For Immediate Release

Princeton Theological Seminary to Host Annual Women in Church and Ministry Lecture

—March 31 lecture will feature Marjorie J. Thompson of the Upper Room Ministries and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of women’s ordination as ministers in the Presbyterian Church (USA)—

Princeton, NJ, March 22, 2005 –Princeton Theological Seminary’s 2005 Women in Church and Ministry Lecture will feature Marjorie J. Thompson, the director of Pathways in Congregational Spirituality and director for Companions in Christ at Upper Room Ministries in Nashville, Tennessee. Thompson’s lecture, titled "Celtic Spirituality and the Scared Feminine," will be delivered on March 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the Seminary’s Miller Chapel.

Thompson, an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA), has served as adjunct faculty for several seminaries, including McCormick Theological Seminary, Auburn Theological Seminary, Wesley Theological Seminary, and Vanderbilt Divinity School. She has also served as an associate pastor for education and small group life at the First Presbyterian Church of Stamford, Connecticut. Among Thompson’s published works are her books, Family: The Forming Center, published by The Upper Room in 1989, and Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life, published by Westminster/John Knox Press in 1995. Her writings have also appeared in Weavings, Worship, The Upper Room Disciples, The Abingdon Preacher’s Annual, and A Reader’s Companion to Crossing the Threshold of Hope: Sixteen Writers on the Pastoral Writings of Pope John Paul II.

The Women in Church and Ministry Lecture is sponsored annually by Princeton Theological Seminary’s Women in Church and Ministry Committee (WICAM). The lecture usually takes place during a conference for women in ministry. This year’s conference, which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of women being ordained as deacons, the 75th anniversary of women being ordained as elders, and the 50th anniversary of women being ordained as ministers of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA), is being cosponsored by the Princeton Theological Seminary Center of Continuing Education and the National Association of Presbyterian Clergywomen.  The conference registration is full.   

The lecture is open to the public and free of charge. Please call Kathy Perelli at 609-497-7880 for more information.