Revitalizing UU Women's Groups

One Woman’s Story

At age sixty, First Universalist church member Sharon Bishop is likely the oldest member of the church’s spirituality group. Unlike many of her peers, who prefer women’s groups that use a programmatic format, Bishop thrives on ritual groups. And, at First Universalist, she has long been a key organizer for such groups and a mentor to the younger women who participate in them.

Bishop has been active in the Women’s Group, the AUW at First Universalist Church in Minneapolis, since 1962, when she attended the traditional Fall Tea at the church for the first time with her mother-in-law, Frederica Bishop. Bishop has seen the AUW transmute from a group that met over lunch with a special program for the monthly meetings, to an organization that added an evening “unit,” to its present structure. Today, the AUW is an organization with an umbrella that supports a variety of satellite groups in addition to its long-standing daytimers’ and evening programs. Bishop credits the long-term success of the AUW to members’ ability to adjust, and change frequently as women’s circumstances and needs have changed over the years. And, explained Bishop, members of the AUW have kept a tradition of saying “yes” to requests by individuals and subgroups wishing to start new programs—no matter how unusual they seemed at the outset.

In 1978, the UU Women’s Federation published its first curriculum, Cakes for the Queen of Heaven (see Resources), designed specifically for women’s circle groups, and Bishop soon led a group at First Universalist using the curriculum. Later, when the UUWF published Rise Up and Call Her Name (see Resources), other circle groups (though not all female) were formed and led by LauraLee Clinchard and others.

Bishop and several other long-time leaders including Mary Jane Anderson, Betty Benjamin, Drusilla Cummins, and Sylvia Rudolph have taken turns attending Women’s Federation meetings at General Assembly during the past four decades. Exposure to the Women’s Federation has influenced the women’s group dramatically, giving church leaders ideas about programming, curricula, and helping them to develop skills in leadership. According to Bishop, “There has always been energetic programming for women (by the UUWF) at General Assembly, but it has not always carried over to the smaller churches and fellowships.”