The Rev. Karen Breckenridge, associate pastor of Northminster Presbyterian Church in Seattle, WA, the ACWC chair, convened the informal gathering intended as a forum for feedback on issues raised in the committee's "Report on Clergywomen's Experience in Ministry," a document approved by last year's Assembly.

Breckenridge also lifted up women's issues before this Assembly, including two items brought by the ACWC to the Committee on Church Orders and Ministry. "What we're asking the GA to recognize," she said, referring to those items, "is that there's a prevailing myth that the work of supporting and sustaining clergywomen in ministry was completed. That work is not done."

N'Yisrela C. Watts-Afriyie, the coordinator for the Women's Advocacy Network of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, said her own experience validates Breckenridge's observation that support for clergywomen is mostly provided by the clergywomen themselves.

"What's really lacking, in terms of support for clergywomen," Watts-Afriyie said, "is the opportunity for clergywomen themselves to come together and connect. I've talked with seminarians who have said, 'We really would like to have mentors . seasoned clergywomen who can be with us on a one-to-one basis.'"

The concerns raised by the forum participants included appropriate child-care services, problems of single and racial-ethnic clergywomen, inadequate self-care opportunities and inequitable compensation.