On Wednesday and Thursday, February 13 and 14, the Lake Union Conference considered the question of Women’s Ordination. Presentations in favor or opposition were made by presenters including Darius Jankowitz, Clinton Wahlen, P. Gerard Damsteegt, and Richard M. Davidson. The first motion was to recommend that the General Conference permit Divisions and Unions to ordain without regard to gender. That motion lost 18 to 12. The final motion is as below:
While affirming women in ministry, the Lake Union Executive Committee supports the world church in its process of the study of ordination and its decisions regarding ordination, with the understanding that the church needs a clear biblical theology of ordination that will guide our policies.
The NPUC Supporting Pastors affirm the decision by the Lake Union Conference to hold back on Women’s Ordination and to Support the study process currently under way by the General Conference, its results in 2014, and opportunity to make a carefully measured decision on a biblical basis for or against at the 2015 General Conference session.
The Lake Union includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Lake Region Conference, and a portion of Minnesota.
Further information is available here: LUC Executive Committee Statement on Ordination.
3 replies on “Lake Union Votes Not to Proceed on Women's Ordination”
As a current resident of the Lake Union, I heartily endorse and praise God for the courage and integrity of the Union executive committee in rendering this decision.
Your comment Kevin is sanctimonious and “god talk.” “You did what I want so you have courage and integrity and you did God’s will.”
Hopefully, this was not by choice and/or reflect the way you think about those who disagree with your concepts of Biblical truth. Your comment suggests that if the Lake Union had voted differently, they would not have had courage and integrity. This, unfortunately, is the kind of thinking and speech that informs much of our discussion of controversial questions these days.
I respectfully submit, as a woman and a long-standing member of the SDA church for 56 years, that the fact that the issue of Women’s Ordination has evolved into a last-day “crisis” in God’s remnant church is indicative of just how deeply the women’s rights movement has reached. First, women got the vote, then the business suit, then they went to the moon. Now, they want the pulpit, and equal ministerial rights. I would find it awkward, unnatural, and unbiblical to be shepherded by another woman. May God’s people have patience to await the vote of the world church, and not fragment the church with disunity. Maranatha!