Church Women United

CHURCH WOMEN UNITED REP: Ruth Schevenius

jschev@usfamily.net    952-474-2617     

 Church Women United is an ecumenical, multi-cultural, national Christian women's movement which has been in existence since 1941 and to this day continues to work for peace and justice. 

Mary Gates Received Valiant Woman Award at the Annual Meeting on August 14.    To qualify for the award a woman must have given service to Church Women United, her own church, and her community for an extended period of time. She does not have to be a leader but can be someone who leads in a quiet way through her example. She is an individual who lives the Gospel message in her every day life. Mary has held many positions in United Methodist Women, Girl Scouts, and at Simpson UMC. She works tirelessly for justice and to improve the lives of women, children, and youth. Mary was also the catalyst in forming the new unit at Emma Norton Residence. Please join in congratulating Mary for receiving this long overdue award!

Our Mission

Church Women United is a racially, culturally, theologically inclusive Christian women’s movement, celebrating unity in diversity and working for a world of peace and justice. Founded in 1941, Church Women United is:

• a movement representing Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other Christian women;
• biblically based, shared Christian faith;
• organized into more than 1,200 local and state units working for peace and justice in the United States and Puerto Rico;
• supported by constituents in state and local units and denominational women’s organizations;
• impassioned by the Holy Spirit to act on behalf of women and children throughout the world; and
• recognized as a non-governmental organization by the United Nations.

Quadrennial Priority (2008-2012)

“Building a World Fit for All God’s Children”

Church Women United has a strong sense of identification with the needs of women, children and families and seeks ways to provide impacting support. Every four years CWU adopts a quadrennial priority area of concentration to focus its social justice advocacy and action on a specific area(s) of need. The quadrennial priority is embraced by the movement and is used to guide CWU’s work at the local, state and national levels. CWU’s priority this quadrennial is “Building a World Fit for All God’s Children.” Local, state and national Church Women United units intend to be prayerfully informed and proactive in addressing the following issues from the perspective of women, children and families around the world.

Our History  

Since 1941 women of the Church Women United Movement have held a vision of Christian unity and prayerful action. CWU was founded as a racially, culturally, and theologically inclusive Christian women’s movement to celebrate unity in diversity and work for peace in the world.

At its founding, the Movement was named United Council of Church Women (UCCW). Women of faith from three interdenominational women’s groups representing 70 denominations convened in Atlantic City, NJ in December, 1941 while bombs were being dropped and the world was at war. Can you visualize their fortitude, their resolve, their strength to action? They felt like we did on 911 because they were there in Atlantic City less than a week after Pearl Harbor!

The United Council of Church Women’s first action was to circulate a petition signed by 84,000 church women “urging the United States at the signing of the United Nations Charter, to join and take its full responsibility in a world organization.”

The action received wide publicity in the media and Eleanor Roosevelt later involved the UCCW in a conference at the White House on “How Women May Share in Post War Policy Making.” Such action remains typical for CWU today as its quest for informed prayer for prayerful action continues. Women of the Movement affirm that prayer and action are inseparable and that both have immeasurable influence in the world.

I think about our modern day world. How fast we want things to happen. Our preference is to trim things down into in commercial sized segments. As 21st Century women we may work and think differently but our conviction for the work is similar. Our CWU mothers were true, fastidious, focused. So are we. They saw the work to be done, planted an idea, birthed it, named it, nurtured it, and watched it grow. They have left it in our hands. That makes my knees weak, but there are so many more of us now and potentially, many, many, more.