Weekly Newsletter

Hello friends,

As preachers, leaders, teachers, missionaries, organizers, women have shaped the history of the Methodist Church. In their work with the poor, vulnerable and disenfranchised, women in the church have initiated important social and political reform. In the Methodist tradition, women were ordained as ministers as early as the late 19th century, and in 1956 the Methodist Church, a predecessor body of The United Methodist Church, granted women full clergy rights. Today I want to introduce six influencers.

Mary McLeod Bethune was an African American woman, a pioneer of women’s leadership, and a devoted Methodist who opened doors of education. She was born in 1875 on a South Carolina cotton farm. In 1904, Mary financed a dream by baking sweet potato pies. With 5 girls and $1.50, she started a school that became a Methodist institution. Her school for girls grew quickly. In 1931, the Methodist Church helped the merger with the Cookman Institute for boys to form Bethune-Cookman College. Mary Bethune traveled extensively, was a delegate to four Methodist General Conferences, advised five U.S. presidents, and was the only black woman present at the founding of the United Nations in 1945.The icon passed away in 1955, leaving a last will and testament full of wisdom and love. "I leave you love. 'Love thy neighbor' is a precept which could transform the world if it were universally practiced. "I leave you hope." "I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another." "I leave you a thirst for education." "I leave you respect for the use of power." "I leave you faith." "I leave you racial dignity." "I leave you a desire to live harmoniously with your fellow man." "I leave you finally a responsibility to our young people." "If I have a legacy to leave my people, it is my philosophy of living and serving. I think I have spent my life well. I pray now that my philosophy may be helpful to those who share my vision of a world of Peace, Progress, Brotherhood, and Love." – Mary McLeod Bethune 1875-1955

Anna Jarvis, In May 1908, organized the first official Mother’s Day celebration at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia. There was also a Mother’s Day event at one of Wanamaker’s retail stores in Philadelphia later that same day. There is now an International Mother's Day Shrine in Grafton at the site of Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church. The building is among the heritage landmarks of The United Methodist Church. Listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places since 1970, and a National Historical Landmark since 1992, the shrine seeks to “preserve, promote and develop through education, the Spirit of Motherhood, as exemplified by the lives of Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis and Anna Jarvis, and the institution of Mother’s Day that they established.”

The Rev. Dottie Yunger: considers herself to be a pastor at the Calvert Marine Museum, taking care of the critters that are behind the scenes." Before she was a pastor, the Reverend Dottie Yunger was a marine biologist. She grew up on the Virginia coast and is a life-long United Methodist. "So, during the week I would be a marine biologist and on Sundays, I would be a Methodist. And then I realized I could be both all the time." When she wasn’t pastoring people, Dottie worked at the Calvert Marine Museum, just a short distance from the church. She has a particular love for palm-sized spotted turtles. "The fact that no two spotted turtles are the same and they have these beautiful markings on their shells - they are like a miracle every day. Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as beautifully as the spots on this turtle’s shell." Being a minister and a marine biologist is certainly unusual, but Dottie has found like-minded United Methodists through a ministry called “Earthkeepers.” "The Earthkeeper program of Global Ministries is to me the best of what the UMC is. There are other people like me who have similar calls, who have similar kinds of ministries, and we could get together. And, that connection – that kind of fellowship is huge, and to have our denomination recognize and affirm calls like that is huge! I couldn’t be prouder if I had laid these eggs and incubated them myself! They are what connect me to God and help me remember God’s call in my life and how I can uniquely live that call."

Frances Willard
The famed temperance leader today is often associated with the slogan “Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.” However, Frances Willard could just as easily be associated with the rallying cry “Votes for Women.” The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the United States, which she led for the last 19 years of her life, was more than a scourge of saloons. During Willard’s presidency, the group sought to improve working conditions in factories, institute an eight-hour workday, raise the age of consent for girls and secure for women the right to vote. Harriett Jane Olson, the former chief executive officer of United Methodist Women, for 15 years (which rebranded as United Women in Faith in 2022) said Willard’s efforts all went back to the same goal — improving the lives of the marginalized, especially women and girls. “She was doing what we (in the UMW) try to do, which is to respond to the needs of the world and the call of God. That’s what she devoted her life to,” Olson said. Like Truth, Willard did not live to see much of her work come to fruition, but both women helped bring the quest for voting rights to greater national attention.

The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw became one of the first women granted a license to preach by the Methodist Episcopal Church. Later, she became the second woman to graduate from Boston University School of Theology. However, her calling hit a snag when the New England Conference refused to ordain her. The Methodist Protestant Church did! While a pastor in Massachusetts, her sense of calling broadened, and she earned a medical degree from Boston University. At 39, she added “master orator” to her skillset, lecturing throughout the world on behalf of temperance, world peace and women’s suffrage. She also was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association for 11 years, serving as a bridge between the Seneca Falls generation and younger suffragists who would go on to advocate for equal rights in all aspects of American life. Shaw died in 1919, one year before the ratification of the 19th Amendment that ensures women access to the ballot box

Dorothy Height
When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, Dorothy Height was the only woman, besides Coretta Scott King, on the platform. When Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation's first African American president more than 45 years later, she was on the platform again. Height, who considered Mary McLeod Bethune a mentor, helped finish the work earlier voting-rights activists had begun. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years. Heights helped organize voter registration in the South, voter education in the North and scholarship programs for student civil rights workers. Her hard work also helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965."I want to be remembered as someone who used herself and anything she could touch to work for justice and freedom. I want to be remembered as one who tried." – Dorothy Heigh

Sunday, we continue our series, “Season of Rest”
God bless you all
Pastor Robyne