|
View from the Pew  Mary Adamski |
Methodists’ gift to Ripple
will benefit seminary
students
When island Methodists sought ideas for a farewell gift for the Rev. Barbara Grace Ripple as she steps down this month as Hawaii District superintendent, they came up with a gift that will keep giving.
They created a scholarship in her name for future seminary students. The investment in the church rather than a dream retirement trip or a memorial artifact for herself reflects the philosophy of the minister who cherishes friends and memories as the best gifts.
Ripple is the first woman to head the Hawaii District, a unit of the California-Pacific Conference of the national United Methodist Church. Her term at the top has been six years of frequent travel in a district that extends 3,500 miles west to Guam and Saipan, familiar territory for Ripple, who was a pastor on Saipan for the previous eight years and founder of Immanuel United Methodist Church there. As a church leader, she traveled to Tonga, the Philippines, South Korea and the Marshall Islands, as well as to monthly meetings at the Pasadena conference headquarters and numerous mainland meetings and seminars.
"I tried to be a bridge of support and encouragement between the churches, the pastors, the geographical challenges and the cultural differences of our immense district," she wrote in a farewell message to the 7,000 local Methodists.
With stimulating experiences abroad to remember, Ripple said she looks forward to stepping back into the role she began 23 years ago.
"Being a pastor is what God called me to do." So her first step into retirement next month leads to Church of the Crossroads, where members selected her to fill in for the Rev. Neal MacPherson during his six-month sabbatical. "I look forward to concentrating on worship, preaching and pastoral care."
"The biggest challenge I have faced is working with churches with shared ministries" where ministers and congregations with different ethnic roots and languages share space. "People trying to learn how to worship and live together, with the different traditions that people bring ... I try to help them listen to one another, to respect one another, even when the other has a different way of worshipping," said Ripple.
"For example, before a service, Tongan men form circle and have kava, which is often misunderstood by other people. For Koreans every worship service is followed by a communal meal.
"One of my passions is for the people of the Pacific islands," she said. "They are people of the land and of the sea. We all have a responsibility to help one another take care of the sea and care of the land." That concern stimulated Methodist church activism on behalf of Micronesians who are suffering physical illnesses as the effects of nuclear testing done by the United States in the Pacific a generation ago, she said.
Retired Methodist minister Sam Cox said: "I am glad she is going to continue in Hawaii as a terrific resource for us. She is pastoral, and she is fervent about social justice issues."
Cox, who heads the Open Table, an interfaith program that fosters dialogue between different religions, said Ripple "has been supportive of interfaith efforts in Christian unity and interreligious concerns.
"That she was picked by Crossroads speaks volumes," said Cox. The Makiki church has been a leader in peace, civil rights and justice initiatives since the 1960s. Ripple needed permission from her church to take the post in another denomination, the United Church of Christ.
She will continue to live in Hawaii with her husband, Jim, who retired as executive director of the Development Authority of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. They are the parents of 10 adult children and 18 grandchildren.
Following the Methodist tradition of activism, she has served on the boards of the Domestic Violence Clearinghouse and Legal Hotline and the Samaritan Counseling Center.
Several social justice issues -- genocide in Sudan, worker exploitation in Central America -- engaged delegates to the denomination's 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh last month.
The issue that took the national spotlight and has brought threats of division was about homosexuality: Should the church accept an admitted homosexual as a member? Should it ordain a homosexual to the ministry?
Ripple is among the members who seek change in a phrase in "The Book of Discipline," which, in addition to the Bible, directs the church. Words added in 1984 -- that a person must be "celibate in singleness, faithful in marriage" -- turned out to be "language used to discriminate against gay and lesbian people," Ripple said. "We keep trying to get it out, but it gets harder and harder."
That effort failed at the conference that ended May 7 and has been followed by rancorous postscripts.. A focal point is the Rev. Karen Dammann, who married her female partner of nine years in Oregon in March. She was tried and acquitted by a church court of a charge of "practices incompatible with Christian teaching." Dammann is on family leave from her pastoral position at an Oregon church.
"Karen Dammann was ordained by a bishop, and the judicial court ruled it did not have authority to override the bishop," Ripple explained. "So now some want to strengthen the power of the court."
"I don't believe homosexuality is a sin," said Ripple. "People are born that way. This is how God made them. It is not up to us to judge. The model for that is Jesus. He was the example of God's love for all persons."
The divisive discussion "was very painful and very hopeful," said Ripple. "In the UMC most of us believe that we don't all have to believe the same thing. We use our God-given reasoning to discern what God is telling us to do."
Cox described Ripple's hope as her strength. "She always takes a positive view, in a way that is a gift. She has the long view of it, I guess."
BACK TO TOP |
Isles Methodists have
N. Korean-born leaderThe new top United Methodist Church official in Hawaii was born in North Korea, the son of a Christian pastor who fled with his family from the communist regime there.
The Rev. Woong-Min Kim, 57, will take the post of Hawaii District superintendent on July 1. He was appointed to a six-year term by California-Pacific Conference Bishop Mary Ann Swenson.
Kim served as senior pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Makiki from 1988 to 2001 during a $6 million construction project that produced a new sanctuary, education wing and social hall at the Keeaumoku Street location.
He has been senior pastor of the Wilshire United Methodist Church in Los Angeles for three years and previously worked at other churches in Los Angeles and San Diego.
He was 4 years old when the Rev. and Mrs. Sang Bong Kim brought their family to South Korea. He grew up in Inchon. He earned a bachelor's degree from Seoul Methodist Theological Seminary, master's degrees at Yonsei Graduate School and Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, and a doctorate from Claremont School of Theology in California.
He and wife Jung-Hae have a son, Steve, and a daughter, Suzie.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Religion Calendar
Mary Adamski covers religion for the Star-Bulletin.
Email her at madamski@starbulletin.com.