Women Ministers & Their Stories
Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton at 2019 Churchwide Assembly 50th Anniversary Celebration
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy. Joel 2:28a
In 1970, the prophecy of Joel came to fruition in the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) when, on November 22, ELIZABETH PLATZ was ordained into the ministry of Word and Sacrament. She was the first Lutheran clergywoman in this country. Before the year ended, the American Lutheran Church ordained its first woman pastor, BARBARA ANDREWS.
Pastor Elizabeth Platz
Pastor Platz never intended to be a trailblazer. She grew up in our synod, at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Carrick. She entered Gettysburg Seminary in 1962. She had no desire to become a pastor at that time, but she wanted to study systematic theology, and the only way to do so was to pursue the Bachelor of Divinity degree.
And so it was that, when the church voted to ordain women, Elizabeth Platz was one of a handful of women who already had the necessary degree for ordination. Upon ordination, Pastor Platz became the chaplain at the University of Maryland-College Park. She retired after 47 years of service to the university.
In 1979, EARLEAN MILLER became the first African American woman ordained by the LCA. LYDIA RIVERA KALB became the first LCA Latina clergywoman that same year. As women of color, Pastor Miller and Pastor Kalb had to overcome not only sexism, but racism in the whitest denomination in America. Pastors KAREN BATTLE and BRENDA HENRY still serve as trailblazers as the only clergywomen of African descent who have ever served in our synod or its predecessor bodies.
CAROLINE MENDIS, our synod’s longest ordained clergywoman, entered seminary in 1970. “I went through seminary with the synod hardly being aware of my presence. There was very little contact with people from the synod. ... I did not feel welcomed in in the synod… there wasn’t a sense in which I knew there was going to be a place for me.”
The support from Gettysburg Seminary wasn’t much better. When the first-year field assignments were made, she called the pastor at that church and spoke briefly with him. The next day, the wife of that pastor called the seminary placement office and said, “No. We can’t have this person.” Pastor Mendis continued, “So, I didn’t have a placement. [The seminary] talked about getting me a different one, but they never did.”
The internship assigned to Caroline Mendis was in the middle of nowhere, on East Swamp Road in Potter County, New York. There was no pastor at that church. “Hardly anybody knew I was there.” Fortunately, the bishop knew, and saw her gifts. “When I was ready to be ordained (in 1974) that synod opened the doors to me and said, ‘We would be happy if you came up here.’”
Before she began her call in Mayview, New York, Pastor Mendis came home to be ordained. However, when she called the synod office the day before her ordination, the bishop asked, “What’s your name again? Who are you?” She replied, “I’m one of the ordinands!”
After some years, Pastor Mendis and her husband, Pastor George Mendis, returned to our synod and served together at Christ Lutheran Church, Millvale, from 1989 until their retirement in 2014.
Pastors Brenda Henry & Sue Devine
SUSAN DEVINE is our synod’s most recently ordained pastor. Her experience of support from the synod and seminary is far different from Pastor Mendis’. For 23 years, Pastor Devine worked in banking, but she had a sense that she was being called to serve the church. She kept telling herself, “I have a family to raise. I’m too old. I’m a woman. But the Holy Spirit kept nagging. My husband, Keith, said ‘You’ve been thinking about this for over 20 years. You just need to do it.’” So, she talked with Pastor Ed Sheehan, then an Assistant to the Bishop, who helped her work out a distance learning program with a seminary that allowed her to continue to work full time.
On February 15, 2020, Pastor Devine was ordained and called to Pittsburgh Lutheran Urban Ministries The support of Pastors BETH SIEFERT and MELBA DIBBLE, and the camaraderie she now shares with Pastor Brenda Henry and Vicar MANDY GILBERTI has been a blessing. “One of my favorite pictures from my ordination is when Pastor Beth and Pastor Brenda put the chausible on me. They didn’t just drape it on me. They took care to adjust my collar, make sure that my hair wasn’t stuck in it. It was a caring moment... we’re in this together and we’re going to take care of each other.”
In thinking about how much things have changed, Pastor Mendis reflected, “It sounds as though Sue has had much more camaraderie with women pastors in the sense of being together in that journey. I don’t think I ever had that.”
Pastors Martha & Beth Clementson
When MARTHA WALDKOENIG CLEMENTSON was appointed as an assistant to the bishop in 1987, she became the most visible clergywoman in the synod. “I felt like every time I went into a situation I represented every female pastor in the church. No one meets a male pastor and says, ‘I don’t like you, so I don’t like male pastors,’ but that’s what was happening for female pastors.”
A generation later, that is still happening in some places. When her daughter, Pastor BETH CLEMENTSON, interviewed for a call she was told that the congregation had negative experiences with two women pastors, so they weren’t sure they wanted another woman.
When Pastor Martha Clementson went to seminary, there weren’t many role models for clergywomen. “I’m the third generation of ordained people in my family, so I had family support, but not overwhelming family support.” All the pastors in her family had been men. They didn’t know what it would be like for a woman pastor. “As I went through the process it felt risky.”
For Beth Clementson, it was never a question if becoming a pastor was possible for her. “Not only did I have my mom, but I had so many other strong women pastors in my life.” Interns and associate pastors who served with her father “were wonderful examples of women in ministry and so it was never a question of whether I could, it was a question of whether I should.
I started feeling called to ministry around high school. What I had to wrestle with was, am I feeling this call because God is calling me to this or because everyone around me is saying, ‘Your parents are such good pastors. Are you going to be a pastor too?’”
I am thankful that so many women paved the way so it is easier for me and the women who will come next. It took a lot of work from a lot of strong women to get us here.”
Pastor Martha Clementson served as Assistant to the Bishop under Donald McCoid for 20 years. During that time, through her work with the Candidacy Committee and in the way she lived out her calling, she was an important and influential role model for women discerning a call to ordained ministry. Currently she is co-pastor with her husband, Pastor Kevin Clementson, at Grace Lutheran Church in Westminster, Maryland. Pastor Beth Clementson serves Stewart Avenue Lutheran Church in Carrick.
The Clementson clergywomen had been slated to serve as co-chaplains at our synod assembly in 2020, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women pastors. Instead, they will fill that role in 2021. Pastor Beth Clementson is looking forward to it. “I think it will be fun to be chaplain with my mom… to get to do it with someone that I love and admire is really great.” Pastor Martha Clementson agrees, “For me the biggest attraction is working with Beth. And having been away from the SWPA synod for 12 years, I look forward to being back.”
SWPA Pastors at the International Association of Women Ministers Conference
Pastor Ann Schmid
Pastor of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
pastorschmid@comcast.net
Pastor Schmid is a member of the Women’s Anniversary Task Force, led by Pastors Beth Siefert, Peggy Suhr-Barkley, and Kerri Clark with participation from many pastors within our Synod.