The Committee on the Status of Women is interested in understanding how various circles of High School Youth and Young Adults (18-30 year olds) think about issues of expansive/inclusive language and women’s leadership. The following series of questions is designed to help CSW and Youth/Young Adults engage these issues.
Please use this conversation guide with groups of Youth/Young Adults or in a personal interview format. When facilitating a group discussion, you may wish to designate a scribe who can notate the responses to the questions you or the group has selected to answer. Please note that these questions vary in scope and language. If a particular question is not appropriate to the experience/language of the respondent(s), move to a more pertinent question. You may also find it helpful to provide a copy of these questions to the respondents for use during the discussion. In the interest of time, you may wish to select only a portion of the questions listed in this guide for discussion.
Questions or comments regarding this survey can be directed to Nicole Janelle (revjanelle@gmail.com), Stephanie Rhodes (skrhodes18@yahoo.com) or Mark Andrus (mandrus@dioala.org). Please return your completed form by electronically (preferably) to mandrus@dioala.org or via snail mail to The Rt. Rev. Mark Andrus, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, 521 North 20th Street, Birmingham, AL 35203.
Section 1:
1. Discussion facilitator: please tell us in a short paragraph about the social location of the group you are interviewing.
Self-identification questions for those being interviewed:
2. Do you attend a church? What is your denominational background?
3. What is your race/gender/age/class background/occupation/income?
Section 2: Leadership
4. How have you experienced a woman's role in the Church and in the world?
5. What has been your experience of women clergy (deacons, bishops, priests) leaders in the church?
6. How have you experienced, in your family growing up, the roles of women and men, boys and girls? How do you intend to structure these roles in your family or community?
7. Have you ever been in a culture or had an experience where women’s roles were different than your “normal” experience? Describe that experience.
8. Are you more comfortable with a man or a woman leading a congregation as sacramental leader? As warden? As preacher/homilist? Why? Are you more comfortable with a woman or man leading a diocese? Why?
9. What do you think might be the implications of saying that Christianity is an embodied/incarnate religion, e.g. a religion that is enfleshed, celebrates bodiliness?
10. Can you describe the ways you feel called to serve in the Church?
11. Do you experience women’s leadership in the workplace, school, church, as different from men’s leadership? How so?
12. In what way should Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered/Queer (GLBTQ) persons be a part of the church’s life?
13. If you were on a search committee in charge of calling/hiring a rector, would you feel the same calling a single woman rector as you would calling a single man rector? Divorced woman versus divorced man? Lesbian woman in a committed same-sex relationship versus a married heterosexual woman?
14. How do you respond to women clergy who are raising children?
15. What do you think are some of the challenges that women clergy and lay professional women face?
16. How do you think the Episcopal Church has changed with the ordination of women?
Section 3: Expansive & Inclusive Language
17. When you hear the term inclusive language, what are your thoughts? How would you define the idea of inclusive or expansive language?
Inclusive language is language which assumes that women and men are fully equivalent participants in humanity. Inclusive language is not biased in such a way that it perpetuates the tacit assumption that men are the standard form of human beings or of God.
Expansive language is language that pushes beyond gender in order to present/name God in terms that are not gendered or anthropomorphic.
18. Have you ever taken a class (Sunday school, youth group, seminar, college course) on the topic of inclusive language?
19. How has inclusive language impacted your life (family life, church life, work life) and the lives of others? Does your parish use inclusive language? In what way?
20. As a child how did you think of God? How do you think of God today? If your conceptualization of God has changed over time, to what do you attribute this shift?
21. Is there a particular image of God with which you particularly identify/connect? Is there a certain image of God that you find uncomfortable? Which of these images of God speaks to you the most and why?
Father, Son, Holy Spirit
Mother, Son, Holy Spirit
Source, Spring, Spirit
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver
Creator, Redeemer, Giver of life
Old, aching God
Warm, father God
Strong, mother God
Young, growing God
Great, living God, never fully known
22. Which version of the Lord Prayer speaks to you most deeply? [See insert] Why? What are some of the differences between these prayers?
23. How do you pray? Do you use traditional/standard prayers, dialogue, meditation, etc., to help you pray?
Section 4: Evaluation
24. If you were to “shop” or search for a church, what qualities would you seek in a parish and its leadership?
25. How important are these issues to you in choosing/belonging to a church? (Please answer in terms of very important, somewhat important, not important.)
-Inclusive and expansive language
-Enhanced roles of women's leadership
-Childcare, enabling persons who have responsibilities with respect to children to have the chance to participate fully in worship
-Inclusive community
-Peers of your age
-Other (please list)
26. Were these questions relevant to your life’s experience? If not, what types of questions would have been more fitting/congruent with your own life experience?
27. How has this discussion helped expand your vision of yourself in the church?
The Committee on the Status of Women thanks you for your participation!
Bonnie Anderson
Mark Andrus
Cindi Bartol
Bob Cowperthwaite
Lyn Headley-Deavours
Nicole Janelle
Mary Moreno Richardson
Cat Munz
Connie Ott
Stephanie Rhodes
Barbara Schlachter
Margaret Slingluff
