A feminine face in the pulpit

AFTER having had 15 "good men and true" lead their parish for 94 years, Lansdowne Presbyterian Church parishioners welcomed their first woman minister last weekend.
Under the auspices of the Wairarapa Union District Council and Presbtery of Wairarapa, the Rev. Joan Ross was officially inducted into the church on Sunday in a ceremony conducted by Dr Jim Veitch, moderator of the council.
Lansdowne is the fourth parish for Ms Ross, ordained in 1990 and who went into the Baptist ministry after training as nurse.
She said after her ordination and working in her first Baptist parish in Wellington, she then transferred to the Presbyterian Church where she felt "very much at home with the blend of creativity and ritual".
In the Presbyterian ministry she has created services around seasons, and drawing on her experience as a school counsellor and chaplain, found great satisfaction in working with people and families in the "transition phases" of their lives, such as a time of birth, death, marriage, illness, divorce, or redundancy.
In Masterton, the plan is to "settle in and see the landscape" before embarking on changes or specific programmes but with a masters degree in social science research, she has focused in previous work on newcomers into the church or others, who have returned after a long time away.
Ms Ross said she's found that people are searching and wanting to talk about spiritual things, and a major loss in life is often their motivation for return to church.
"A balance between belief and belonging is very important and people want to be part of a community.
"We live in such a fragmented world and churches just like school have great potential to be anchors in our lives."
One of her first gifts to Lansdowne Church is a quilted hanging by Auckland quilter, Juliet Fitness, called Tsunami ? In Memory.
It is in the shape of a cross and was worked in response to the Boxing Day 2004 quake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean which killed at least 48,000 people in 11 countries.
Ms Ross said she had found the hanging very moving and it was "a symbol to help us in our worship and service to always be mindful of people where there is suffering and conflict".