United by the ministry

Christine Brownlie, Murray Ann Ziegenfuss, Diane Jackson and Shirley Larson represent a growing trend of women over 40 taking the pulpit.

She and her husband agreed he should attend graduate school first. They started a family. Years went past. Then came midlife, divorce and a new calling.

“I had an aural hallucination,” she said. “I heard a door closing and a voice saying, ‘Now you can go to seminary.’”

Today, Brownlie, 54, serves as pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Blacksburg and is one of at least four church leaders in the New River Valley who reflect a growing national trend as larger numbers of women in their 40s and older are entering the ministry.

Each has a different story. They all say following the path into the ministry later in life wasn’t an easy choice, but it was the right choice.

Murray Ann Ziegenfuss

Ordained at age 45

“The key word for me is joy,” said the Rev. Murray Ann Ziegenfuss, pastor of United Lutheran Church near Wytheville. “I began to feel very joyful as I took a leadership role in worship. I wanted more.”

Ziegenfuss grew up active in Southern Baptist churches and considered missionary work - the ministry isn’t open to women in most churches in that denomination - but went into teaching instead. When she married a former Lutheran pastor, they attended Lutheran services.

“But I argued with George about theological issues. My questions about who Jesus really was weren’t totally resolved,” she said.

Around 1979, the Ziegenfusses adopted new vocations doing residential remodeling work only to see interest rates start rising and people start canceling jobs.

Ziegenfuss and her husband also left their church in “righteous indignation” over the treatment of the pastor. “I was really acting out of deep-seated needs,” she said. “When people leave the church over a tiff, it’s usually a sign of other struggles.”

She became too tense to sleep. “I was afraid of the future. I had no faith,” she said.

Then Ziegenfuss had “a God moment” late one sleepless night. “I became aware of God’s presence gently opening me up. I called upon Jesus to give me a good night’s sleep and relief from worry. The next thing I knew, the sun was shining,” she said.

She returned to church and began a period of rapid spiritual growth, culminating in her decision to attend seminary. George Ziegenfuss needed only a one-yearrefresher before he became pastor at Mt. Zion Lutheran Church near McCoy in 1986. Murray Ziegenfuss finished at the South Carolina seminary two years later, then accepted a call at the closest Lutheran church she could find - in Woodstock.

“It was stressful having a long-distance marriage, but I see God’s hand,” she said. “George was always my mentor. I needed to grow on my own.” George eventually retired, and Murray became the pastor at United Lutheran outside Wytheville two years ago, at 60.

“What I love most about the ministry is the way it gives me access to people’s lives. I’m with them in times of crisis, death, birth, marriage, and changes. I try to be there in compassion, bringing the hope of God,” she said.

“The spirit comes through people of both genders,“ she said.

Diane Jackson

Ordained at age 48

The Rev. Diane Jackson always wanted to be a Lutheran minister, but didn’t know she could.

“I’m no pioneer,” she said. So she worked as a stage actress in Texas and Australia, following her husband’s jobs. When Wayne Jackson’s career landed them in Northern Virginia in the 1980s, the Evangelical Lutheran Church was ordaining women.

It was time.

Jackson spent 11 years finishing her B.S. and attending seminary while working as church youth director. She was ordained 10 years ago and now serves at Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran in Pearisburg.

She was sent there to increase membership from the church’s 28 parishioners who endured years without a pastor. No children attended. Now membership has doubled, and children take confirmation classes.

But growth has costs. Some protested when Jackson changed the service to accommodate children and “non-womb” Lutherans. And others balked when she changed it back.

“I was overwhelmed and miserable,“ Jackson said. “My bishop reminded me God didn’t call me to be a people pleaser. All I’m called to do is be faithful.”

Jackson has been president and vice president of the Giles County Ministerial Association and its only woman. She also has served on four community service boards, directed high school dramas, written a weekly column for the local Virginian Leader weekly in Pearisburg, acted as an emergency foster mother and cared for her invalid mother until her death in 2002.

“At 55 there are so many things I do that I never would have done in the first 10 years of ordination had I begun at 25 or even 35,” Jackson said.

As an experienced, candid woman, Jackson seems to draw people who need to talk, whether they are teens, readers of her column or hospital patients who consider her “their minister” after hearing her radio sermons.

“My aim isn’t to save them,” she said. “Jesus did that, whether they know it or not. My job is meet them where they are, with hope.”

Shirley Larson

Ordained at age 54

The Rev. Shirley Larson entered seminary after her 50th birthday and was ordained by United Church of Christ in 1996.

“She has a soul like a benediction. You feel blessed,” said Diane Jackson, who became a friend when “Parson Larson” served as interim minister at Pearisburg Presbyterian.

Larson possesses a softness combined with strength earned rearing four children, running a preschool and surviving years of her husband’s terminal illness. As a girl, she’d felt called to the ministry, but later felt equally called to marriage, motherhood and teaching.

“It’s all sacred work,” she said.

After pastor stints in St. Louis, she followed her daughter to the New RiverValley and took on a string of interim pastor assignments at Mt. Zion Lutheran Church, Floyd Presbyterian Church, Pearisburg Presbyterian Church and Northside Presbyterian Church in Blacksburg.

“It’s a special calling,” she said. “You help the church deal with its past, decide its identity and prepare for the new pastor.”

In every parish but the last, Mt. Zion, Larson was the church’s first woman pastor. “God called me to prepare the way,” she said. “It’s good for people to know women are called too, as they have been forever. Just read Scripture. Who was the first to proclaim the risen Christ? Mary.”

She said that’s what clergy do, no matter what gender. “Proclaim the risen Christ and care for others.”

Nevertheless, Larson has questioned God about her calling and whether churches preferred a younger, married man. “Who’s going to want me?” she asked. But an answer has always come.

In July, she became chaplain for Chateau Morrisette Winery, helping employees incorporate spirituality into their daily lives.

“It’s not an easy walk. It makes me work hard,“ she said of her entry into the ministry later in life. “But I’m not here to coast.“

Christine Brownlie

Ordained at age 49

The Rev. Christine Brownlie is not the first woman to take the pulpit at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Blacksburg, but she is the most newsworthy.

In February, Brownlie performed symbolic same-sex weddings, part of a “Freedom to Marry” protest at Virginia Tech. And recently, her church voted to officially welcome homosexuals.

“We have to live our faith,” Brownlie said. “It’s not enough to be nice. We must be active.”

Brownlie, who says she grew up in Minneapolis championing unpopular causes, fits right in with national studies showing that clergywomen, especially urban ones, tend to be more supportive of social justice issues than their male counterparts.

“My role is not to dictate wisdom from on high. My goal is to stir thoughts and encourage people to arrive at their own conclusions,” she said.A growing trendAccording to the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, 52 percent of students in U.S. Protestant seminaries in 1999 were at least 35 years old.

Nearly a third were in their 40s and 50s.

Female enrollment has multiplied almost seven times in the past 30 years. At most United Methodist seminaries, for example, 50 percent of students are women.

Published in the New River Current section of the 8 August 2004 Roanoke Times. Written by Su Clauson

UUC Home Page

Minister-Emerita page