The Ghanaian PCG Tent Women Clergy as Revolutionaries

GRACE SINTIM ADASI

Since 1979, after attaining access to most roles in Ghanaian society and churches, ordained women in various communities have combined duties as Christian ministers with their duties in other professions. The term “tent” refers the women clergy who also are teachers, nurses, medical doctors, bankers, politicians, lawyers, farmers, traders, engineers, professors, soldiers, and more. They successfully combine roles to make themselves revolutionaries. Using library and archival materials as well as data from field research, this study reveals that women leaders in church and society are merging professions so effectively that they deserve acknowledgement for important ministry contributions, especially to the advancement of women. The study recommends that women should be partnered equally with men in their role performance in the church and society. Key Words: Women, Tent Ministers, Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Revolutionary

Introduction

This paper highlights outstanding roles that some ordained women ministers play in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG). Using ordained women ministers for illustrations of their performance, the paper provides detailed information on the post-ordination experiences of tent women clergy as they double their roles by working within secular professions and maintaining their families. The paper specifically discusses “tent ministers.” This term refers to those ministers who have been ordained but hold a full time secular job. In such an instance, the ordained minister does not work in the church as a full time minister but mostly serves as a second or third minister in the case of bigger congregations. However, a tent minister could be given a “teething” or smaller congregation to pastor, with the support of church officials such as a catechist. African women theologians, including African women clergy, are not only producers of theology, but they also are primarily recognized as “activist theologians,” who are interested in gender justice and who take part in social development and social welfare work, conducting gender sensitization activities, conducting HIV and AIDS sensitization events, engaging antipoverty work, and more.¹ An element of their ultimate goal is to advocate for gender justice and to change the patriarchal system that is predominant in the places of worship and the society at large.²

For a long time, women have been associated with the thriving of the Christian mission and ministry in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. They constitute the bulk of the PCG, and their contributions toward the church throughout history have been a subject for discussion.³ Since the 1900s, women have taken on leadership positions in the PCG as presbyters, deaconesses, catechists, lay preachers, children’s service teachers, women’s fellowship presidents, counselors, caretakers, junior youth (JY) teachers, and session clerks. They also lead (and have led) group discussions and Bible studies, undertake evangelistic campaigns, embark on developmental projects in the church, and, generally, participate fully in almost all aspects of the church’s activities. They have become the real backbones of the church and of their communities.⁴ However, the ordination of women in the PCG only occurred in 1979. Interestingly, the earlier women who were deaconesses before commissioning and those who were first commissioned as clergy worked mainly as chaplains in institutions such as schools and hospitals, rather than being in charge of congregations.

In all areas of ministry, the ordained women ministers performed the same roles as their men counterparts, which ranged from spiritual leadership to providing economic and social services. They performed in the areas of proclamation of the gospel through preaching, healing ministry, youth ministry, evangelism, organization and leadership of worship, counseling, leading workshops and seminars on marriage and family life, training persons for skills development, leading vocational training, providing social services, church planting, and leading building projects. Such women ministers had to take additional jobs to financially support themselves. This is because women ministers tend to be posted to smaller and financially struggling congregations whereas their male counterparts are mostly transferred to established and bigger congregations. This translates into the finances of the minister as the church is responsible for paying the larger part of the salary, complemented by the District and Head offices. Besides the financial issue, other socio-cultural factors such as marriage and motherhood, as well as negative attitudes and prejudices against women ministers impede their work. The tent women clergy have to juggle several roles while navigating through a complex men-dominated world.⁵ In addition, women and men struggle to reconcile their religious beliefs about men’s and women’s roles with social realities, especially economic factors that require women to share family financial responsibilities.

Some work has been done on women’s roles in the church including the researcher’s work on the roles and challenges of PCG women pastors. However, within the Ghanaian context this paper is a pioneering piece on the subject, especially analyses of how the women combine church work with secular work as tent ministers.⁶ Consequently, there is scarcity of information about the post ordination activities of women functioning simultaneously as PCG clergy and secular workers. This study is an attempt to investigate the roles of Ghanaian women clergy as revolutionaries who navigate through ministry and secular work in Ghana. I use the word revolutionary because these women have had to surmount the period of debate on ordination of women to have a meaningful impact on the PCG ministry. The essay provides both detailed information on the post-ordination experiences of women ministers as they double up their roles with secular professions and describes how their evolving roles have impacted them and their congregations.

Methodology

To develop a contextual understanding of the work of tent women ministers, I used a combination of methods to gather data. The first step was the administration of an open-ended questionnaire to five hundred respondents, including selected ordained ministers (women and men), church elders, and agents and congregational members of the churches the tent women ministers serve. Open-ended questions were designed to permit unrestricted answers from respondents. These five hundred respondents included fifty ordained women ministers, one hundred ordained men ministers, one hundred and fifty church elders (presbyters, catechists, group leaders in various congregations where these women have ministered), one-hundred and eighty congregational members, and twenty staff of the PCG Women’s Center at Abokobi. The second phase of the data collection was organization of in-depth interviews with ordained women and men; relatives of deceased women ministers; key figures such as A.L. Kwansa (of blessed memory), a former Synod Clerk who was involved in the debate about women’s ordination in the PCG during the mid-70s; and lay representatives who were present during this meeting. Others included in the interviews were a former General Assembly Moderator, Samuel Prempeh; a church historian, Amfo Akonor; Christian Ocloo; and a former director of Ramseyer Training Centre (a Presbyterian centre for training ministers). In addition to the surveys and interviews, the researcher used library and archival materials. Finally, the researcher also derived data for the study from her own experience as a tent minister of the PCG. I was commissioned in 2010 and ordained in 2012. I have served in congregations such as the National Union of Presbyterian Students-University of Ghana (NUPS-UG), University of Ghana campus, the PCG Kuntunse congregation, and the Ayawaso PCG and Ashalaja PCG congregations. I hold a secular job as a lecturer in a university while doubling as a wife and a mother to three young women, who were young girls at the time of my ordination. I very much shared in experiences similar to those of the women included in this study.

While they are not assigned responsibilities which are profoundly different from their men counterparts, there is no disputing the fact that PGC women clergy also have to go the extra mile to justify their inclusion in the formal ministry of the family of God. They take up social services and advocacy roles and are very much at the centre of the expansion of the PCG. Although these experiences might not be different from women clergy in other denominations, the present study is interested in and focuses only on the experiences of tent women ministers in the PCG.

Problems Related to Women’s Leadership in the Church

Even though the PCG preaches an all-inclusive gospel, she finds it difficult to link the same inclusion with women’s leadership roles. This reality of excluding African women’s contributions and experiences is echoed by Mercy Amba Oduyoye when she writes: “The story that continues to go untold is that of those [women] who stayed and worked…. Let us tell the stories of our fore sisters, for such is the pecking order of the church’s historiology, that unless one is an arch-heretic, a bishop, a male missionary or a wealthy member, one does not get space in the records.”⁷ Gender-based segregation is largely evident in the socio-economic and religious activities and the patterns and roles set for women and men in traditional African societies. Thus, historically, in the PCG, women were not only prevented from occupying certain societal and ecclesiastical positions in the church because of their sex, but they also were assigned different roles that centre on the home. As Oduyoye further argues, the perception is that “in Africa, women make pots which are sold cheaply; men make ritual objects and carvings that are highly regarded.”⁸ In effect, the social differentiation between men and women was determined just as the wheels of culture were set in motion. Letty Russell also asserts the view that across many cultures the existing gendered system does not encourage women to live to their full potential, whether in the church or society in general. She, therefore, argues that women and men should act in partnership so that both men and women are given equal opportunity if they have the skills to be leaders in the church.⁹ Scholars such as Christian Gaba argue that traditionally in Africa, some women can be diviners and priestesses performing all the functions of priests.¹⁰

It must be admitted that not all the theories and critiques advanced by women scholars apply to all situations. For instance, there have been calls by scholars such as Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí, to pay attention to the ways in which cultural and linguistic difference can play significant roles in defining women’s positions.¹¹ Again, women’s problems cannot be universalized, especially in places such as Africa where, for instance, different inheritance patterns have different consequences for women’s lives. As such, there is the need to put all feminist theories into their proper historical and cultural context in order to make them relevant. It is within this frame of thought that this discussion on the roles and challenges of ordained women ministers is based. Mercy Oduyoye argues that feminism “has become the shorthand for the proclamation that women’s experience should become an integral part of what goes into the definition of being human.”¹² Oduyoye further explains that feminism is not a word referring to women only but is a part of the whole movement geared toward liberating the human community from entrenched attitudes and structures that can only operate if dichotomies and hierarchies are maintained.¹³ In this she also argues that both men and women should be given equal opportunity and work together in order to liberate the human community from entrenched attitudes and structures.¹⁴

The reluctance to give women equal rights in religious settings in Ghana is alarming. Indeed, women had to wade through misconceptions and misgivings about their abilities before they were ordained.¹⁵ While there were arguments based on the Bible, exemplified, for example, by referring to Jesus’s calling only men disciples, there was in contrast the reality that women formed the bulk of the congregations and had a great track record at building congregations and working to sustain such congregations. Initially, after women’s ordination in 1979, the PCG did not assign them to lead congregations. Rather, some served as chaplains of institutions. Although they were ordained, they had to resort to working as chaplains within the institutions where they already worked. For instance, women who were teachers before being ordained had to maintain their work and double as the chaplain for the school. This means that it took a longer period for women to be in full charge of churches, although they had been ordained. As a result, the ordained women had to perform varied roles, combining chaplaincy with their secular professional duties.¹⁶ In some cases, the few women who became full time ministers in the PCG from 1979 were put in charge of congregations that were not financially self-sustaining. There is, however, no doubt that the roles which tent women ministers play have had a significant impact on the church and have, thus, made them revolutionaries as they make space for themselves and those women who follow them in the PCG.

The Roles of Woman Tent Ministers in the PCG

In this study, the researcher reviewed work of some tent women clergy serving as principals of tertiary institutions, professors, lecturers at the various universities and research institutes, teachers in the secondary and primary schools, health personnel, security personnel, bankers, traders, administrators, and managers in educational institutions. The review included analysis of their church work and activities and examination of their roles vis à vis secular jobs and social encounters. Interviews with the tent women ministers focused especially on the issues they encounter. The following was the primary question posed for analyses: How do tent women ministers negotiate the issues they encounter in performing their jobs as ministers and secular professionals?

Presently, as noted above, tent women ministers hold a variety of posts in the society apart from their functions in ministry. The researcher found a wide range of exemplars. These include Ernestina Afriyie, former minister in charge of PCG Sakumono Congregation, who is a senior lecturer at Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission, and Culture. Esther Segbefia is a nurse at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and is minister in charge of a congregation. Joana Koranteng, a retired educationist with the Ghana Education Service, is minister in charge of a PCG congregation, Abeka. Josephine Ankrah, an administrator, also is minister in charge of a congregation. Florence Simpson, Director of Victory Presbyterian School, is minister in charge of a congregation. Getrude Adobea Owusu, professor at the University of Ghana, is minister in charge of the National Union of Presbyterian Students at the University of Ghana. Baaba Oduro Boateng, officer of internal revenue, is second minister of Grace Congregation, Westlands, Accra. Josephine Tawiah a businesswoman who sells cloth at Makola market in Accra, initiated the market ministry in the PCG. Again, Florence Simpson, mentioned above, initiated the French congregation of the PCG at Shiashi, East Legon, in the Greater Accra Region, which is the first of its kind. Gradually, the PGC women ministers also have occupied positions such as chaplains in the industries and Ghana Armed Forces, congregational heads, district ministers, administrators of PCG lay centres, regional managers of PCG schools, presbytery chairpersons/clerks, and they have been missionaries. These pose a big challenge because alongside secular professions they are performing numerous ministry roles, as are their men counterparts, ranging from spiritual to economic to social service roles.

One of the most basic roles which PCG women clergy perform is their chaplaincy work. As women who have been called into the ministry, they have deemed it necessary to spread the word as they are tasked to do upon their ordination. After entering ministry, some of the ordained women were posted to the hospitals, industries, schools, and security sector as chaplains. The security sector in this context includes the armed forces as well as police and prison services. The philosophy behind occupational chaplaincy is to affirm employee wellbeing and engender productivity. The expectation is that employees are not to be distracted by marriage and family crises, alcohol, drugs and other addictions including myriad personal and spiritual problems which make the services of a chaplain germane to the growth of any institution. Dora Ofori Owusu, Gladys Maku Nyarko, Alice Kyei-Anti, and Mercy Agyei Dankyi were chaplains at the following schools and hospitals: Presbyterian Women’s Training College at Aburi, Agogo Women’s Training College at Agogo, and health institutions such as Sandema, Bawku, Bolgatanga, Donkokurom and Techiman Hospitals. Rose Akua Ampofo (of blessed memory), for instance, was an assistant chaplain in the Urban and Industrial Mission at Tema between the years 1985 to 1990. Her duties included proclamation of the gospel through preaching, visitation, organizing and leading worship, leading seminars, and offering vocational training. Ampofo also organized and led morning devotions and Bible studies. She organized seminars on single parenthood for women factory workers, provided training and counseling on topics that dealt with adolescence, and engaged in lobbying and advocacy in the work environment. Moreover, she introduced the young recruit women to vocational training such as hair dressing, batik, and die making.

Another renowned tent minister Irene Sarbah serves in the Ghana Armed Forces Chaplaincy. The Ghana Army as an institution has built chaplaincy into all areas of the services, and no group of the army moves for an assignment without a chaplain. The chaplain is always with the troops as they move in any direction. The women chaplains help young people who are preparing for war by proclaiming the gospel to them and strengthening them before their assignments. Women chaplains help to bridge and link the church with the barracks community. The women military chaplains also conduct family life counseling, career and guidance counseling, and they train the cell (a small group of members who have regular meetings as a result of their proximity to each other) and committee members (those members selected to be in charge of various committees in the church, e.g, welfare committee). In the Security Service the chaplain organizes and runs programmes for spouses of security personnel on issues relating to family life. This has helped to improve the family-life of many personnel. The work of women chaplains also includes psychosocial support for deployed officers and the families which officers have left behind during deployment.

In the area of health, the ordained women clergy nurses bring their profession (addressing health issues) into churches from which congregants benefit. They gather congregants and give talks on health and provide guidance on health hazards. Esther Segbefia, a minister and a nurse at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital always has her instruments and brochures to share as she checks members’ blood pressure and weight during conferences, including the annual PCG Ministers and Presbytery annual conferences she attends with her colleague ministers. She advises them on dieting, cholesterol levels, and quality methods of living. Ministers such as Dora Ofori Owusu, Alice Kyei-Anti and Mercy Adjei Dankyi were known to have joined a PCG mobile clinic team at Bolgatanga, Bawku, and Sandema in the Upper East Region when they were deaconesses even before being commissioned and ordained.¹⁷

Ghanaian tent women ministers have been administrators/managers of the various institutions that they serve. They have been involved in women’s activism and empowerment, bringing about social, political, economic and religious changes in the lives of people in the society. Their leadership roles have enhanced people’s lifestyles and empowered them, especially women, in the sense that through their efforts, they have increased the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Rose Ampofo, for example, was a renowned administrator known for her resilience. As an administrator, Ampofo empowered widows by drafting a liturgy on widowhood rites for use in churches which the PCG continues to use today. The widowhood liturgy continues to be a contribution to the liberation of women from some of the negative socio-cultural practices. Ampofo’s other programmes met various needs of all PCG women and women in other institutions such as the Christian Council of Ghana and Scripture Union, among others. According to one informant, Ampofo believed in Kwegyir Aggrey’s¹⁸ dictum that “if you educate a man, you educate an individual but if you educate a woman you educate a nation.” She insisted that education is essential to human life; hence, she made the decision to build the Women’s Centre at Abokobi in the Greater Accra Region. Ampofo’s concern to uplift women is evident in accounts of work listed in her obituary brochure and based on responses from the staff of the Women’s Centre at Abokobi.¹⁹ Ampofo was appointed a General Secretary of the Presbyterian Women’s Fellowship, serving from 1986 to 1992. In that position she worked to improve the status and quality of the women’s ministry in the PCG.²⁰ She served as a counselor for Ghanaian women clergy (PCG) especially in relation to their problems in marriage, family life, workloads and other concerns. Her leadership roles implied assertiveness in almost every situation in which a woman found herself, presuming women had the ability to forge ahead, moving through obstacles with a strong determination to transform unfavorable circumstances.²¹

Ampofo initiated the Women’s Centre at Abokobi through networking. As the story goes, Ampofo convinced the Synod Committee to approve building the Centre; then, she vigorously mobilized PCG women to raise funds to the tune of one million, four hundred thousand old Ghana cedis to support it. The amount was raised from the sale of the women’s fellowship conference souvenirs for the project which began on the 22^nd of July 1987. She worked very hard with the seven-member committee put in place by the PCG and with financial support from her friends abroad, the church’s foreign partners. According to Cynthia Boama, “Rose could tap resources; manage the Centre coming out with simple layout and attractive buildings which won her a nickname ‘Chief Superintendent of Work.’”²² As an ordained woman minister, she was appointed a director of the Centre for ten years. As director, Ampofo performed administrative duties, and she sacrificed her personal belongings (a deep freezer, a vehicle, an overhead projector, and a screen) for the work at the Centre. The tremendous efforts Ampofo put forward for the project to see the light of day paid off in the important role which the Centre continues to play in the life of the PCG and the nation as a whole. According to Felicia Adu Kumi (deceased), a former director of the PCG Women’s Centre at Abokobi, Rose Ampofo took “Abokobi, a small village in Ghana, to countless places in the world and brought all kinds of dignitaries from all over the world to Abokobi.”²³ In addition, Kumi asserts Rose Ampofo once said, “the mustard seed planted in Abokobi on the 22^nd July 1987 has indeed blossomed, and it has grown into an enormous tree in which birds [from] all over the world stop over and build their nests.”²⁴ It is stated in the Presbyterian Women’s Centre’s vision and mission statement that the Centre aims to be the voice of women in social development and a channel of change especially in the area of negative socio-cultural practices against women.²⁵

As primarily a lay institution of the PCG, the Women’s Centre at Abokobi is dedicated to improving the lives of all women. Skills are imparted to participants (especially women) to assist them in performing leadership roles and contributing meaningfully to their families and the society as a whole. The Centre offers a variety of training programmes that empower women especially in the area of communication and business skills, for, according to Ampofo, “education is something which no one can take away from you. It gives you self-esteem. If you have education, you can earn money and are less dependent upon your husband.”²⁶ Workshops are organized on topical issues such as environmental problems and HIV/AIDS. The Centre organizes about twenty programmes annually which are designed to meet both the spiritual and physical needs of women. The spiritual programmes include retreats, Bible studies, prayer and fasting sessions, among others. The Bible study workshops seek to equip women leaders in the church with information that supports their appreciating the significant roles played by women in the Bible. Accordingly, one of the respondents, Felicia Adu Kumi (deceased), the former director of the Centre from 2002-2010, opined that “the programmes empower women to understand the Bible and understand their nature as women.”²⁷ This is done through the programmes held for the women by the Centre, which seek to use the Bible as a tool in for interpretation to dispel unsupported ideas that have been used to subject women. Many of the retreats equip lay women serving in PCG leadership positions, such as presbyters, catechists, and women’s fellowship presidents, to meet and discuss issues such as leading worship and liturgy, and also how to study the Bible together. Moreover, at the Centre, Kumi noted, they offer programmes in the form of training for leadership, health and nutrition, farming techniques, family life education, preparing adult trainers, and general awareness and sensitization programmes that discuss issues affecting women such as widowhood rites, violence against women, inheritance, other gender issues, etc.

Centre programs address violence against women and girls, which is one of the most widespread violations of human rights. It can include physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse, and it cuts across boundaries of age, race, culture, wealth, and geography. It takes place everywhere, including the home, school, the workplace, in farm fields, in refugee camps, during conflicts and crises, and more. Ampofo is remembered for her quick-witted approach to rebutting instances of domestic violence by using scriptural words to counteract such limited and narrow interpretations of biblical edicts. For her, the admonition of Paul which says “husbands love your wives” is a pointer to the fact that a loving husband will not, under any circumstances, perpetrate violence in whatever form against his wife so as to portray his position as family head or patriarch. For a loving husband recognizes the worth of his wife and regards her as an equal partner in the running of the home. Some of the programmes initiated at the Centre at Abokobi aim at giving women the skills for coping with their general functions as leaders in a socio-cultural and religious environment which is mostly suppressive of women.

As General Secretaries of the Women’s Work Central Committee (WWCC, now Committee on Women’s Ministry) of the PCG, some of the tent women ministers have performed their administrative roles even on international platforms by their attendance and participation in international conferences. Kyei-Anti and Ampofo embarked on assignments in the WWCC and inculcated within women the principles of hard work, a sense of hope, and a sense of motivation for pursuing whatever cause they want to embark upon. Through their positions, they helped develop the talents of women for work within and beyond Ghana. The position as General Secretary of the WWCC also afforded PCG women ministers the opportunity to organize workshops and seminars focused on violence against women and children, the environment, child survival and development, and women and tradition. It is worth discussing some of these topical issues as they relate to the concepts of justice and oppression. The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (DEVAW), which was passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, describes violence against women as encompassing acts that result in “physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”²⁸ One could surmise that this includes battery, sexual abuse of girls, marital rape, women’s genital cutting, and other traditional practices harmful to women, such as violence related to exploitation. In performing their role as General Secretary of the WWCC, Kyei-Anti and Ampofo are said to have maintained ecumenical contacts on the national and international levels, which enabled them to help the Presbyterian Church of Ghana forge beneficial linkages with other sectors on these and other issues, both locally and internationally.

Tent Women Ministers as Revolutionaries

Brigid Sackey confirms that, when the first level of colonial damage was done, women’s lines of cultural authority and socio-political power were destroyed and completely eliminated by foreign European/Arabian men-centered systems of authority and governance.²⁹ For instance, the colonial authorities refused to acknowledge the institution of the “queen mother” as an equal or complementary political authority by dealing with only male rulers and in the process invalidated female authority. Foreign encounters have robbed women of their place in society and resulted in the consequent suppression of women in all aspects of society. The elimination of women in very significant positions in society is also present, even in the religious contexts, especially in Christianity. While PCG women still face resistance to their ordination, the roles they have played and continue to play have made them revolutionaries and forces to be reckoned with in the PCG as they push against and overcome barriers to make room for themselves and those women who will follow.

The work of tent women ministers has empowered their congregants, especially helping women realize that the near deathblow to their psyches through the “dewomanization” of their historic authority and socio-political power is something of the past. Their reality as women who are mostly reduced to and, in the view of many, remain only as an extension of their husbands must be obliterated to facilitate a return to their sharing cultural and political power with men and being viewed as daughters who are equal heirs in the kingdom of God.³⁰ Of equal importance in this journey to empower women are the challenging issues related to women, tradition, and religion. It is factual that in Ghana, certain cultural practices infringe on the liberties of women, and these cultural practices have been condemned during seminars for women, especially those by Ampofo. Some cultural practices that are regarded as anathema are the ritual servitude of Trokosi, genital cutting, early marriage, sexual slavery, forced abortion and sterilization. Both traditional religion and biblical injunction are used to subjugate women, thereby oppressing them and forcing many into servitude and a world of silence in the midst of these travesties.

The significance of women clergy seminars and workshops on the above themes is that they portray the women clergy as sensitive persons who are desirous of helping women to extricate themselves from social, economic, physical, psychological and political forms of violence as these are inimical to the precepts of justice, peace, godliness and decency, in general, and women’s wellbeing, in particular. In this work, the tent women clergy can be classified as fighters for freedom based on humanism. This view is reinforced by Martin Knispel’s characterization of Ampofo in these words: “Rose was empathic; she was deeply moved by other people’s burdens. She pointed out that the church could be more relevant to women and young people if she could take a stronger stance in some issues like violence against women and children for example.”³¹

The work of tent women ministers has made them revolutionaries. The initial misgivings about their abilities to lead and make a significant impact in the PCG have been overcome by the various roles the tent women ministers play and the significance of such roles to their members and to the PCG. As women, they are better able to reach women members of the congregations and are readily engaged in social services such as maternal care, family life counseling, and attending to a variety of realities that affect health outcomes of congregants. Some of the tent women clergy play multiple roles and notable features stand out in their role performance in the areas of networking and human relationship. They bring out their gifts not only as women, but also as Christian women, performing their duties creditably. The contributions of tent women clergy who are professional teachers, nurses, revenue officers, media women, military women, and more show that being clergy person does not mean duties are confined only to the church; their work also implies applicability of their identities and roles as clergy to all places and spheres of life. Rose Akua Ampofo and other administrators bring their interpersonal relational skills into good use as they initiate projects and build centres and schools. As administrators, they work in and impact communities, not only in the churches but also in local areas and professional settings. Their work is not abstract, but rather, their work can be realized in the day to day life of people. These women should be acknowledged all the time.

More importantly, these women ministers stimulate activism and women’s empowerment by visiting mothers in their homes, hospitals and clinics to educate and teach them about the love of God and their status as equal heirs in the kingdom of God. They assist and administer medicines to the sick, especially children. Kyei-Anti recalled how, as a chaplain at Donkokurom hospital, she promoted socio-economic development through advocacy and effective delivery of social services by connecting with British Water Aid to bring portable water to the people there as she advised them not to drink untreated river water. She indicated that she always accompanied the then District Chief Executive, Nana Odefoe Adade Bekoe, to advise the people to bring their children for immunization. Kyei-Anti contributed to children’s immunization with the poor and sick fund from the hospital, and “she travelled on tractors to immunize children, sometimes on motor bikes with boxes hanging behind her.”³²

Through workshops and seminars, the tent clergy women chaplains indicated that they pursued activities and programs geared toward women’s welfare at the intra- and inter-church levels. For example, they organized the women to participate in religious, community and national programmes such as seminars, talks, parades, and visitations. They helped homeless women to build kitchens and learn vocations. They maintain dual roles as chaplains and nurses, combining day and night shifts. On Sundays, they preach to several congregations.

Conclusion

Tent women clergy have performed and excelled in various aspects of their work. In the area of health services, the women chaplains helped the PCG in the healing ministry reach out to some of the people with the greatest medical needs. Some of these chaplains are professional nurses as well as ordained ministers. These women ministers work in two worlds, the world of religion and the world of medicine. They provide pastoral care for the patients, support the patients’ families, and support the care giving staff. In the area of management, tent women clergy work as effective administrators and have contributed immensely in various ways to building and growing the PCG. Finally, and undoubtedly, tent women clergy in the PCG have played and they still play significant roles in the church, just as their men counterparts do, by influencing lives in the society. The women spearheaded various initiatives and also have seen to the building and establishment of their visions. Amidst the challenges in combining and managing multiple roles, these tent ministers have proven to be extraordinary in the performance of their duties. It is important to give recognition to their work.

Recommendations

So far, this study is a pioneering systematic analysis of tent women ministers in the Presbyterian Church in Ghana. It is, in a way, opening doors for more research on women’s activities in the PCG. I hope other scholars will continue to do research on the activities of tent women clergy in the other Christian churches as well. This paper has unearthed several issues about the roles of tent women ministers. First, from our discussions above, the tent women ministers should be commended for their good work, and avenues should be opened for them to attain the decision-making positions in the PCG. Second, one of the areas that needs a remedy in the PCG is that of equal training facilities for both men and women in theological education for effective ministry. Women who intend to work in the church need thorough theological training in order to do good ministry work as well as to counsel and help other women at all levels. Women work among the laity, and they foster co-operation, and this means that the gifted women should be encouraged to use their gifts for service of the PCG through access to equal education.

Third, research findings indicate that there are some congregants who do not want women ministers to be posted to their congregations. There is the need to educate such congregants about the tent women’s contributions in the church. Congregational members who want to contest women’s clergy leadership from the session level should be encouraged to change their attitudes towards women. Fourth, there should be some sensitizing programmes to entice women into the ministry to mitigate men’s dominance in the ministry. The church should initiate some workshops and seminars, especially on the ordained ministry, to encourage the younger women into formal ministry. Moreover, officials should put effort into training Bible study leaders to be sensitive to gender issues. For example, there should be contextual biblical interpretation on the character traits of some women in the Bible such as Deborah, Lydia, Mary Magdalene, the woman of Samaria, etc., who performed credibly. Fifth, the PCG should support instilling self-confidence in both girls and boys right from the home, in the Sunday schools, and in Christian fellowships to help them both know that they have the capabilities to do what other human beings do. There should be no gender role differentiation. Women should be encouraged to be self-confident in pursuing theological professionalism and leadership roles in ecclesiastical communities. Women are to be encouraged to ward off the false charges of physical frailty and intellectual disability. I suggest that the PCG should consider encouraging women to study theology at a level that will enable them to appreciate and understand issues better, especially as it relates to women. Further, men should not be presented as the image of God while women are viewed as being God’s image through their relationship with men. It is also our recommendation that equal posting facilities be made available to all ministers without discrimination on the grounds of gender. Finally, women must work to dismantle and overthrow patriarchal culture, which harms not just women but the whole of Ghanaian society. They should use non-violent but effective weapons and means to achieve their goal through advocacy and education.

In view of challenges tent women clergy face about how to adequately combine their various roles (work time, wife, mother, minister), I recommend that the PCG develop clergy seminars and workshops on topics such as time management. This will help ministers learn to apportion their time for efficiency. Those in the tent ministry will have, in addition, their secular employment to consider. In addition, to affirm the leadership roles of women in ministry, there should be seminars/workshops for men spouses of the ordained women ministers on topics such as complementing roles in the home. Such seminars and workshops will support tent women clergy’s spouses in being understanding and cooperative because their wives also hold other leadership and challenging positions as teachers, lecturers, bankers, lawyers, judges, police officers, soldiers, doctors, engineers, and architects, among others.

Many institutions in Africa give prominence to men, and the PCG is no exception. The PCG should mount a massive educational campaign to lead its members to depart from the patriarchal views of its founders, in which a woman’s status is regarded as inferior to that of the man. It must be understood that in Christ there is no gender difference and that men and women are equal. The patriarchal union that does not accept women as capable of holding positions in the society should allow women the opportunity to serve in all capacities. All positions in the church should be all inclusive and not to be gendered.

NOTES