And then there were two.

So I’m down to my last two days of work with NNPCW. It is kind of odd, I suppose… as it gets closer to my leaving day, I start to feel more and more superfluous to the workings of this operation. As John the Baptist said, others must become greater, and I must become less.

Back in the day, after Robin left, and Tammy left, and Gusti left, and Ann left, I was told that I had become the so-called “institutional memory” of the office. With my departure tomorrow, only three people in Women’s Ministries will have been here for more than a year. It is a new day for our offices, a new opportunity for fresh perspectives.

And yet as the “institutional memory,” it seems that one of my last blog posts should be to remind the Network of its roots—why do we exist, and what is worth fighting for to keep us alive? All I can offer is my perspective, for what it’s worth. After all, what are you going to do? Fire me? (Hee hee)

NNPCW as a ministry began with a group of young women meeting together in 1991 in Des Moines, Iowa. Though the hair was definitely bigger back then, the commitments that group articulated are still very much the same commitments we pay homage to today—diversity of all kinds in an inclusive community of women, spiritual growth, lifting up the voices of young women, ecumenism, evangelism, etc. In the 15 years since then, women have loved this ministry and fought for it. They have risked shame and ostracism from the larger church to uphold many of these values inherent to NNPCW. They have spent hours planning and programming, laughing and crying so that the seeds of the liberating gospel might be planted in both women and men.

In my mind, they have given too much to this ministry for us to sacrifice our values to the altar of convenience and acquiescence. And what are those values, to me? Justice for women, inclusive and caring community, the boldness to engage in the hard dialogue that comes with diversity and to do it without fear. If we lose these elements, we become nothing more than a nice Presbyterian girls’ club, one that shames the legacy of the courageous women who carved this space for us.

After the Leadership Event, several of us engaged in one of the aforementioned hard dialogues about the role of NNPCW in the church. Do we simply plant the seeds of growth in women, challenging them to expand from their comfort zones for future action, or are we supposed to be the prophetic voice of the church? Even when, as the prophetic voice, we alienate some of the young women we want to reach?

In some ways, we are a both/and ministry. We give young women the space to find their voices, to be challenged out of their comfort zones. We meet them where they are, not necessarily with the agenda of “changing” or “improving” them, but to let them have the room to explore their faith without judgment.

And at the same time, our very existence is an act of advocacy. In our internal structures, in our commitment to safe space, we model the behaviors of living in community that we wish to see in the larger church. Because we’re here in the first place, young women in the church are taken seriously as a force in the life of the denomination. It was amazing to see the moderator of Presbyterian Women stand with NNPCW co-moderator Maren Haynes, in front of 3,200 women at this last Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women, and declare our equal partnership in bringing about conversation and change among women. The existence of NNPCW, united with our sisters in Racial Ethnic Young Women Together, the Office of Women’s Advocacy, and Presbyterian Women, prevents women from being pushed to the margins of the church’s power structures. Ultimately, we’re a ministry of advocacy because justice for young women is the focus of what we do.

So in parting, I hope you all keep the faith and fight the good fight for God’s love and justice to be poured out. If you do that, I’ll know that the last three years have been worth it.

“I am giving you these instructions, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience.” --1 Timothy 1:18-19a

Kelsey