Welcoming Elizabeth Abel T’15, District Superintendent of the New York Annual Conference
November 2024 – The Drew Theological School community gathered in person and online for a special chapel service celebrating the first anniversary of the Women’s Ministerial Alliance (WoMA) student-led caucus.
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WoMA is committed to social justice for all who self-identify as female, regardless of race, ethnicity, or religious affiliation. The caucus seeks to provide the Drew community with spiritual formation, leadership development, and general wellness support to transform, empower, and impact Drew as a whole community.
WoMA uses spiritual formation and social justice to counter gender and race biases impacting its members and anyone in the Drew community who self-identifies as female.
“We’re in a moment where we come together to be thankful for the calling and work of WoMa,” said Theological School Dean Edwin David Aponte as he welcomed attendees.
“Your resilience, courage, and persistence in continuing to bring yourselves together is inspirational to me,” added Associate Dean of Vocation and Formation Tanya Linn Bennett. “It’s been my honor and blessing to walk with you through this journey. My prayer is that you continue to come together, knowing that we rally around you. We’re your allies, your advocates, your siblings in Christ.”
“We walk together and we will be strong in the face of what is to come,” said Bennett.
James W. Pearsall Professor of Christian Ethics and African American Studies Traci West shared praise for the student-led group, which she serves as a faculty advisor, together with Althea Spencer-Miller, assistant professor of New Testament. “This is a WoMa moment because you unabashedly, unapologetically, claim the space for expansive expressions of gender, womanness, of affirming and celebrating a sisterhood that reflects the power and dignity and the worth endowed in us by our creator God. We recognize her in all of us.”
WoMa welcomed special guest Rev. Elizabeth Abel T’15, District Superintendent of the Long Island West District of the New York Annual Conference, to preach her message, Grace in Abundance.
“Take this time to remember who God is and made you to be,” she said. “We are to know that we are called for God’s purpose, especially in this season. You were called. You were elected for this season right now.”
“This church, this world, this God, needs you today,” continued Abel. “It is not a mistake that you are living in this space at this moment in time. God called us for God’s purpose. Grace in abundance is our everyday, all the time, and more so when the world around us seems to be falling apart.”