admirable and articulate Anglican women Bishops are, I append the following links:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/women-congregate-to-celebrate-ordination-20121120-29ofq.html
Bishop Kay Goldsworthy (Perth, Western Australia)
Bishop Barbara Darling (Melbourne, Victoria)
Bishop Genieve Blackwell (Wagga Wagga, New South Wales)
Another Australian Anglican woman Bishop is in the pipeline, due to be consecrated at St Johns Anglican Cathedral, Brisbane, on April 6, 2013 (see link)
http://anglicanbrisbane.org.au/focus/taylor-made-brisbanes-first-woman-bishop/
Bishop Alison Taylor (Southern Region, Brisbane, Queensland)
The Anglican Church in South Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory of Australia has some episcopal catching up to do.
Thursday 21 February 2013
Tuesday 19 February 2013
Chapter 3: Australian Aboriginal Women in Church Ministry
The apartheid system is so prevalent in urban Australian Churches that many non-indigenous Australians think that all Australian Aboriginals are non-Christians. Some Anglo-Australians still believe the myth that Aboriginal Australians are all dying out, or can be "bred white".
Sorry, that isn't the case. Crowds of Australian Aboriginal Christian families inhabit all the mainstream and not-so-mainstream Church denominations. There aren't many Aboriginal Australian Church buildings, because the bush is God's Church in indigenous spirituality. The Australian Aboriginal Churches have a national governing body called NATSIEC (the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Church) where Aboriginal representatives of all the Church gather. Each Church denomination also has a peak Aboriginal organisation - for Anglicans it's NATSIAC, for Catholics, NATSICC, etc. etc.)
Many of Australian Aboriginal Churches are led by Aboriginal women. Elder Elsie Heiss's Reconciliation Church at La Perouse NSW, the Rev. Joan Hendriks in Queensland, Jan Kennedy's Aboriginal Catholic Mission at Emerton NSW, the Rev. Lenore Parker's ministry at MacLean, are just a few examples. Gospel music and healing is a big part of Australian Aboriginal Church women's ministry. If you want to hear great Australian Aboriginal Gospel music, go to the Tamworth Country Music Festival NSW in January.
In 2008 I attended a Church conference, and gave a presentation called "Aboriginal, Christian, and Woman" to Anglo Australians who were convinced by racist propaganda that there are no Aboriginal Christians in Australia. They took a lot of convincing! Here's a video of my Powerpoint presentation from the conference:
Recently, two Anglican Aboriginal women ministers have been making a splash in the media. Archdeacon Karen Kime of the Canberra-Goulburn Diocese is involved in international advocacy for indigenous people, and works with the reconciliation and social justice systems to improve inter-racial communication and upgrade living conditions of Australian Aboriginal communities. The Rev. Gloria Shipp of the Aboriginal Anglican Church at Dubbo, runs retreats for indigenous women out west, and is building a Church culture that takes account of traditional Aboriginal culture and customs.
Here are some links to information about Archdeacon Karen Kime's ministry:
Sorry, that isn't the case. Crowds of Australian Aboriginal Christian families inhabit all the mainstream and not-so-mainstream Church denominations. There aren't many Aboriginal Australian Church buildings, because the bush is God's Church in indigenous spirituality. The Australian Aboriginal Churches have a national governing body called NATSIEC (the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Church) where Aboriginal representatives of all the Church gather. Each Church denomination also has a peak Aboriginal organisation - for Anglicans it's NATSIAC, for Catholics, NATSICC, etc. etc.)
Many of Australian Aboriginal Churches are led by Aboriginal women. Elder Elsie Heiss's Reconciliation Church at La Perouse NSW, the Rev. Joan Hendriks in Queensland, Jan Kennedy's Aboriginal Catholic Mission at Emerton NSW, the Rev. Lenore Parker's ministry at MacLean, are just a few examples. Gospel music and healing is a big part of Australian Aboriginal Church women's ministry. If you want to hear great Australian Aboriginal Gospel music, go to the Tamworth Country Music Festival NSW in January.
In 2008 I attended a Church conference, and gave a presentation called "Aboriginal, Christian, and Woman" to Anglo Australians who were convinced by racist propaganda that there are no Aboriginal Christians in Australia. They took a lot of convincing! Here's a video of my Powerpoint presentation from the conference:
Recently, two Anglican Aboriginal women ministers have been making a splash in the media. Archdeacon Karen Kime of the Canberra-Goulburn Diocese is involved in international advocacy for indigenous people, and works with the reconciliation and social justice systems to improve inter-racial communication and upgrade living conditions of Australian Aboriginal communities. The Rev. Gloria Shipp of the Aboriginal Anglican Church at Dubbo, runs retreats for indigenous women out west, and is building a Church culture that takes account of traditional Aboriginal culture and customs.
Here are some links to information about Archdeacon Karen Kime's ministry:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/kime-appointed-archdeacon-20120225-1tvdf.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-25/anglicans-appoint-first-female-indigenous-archdeacon/3852586
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-25/anglicans-appoint-first-female-indigenous-archdeacon/3852586
http://www.anglicancg.org.au/articles.php?action=vp&aid=2
http://www.facebook.com/ReconciliationAus/posts/390356744313570?comment_id=5432547
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXkYBruFxfM
http://www.nitv.org.au/fx-story.cfm?sid=00373998-C1EC-CAD0-8BD3260B79114F18
http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/story/747514/wagga-woman-makes-church-history/
http://www.reconciliation.org.au/home/latest/australia-s-first-female-aboriginal-archdeacon-congratulated
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2012/3/14/ACNS5064
Sunday 17 February 2013
Chapter 2: Women Church Cantors in Australia
In 1967, when I first started singing as an Anglican chorister at St Peter's Cathedral in Adelaide, the Church Cantor tradition had pretty well died out in Australia. Australian Church Clergy (who were all men in those days) canted or refused to cant with varying quality, choristers sang, and soloists within the choir were called singers. The Decani and Cantoris seats still adorned Anglican Cathedral Churches, but the origin of the Cantoris seat was forgotten, except by academics. At that time in Australia, the title of Cantor was reserved for male Jewish synagogue Cantors. Then the Jewish women took up the Cantor baton, and, following the role model of Miriam, they revived the art of the Jewish woman Cantor. Their leadership was invaluable.
Throughout my childhood and youth, I sang in church choirs, and accompanied singers on the piano and organ. As a young mother I continued singing in church choirs, taught music, trained as an opera singer, and sang in stage as a soloist, and in large choirs. In 1996 I was suddenly called to solo Cantor ministry when my parish Church burned down, so I looked for contemporary female role models to follow. I found no female role models for Cantor ministry in Australian churches, but male mentors in the Royal School of Church Music and the UK Guild of Church Musicians helped me to shape and develop my female Cathedral Cantor ministry. My role models were gleaned from historical female Church Cantor traditions, the Australian Conservatorium system supplied my musical training, and a six year theological degree provided the liturgical and compositional skills I needed. I waded through a varied Church music repertoire, honed my liturgical liaison craft, and sorted out the musical wheat from the chaff. I discovered that being a woman Cantor involves not only liturgical singing, but also arranging and composing new music on a weekly basis, and constantly defusing male assumptions that men are entitled to take credit for everything a skilled woman creates or does.
Seventeen years later, the art of the woman Church Cantor is well established in Australia, with claases for female Cantors flourishing in Churches. Since the Catholic and Anglican churches have historically defined Cantor ministry as one of the two essential precursors for priestly ordination (the other being Lector ministry) the establishment of women’s Cantor ministry in Australia, has enhanced the status of Australian church women. Although the quality of Cantor and chorister instruction varies, the UK Royal School of Church Music has worked with ecumenical Pastoral Music associations to establish and promote examined Voice Syllabuses for churches, so much progress has been made in helping Australian congregations to worship through music. Clerical recognition of female Church Cantor ministry is nevertheless slow to catch up. In most mainstream Churches there is no reason why female Cantors cannot be clerically commissioned, but this seldom occurs. I was fortunate to be jointly commissioned in 2000 as an accredited ACertCM(UK) Cathedral Cantor by Rev. Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, then the Very Rev. Basil Hume.
Female Church Cantors in Australia (and worldwide) are invariably diligent, collaborative and highly skilled. All the Australian women Church Cantors I have met have a genuine desire to serve and honour God rather than themselves. A few are paid, but many are volunteers, who have paid for their own tuition. A favoured few, such as June Nixon and Kathlleen Boschetti, have achieved remarkable heights of Church music mimistry in Australia. So It grieves me (and I have no doubt, also God) when a few ill advised Church music critics accuse female Church Cantors of impious self-aggrandizement, rail against women in ministry, and declare us unwanted. Their hostility is ridiculously unChristian and unproductive.
Throughout my childhood and youth, I sang in church choirs, and accompanied singers on the piano and organ. As a young mother I continued singing in church choirs, taught music, trained as an opera singer, and sang in stage as a soloist, and in large choirs. In 1996 I was suddenly called to solo Cantor ministry when my parish Church burned down, so I looked for contemporary female role models to follow. I found no female role models for Cantor ministry in Australian churches, but male mentors in the Royal School of Church Music and the UK Guild of Church Musicians helped me to shape and develop my female Cathedral Cantor ministry. My role models were gleaned from historical female Church Cantor traditions, the Australian Conservatorium system supplied my musical training, and a six year theological degree provided the liturgical and compositional skills I needed. I waded through a varied Church music repertoire, honed my liturgical liaison craft, and sorted out the musical wheat from the chaff. I discovered that being a woman Cantor involves not only liturgical singing, but also arranging and composing new music on a weekly basis, and constantly defusing male assumptions that men are entitled to take credit for everything a skilled woman creates or does.
Seventeen years later, the art of the woman Church Cantor is well established in Australia, with claases for female Cantors flourishing in Churches. Since the Catholic and Anglican churches have historically defined Cantor ministry as one of the two essential precursors for priestly ordination (the other being Lector ministry) the establishment of women’s Cantor ministry in Australia, has enhanced the status of Australian church women. Although the quality of Cantor and chorister instruction varies, the UK Royal School of Church Music has worked with ecumenical Pastoral Music associations to establish and promote examined Voice Syllabuses for churches, so much progress has been made in helping Australian congregations to worship through music. Clerical recognition of female Church Cantor ministry is nevertheless slow to catch up. In most mainstream Churches there is no reason why female Cantors cannot be clerically commissioned, but this seldom occurs. I was fortunate to be jointly commissioned in 2000 as an accredited ACertCM(UK) Cathedral Cantor by Rev. Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, then the Very Rev. Basil Hume.
Female Church Cantors in Australia (and worldwide) are invariably diligent, collaborative and highly skilled. All the Australian women Church Cantors I have met have a genuine desire to serve and honour God rather than themselves. A few are paid, but many are volunteers, who have paid for their own tuition. A favoured few, such as June Nixon and Kathlleen Boschetti, have achieved remarkable heights of Church music mimistry in Australia. So It grieves me (and I have no doubt, also God) when a few ill advised Church music critics accuse female Church Cantors of impious self-aggrandizement, rail against women in ministry, and declare us unwanted. Their hostility is ridiculously unChristian and unproductive.
Wednesday 13 February 2013
Chapter 1: A Church Childhood in 1950-1970s Australia
Unlike today, 1950s Australia was crammed with churches of all stripes. Most Australian people attended church each Sunday, because that’s where the whole community met, mingled, and conducted community business. Racism and exclusion of socially unacceptable people from churches was rife, it was difficult to find a job if you didn’t attend church. Australian lay people like my parents founded and ran churches in collaboration with clergy, who they employed. Like many Australian girls, I started doing volunteer work in churches very young, by helping my parents with their church work. My sister and I learned to read as toddlers during lengthy sermons, as we played with hymnbooks under the pews. That accounts for my antiquated vocabulary and my encyclopaedic knowledge of hymn authors, hymn metres, and tune names. My father was a Protestant lay preacher, elder, and Church Vestry committee member who "planted" a new Church with a group of like-minded families in our new suburb in Adelaide, South Australia. I used to help my parents set up the Church every Saturday for the Sunday service, so I'm great at arranging flowers, setting out chairs in rows, polishing brass, finding my way through the mysterious indexes of liturgical books in order to place bookmarks, inserting hymn numbers in hymn boards, laying credence tables, and carefully pouring wine. At a huge church rally in 1950s Adelaide, American evangelist Rev. Billy Graham’s preaching, and George Beverley Shea's rendition of "Just as I am" called me to come to Jesus, so I obediently disappeared into the huge surging crowd, to be found by my frantic parents two hours later, sitting at the feet of the elders. Clearly, Jesus was present in all this, and through the teaching and steady example of my grandparents and parents, he became my friend for life. When my mother started the Church choir, I sang with them, played the piano and organ, and learnt to read music. By the time I was a teenager I was teaching Sunday School, organising Church concerts and liturgies, roneoing and folding church newsletters, and playing the organ for Sunday evening services. After doing my school homework, I started to write religious poetry and compose hymns.
All my virtuous Church experience suddenly became unfashionable when the Beatles, the Pill, and the torrid sexual revolution, hit the shores of Oz. My parents were horrified by this, and kept me closely coralled. Guitars were the rage at highschool, so I saved up, bought one, and strummed Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Nina and Frederick, Peter Paul and Mary, and Singing Nun ditties, but I still continued with classical piano lessons. I was intrigued by the new fashions, but not seduced - I stuck to my Church work. In 1964 I joined the local Anglican Church, which had even more Church ministry stuff for me to learn. The local organist took me under his wing and taught me to accompany Anglican chant and choral anthems. When I (by some divine miracle) acquired a Commonwealth Tertiary Scholarship, a new Church world opened up to me. At St Ann's University College (where my work included setting enormous college dining tables) I trained as an altar server for College Services, and, clad in my black undergraduate gown, I learned to chant Morning Prayer and sing four part Anglican anthems at St Peter's Cathedral. When I married and became mother to four children in Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales, my Church involvement with music, feeding people, and teaching, continued, and developed into full-blown theological studies and ministry as a Cathedral Cantor with a community that was unable to sing after their Church burned down.
Introduction : Unsung Women's Church Ministry in Australia
This blog is about my experience of women’s Church ministry in Australia.
In my lifetime I've learned a lot about Church ministry work, as carried out by girls and women in Australia, and I’ve been involved in this work as a woman musician, Cantor, poet and theologian. But this blog is not all about me - it’s about many great Australian Church women, and the way they've founded and shaped Australian Churches through clerical, monastic and lay ministries. Like the crocheting Aussie Church women who inspired those beautiful iron lace verandahs on the old convents. If you're a treasure of a woman with an untold Church ministry saga to relate, consider starting your own blog.
Lots of Australian girls and women work as unofficial ministry volunteers in Australian Churches, but few are paid or properly acknowledged. Even in Church denominations that ordain women, the percentage of Church women whose names and work are praised and recorded in Church archives and histories is lamentably low. Australian Churches couldn’t continue functioning without women workers, yet time after time I've found reports on the internet of Church girls and women being undervalued, bossed around like children, denigrated, and denied full liturgical recognition.
Well, now we have a remedy. Don't wait for your clergy or parishioner colleagues to praise and record your Church ministry. They're probably so overworked, or so obsessed with promoting themselves, that they'll never give you a second thought. Take the Church bull by the horns and guide it gently to the water of eternal life - the ministry of Australian Church women.
In my lifetime I've learned a lot about Church ministry work, as carried out by girls and women in Australia, and I’ve been involved in this work as a woman musician, Cantor, poet and theologian. But this blog is not all about me - it’s about many great Australian Church women, and the way they've founded and shaped Australian Churches through clerical, monastic and lay ministries. Like the crocheting Aussie Church women who inspired those beautiful iron lace verandahs on the old convents. If you're a treasure of a woman with an untold Church ministry saga to relate, consider starting your own blog.
Lots of Australian girls and women work as unofficial ministry volunteers in Australian Churches, but few are paid or properly acknowledged. Even in Church denominations that ordain women, the percentage of Church women whose names and work are praised and recorded in Church archives and histories is lamentably low. Australian Churches couldn’t continue functioning without women workers, yet time after time I've found reports on the internet of Church girls and women being undervalued, bossed around like children, denigrated, and denied full liturgical recognition.
Well, now we have a remedy. Don't wait for your clergy or parishioner colleagues to praise and record your Church ministry. They're probably so overworked, or so obsessed with promoting themselves, that they'll never give you a second thought. Take the Church bull by the horns and guide it gently to the water of eternal life - the ministry of Australian Church women.
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