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A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit
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Item Description...
Women have been among the most dynamic and successful ministers in all Protestant denominations; but in divinity school, Sarah Sentilles discovered that some of the best and brightest were having trouble and even leaving the church altogether. What was happening? To find out, she entered the lives of female ministers — women of various ages, races, and denominations — and emerged with the first real portrait of what it's like to lead as a woman of faith today.
Filled with humor, heartbreak, and triumph, the women's stories take us from calls to the pulpit through ordinations and service. Despite many churches' resistance — conscious or not — to re-imagining what it means to be a minister, many of these women are achieving remarkable transformations in their congregations. In their inspiring determination to perform the creative, life-giving work to which they are called, these women illuminate a way that the church can revitalize itself. What's at stake is nothing less than the future of the church itself.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 352
Dimensions: Length: 7.8" Width: 5.2" Height: 0.9"
Weight: 0.7 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Publisher Harvest Books
ISBN 0156033321
EAN 9780156033329
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Availability 3 units.
Availability accurate as of May 27, 2012 01:58.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
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Product Categories | 1 | Books > Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > General [31520 similar products] |
| 2 | Books > Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian Living > Leadership [1086 similar products] |
| 3 | Books > Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Protestantism > Episcopalian > General [406 similar products] |
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | A poor treatment of women in ministry Dec 11, 2009 |
One can sympathize with the injustices done to women when it comes to church history, and at times Ms. Sentilles exposes some of the ugliness that one finds in the church. Yet this is a self-absorbed rant written by one who has admittedly left orthodox Christian belief. It is a book that is only favorable when Christianity and the church is re-made into the image that radical feminism would have us accept, and is continually critical of churches who are not as open-minded as she sees herself to be.
This book fails on at least two levels. First, it never lives up to the title. Instead of speaking of the benefits or harms that happen in a church when women lead and their points of view are represented in preaching and leadership (a valid issue), the author speaks exclusively about the effect that it has on the woman who preach. As one who has ministered for almost 15 years, it appears to me that Ms. Sentilles does not understand what ordained ministry (or even faithful Christian living) is all about. Matthew 16:25 (TNIV) says "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." Ministry is not about self-expression or self-discovery, not about creating new programs of social justice...it's about proclaiming Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:1+) and serving those both inside and outside the church by drawing them nearer to Jesus. In other words, it's not about you, it's about Christ and the church. In ministry, we find ourselves in Christ, and that makes all the difference and gives us strength for the sometimes difficult journey...I fear that many of the woman that Sentilles interviewed never have figured this out, and so of course they are frustrated that the church is not what they thought it was.
Second, this book fails because it leaves behind the Christian witness of Christ and him crucified in order to promote all manner of unChristian belief. One of many examples of this is found in her favorable description of the 'Church of Craft' in chapter 12. How, exactly, is this Christian? And how can many of these angry people continue to be frustrated at churches that seek to forbid their actions when that self-expression is in fact not in accordance with Christianity? Ms. Sentilles spends much of the book on issues of sexuality and laments that churches are not only not welcoming to women, but also homosexuals, transgenders, and heterosexuals who see no problem in sexual relationships outside of marriage. Yet Christianity is not an 'everything is accepted' religion...throughout the NT there are some behaviors that are shown to be unacceptable. Jesus said in John 15:10a (ESV), "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love...", a claim repeated throughout scripture. And while Christians of all kinds have not kept the commands to love and patience and justice as they should, this does not justify the author's belief that all forms of sexual expression (and other self-expressions) are valid.
There's many other good books out there about women in ministry that I would recommend before this one. Only if you want an angry and self-justified rant should you read this one. | | |  | A Church of Her Own Jun 23, 2009 |
I was so excited when I saw that this book was published that I immediately got it, read it, and started recommending it to friends. As a young child, my first minister was a female, and I was unaware of any particular issues for women clergy. It seemed natural to see a woman preach every Sunday and lead my small church. As I became more involved in my denomination and eventually went to Harvard Divinity School, the stories I began hearing were appauling. I am so thankful that Sarah Sentilles has gathered these stories both to make the church aware of what it is doing and to support and encourage those of us who are attempting to follow our vocation in ministry but are hitting so many walls based on our gender (and sexual orientation).
This book was a fantastic read as I began my ordination process and helped me further articulate my own call and claim my own ways of being in ministry. It also helped me consider the role of the institution church and ordination in ways that even divinity school had not previously asked of me. It offered me the support I needed as I was making some important decisions regarding my ordination. I have chosen to continue towards ordination but with a new understanding of what it means and how I define it.
I strongly recommend this book to other young women who are attempting to follow their call to ministry as well as any who hope to make the church a more relevant, creative, just, and inviting place. | | | | More to this book than meets the eye Jan 5, 2009 |
Do you go to church? Have you ever been to church? Are you a woman or know someone who is? Then A Church of Her Own is a must read. In fact the ostensible premise of the book is much smaller than its scope. While presented as if it were simply about women clergy, on a deeper level what this book really addresses are questions of how religions foster the growth of whole people - whether they celebrate and challenge the real lives and experiences of congregants and leaders or whether they supress and oppress them.
Told in blog style vignettes, the stories in this book are easy to read, easy to relate to - whether you "know" these people or not, they have interesting stories to tell and stories that are important for all people who care about religion to read. While the author's primary experience is with the Episcopal Church, she includes stories from other faiths, and two of her later chapters are her most powerful - when she writes about Catholic women and about transgendered clergy.
This book should be a primer for anyone who cares about what under-30-year olds want out of church. There are many important messages here about what younger generations crave spiritually and are turning to church for, and then often leave the church because they aren't getting.
Agree with her choices, her conclusions, relate to her experiences - or not, this book is important to read and think about. | | |  | A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Becomes Disillusioned with the Ministry Jul 31, 2008 |
IMHO, the name of this review should have been the title of this book... as I read through the first 3/4 of this book, I was struck by two things: how well-written it was, and how bitter the author was about her experience with trying to serve in the church.
Turns out, writing the book was healing for her. In the final pages, she comes to realize her interviews with the women for this book have washed over her soul and made her long to be accepted or requested by a congregation. Her bitterness turns to grief. I was sorry she hadn't spent more time on this discovery, less on all the negative aspects of women in ministry. (I do know women who are serving, loving it, but have also had frustrations. That seems rather typical, I think.)
This was not the kind of book I was expecting when I bought it. Often I wondered how young this author was--her contemporaries were women in their 20s. And, I'm sure it is hard to receive respect when one is a woman, that young, and as some of her friends did, look and act so contemporary that some might have thought they still belonged on a college campus.
Still, she is a fabulous writer (or she has a fantastic editor, or both). She's obviously done tons of research that's invaluable. For years I struggled to find something contemporary on the shelf about women in the ministry... so a book like this was/is sorely needed.
The slant is overtly liberal and gives ample space to the disenfranchised (gay/lesbian/transgendered/etc.). I did feel much compassion for, and learned more about those who are frustrated because the traditional church will not ordain them, yet God is calling them to serve in some meaningful way.
I totally "get" the inclusive language she talks about. I'm a Cady Stanton fan, sat through many women's studies classes--yet I can't say that I have as strong of a revulsion to the male-only language (Father, Son, etc.). Although I do love the NRSV and the fact that it uses "brothers and sisters"!
| | | | Is the Church Really Religious? May 28, 2008 |
Sarah Sentilles set out to be an Episcopal priest, attending Harvard Divinity School, and seeking ordination in that denomination. She found the ordination process difficult, because she did not conform to some rather narrow expectations of what a priest should be. She blamed herself for not being good enough, and so great was her pain, she completely withdrew from the Church.
In A Church of Her Own, Sarah Sentilles studied in depth a problem that she sees to be of major importance in organized religion. She found that although more and more women are entering divinity schools and the ordination process, these same women are leaving the Church in even larger numbers. She wanted to find out how and why called and committed Christian women were becoming so discouraged and disillusioned in a very short time. [inset as quotation] "...I realized that the brightest, most creative women I knew were having trouble. Either they struggled through the ordination process like I did, or, once ordained and working in churches, they were silenced, humiliated, and abused. These women--women who were faithful, who brought the house down when they preached, who had dedicated their lives to serving God--were being driven out of churches or were leaving the ministry altogether." (p. 3)
When I read this, I became very defensive and wondered if I wanted to read further. Having been in churches with female pastors and counting several as friends, my experience seemed the opposite of Sentilles'. Surely she exaggerated. But I read on--and as I read, I became persuaded. I also became angry and disillusioned. If churches can treat people like that, what hope is there for the world?
The interviewees, from across the country and from different denominations, were honest and frank and needed little prompting to talk about their experiences. Some were still in the church and their real names were not used--their real feelings, however, came through in heartbreaking detail. They reported many incidents of sexism. One of the most common, seemingly harmless practices involved a woman pastor being complimented or criticized about her clothes, her hair style, her weight, or her "time of the month." Male pastors seem never to have that experience. Interesting, isn't it?
Almost all women were offered lower salaries than their male counterparts because (it was rationalized) men were known to be the breadwinners of the family. Many congregations could not deal with a pregnant pastor. It makes everyone uncomfortable, they were told, to bring that "sexual connotation" to the pulpit. Do these same congregations think their male pastors are celibate? Of course not, but their sexuality was not so overt.
Many women--and some men--come as new pastors, fresh from leading seminaries with a passion to serve. They might use what is called "inclusive language," terms which do not exclude or demean on the basis of race, religion, or gender. Most often, the women's efforts to speak inclusively were rebuffed. They were told that no one wanted to call God "She." (Sentilles argues that this misses the point, anyway: "Replacing one form of gender-exclusive language with another does not solve the problem." p. 138) The way we speak of God, she feels, goes to the heart of theology, regardless of denomination. "We will have to trust that God is bigger than anything we can say or write or sing about God. We will have to have faith in God."
What first seemed to me to be Sentilles' angry and bitter criticism of an institution that failed her turned out to be a clearly stated and researched study, not just of the institutionalized church but those who attend and manage those churches. It truly does go to the heart of belief. What is religion? What is the Church? Who can fully participate? And, most important, what do our attitudes toward the clergy say about Christianity and those who profess to be Christians? Sentilles and the women she interviewed were very specific about ministry being a call to action--this is not religion of which they speak, but service, ministering to others. "Ministry is theology in action." (p.244) Sentilles and the other women ask this of organized religion, from which they often felt excluded or alienated: "What might empowering people to live their ministries in daily life look like? How would it change the church?...What might be lost? What gained?" (p. 247)
Many of the women remain hopeful about the future. Many continue their ministry outside of the church, working with the homeless, abused women, the elderly. Interestingly, more than one finds she is most accepted in women's prisons. "It is a population that is vulnerable and needs help and is easily accessible...Women want to tell their stories. This is a place to hear women's stories." (p.278)
Sentilles concludes that she has found a kind of faith in the writing of this book. "Yes, the church is sexist. Yes, the church is racist. Yes, the church is homophobic and classist and oppressive...and exclusive. And, at the same time, the church is filled with human beings ministering to one another, nourishing one another, challenging one another." (p. 309) "When I began writing this book, I was extremely angry. I was grieving. I wanted to write a book that would reveal how terrible religion is...But the women I interviewed changed my mind. Their stories, their energy, their commitment converted me. I began to feel strangely, unexpectedly hopeful." (p. 309)
Having read this book, I feel hopeful, too.
by Susan Ideus
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women | | | Write your own review about A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit
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