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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Welcome to my blog on Church ministry matters. All constructive comments on my blog topics are welcome and will be responded to. All comments are moderated, and comments containing abusive, offensive or illogical content will not be posted.
Elizabeth Sheppard (HerChurch Blog Owner)