AbstractsWomens Studies

In this research, personal experience of being a white Christian woman from the UK in leadership in a different cultural context in Africa was used to initiate conversations with six female Christian ministers from African, Caribbean and Indian Sikh heritages in Britain. The purpose of the research was to explore the realities of the individual lives of black or Asian women in church ministry, and to explore what qualities were exhibited and strategies used in their ministries. Using an autoethnographic methodology, conversations were designed and initiated by the researcher around issues of calling, vocation and mission, gender, race, ethnicity and culture, women as community builders, costs and sacrifices, rewards and fulfilments, honour and dishonour and the future of black or Asian women in church ministry in Britain. Comparisons were drawn with the writer’s experience of being a white woman in Christian missionary service in Liberia, West Africa. It is hoped that this qualitative enquiry will contribute to the inclusion and empowerment of black, Asian and white women in Christian ministry and leadership and that the reality of these experiences will help other women beginning the same journey.