Perhaps the weeks had been quiet in Lake Wobegon for most people, but
Pastor Helm had had the busiest summer of his life.  A lot had changed
since that fateful Thanksgiving day when he met Joe and Maria Jacobsen.
This past winter they'd got the big satellite dish and added 50
new members to the church where there'd only been fifteen before.  
The group had gotten so big that they had to move out of the upstairs
of the Chatterbox Cafe and rent the Knights of Columbus hall every Sabbath,
and they were still growing.

Now it was Labor Day, and Pastor Helm found himself brushing the first
frost off of his melon patch as he prepared to go into town and be
the umpire for the last baseball game of the season.  The lonely melons
in the melon patch echoed the mournful moos of the Holsteins across the road.
Every year it was tough to see his kids go away to boarding school,
but this year his daughter Melissa had started college and her smiling
face was not at the concession stand today.  

It wasn't just any college that was good enough for Melissa.  She'd insisted
on Columbia Union College, way out East in Maryland.  They'd offered her 
a softball scholarship, too.  So last week they'd loaded up the pickup truck
and made the long drive to Washington, DC.  He'd been a little shocked
when he was greeted by a young man with green hair and a nose ring, until
he learned that this was the assistant dean of men, then he'd been totally
floored.  Laura, Melissa's new roommate, had wasted no time on informing her 
of all the latest East Coast fashions and they'd made sure to make a shopping
trip to all the best and most expensive malls while Daddy was still there
with credit cards in hand.  "I'll write every week", she'd said, but after 
four years of boarding school he knew better than to expect that.  

Just as the ball game was finishing and the Whippets were slinking home
in defeat, he saw Ralph from the grocery store come running up.  He was
carrying a piece of paper.  "Fax for you!"  he said.  As he took the 
piece of paper, he could see that it was from Melissa.  Some new-fangled
Artiste font, all printed up nicely.  

"Dear Daddy," he read,  "I am having so much fun here at C.U.C.  This
church that they have is so totally awesome.  We could fit the whole
town of Lake Wobegon in here with room to spare.  And they've got six
pastors, and two of them are women.  I didn't know that a woman could 
be a pastor, but now I think I want to be one too.  I went to this meeting
on campus, I think it was called T.E.A.M.  

"They say that women are going to get the right to be ordained pretty soon
and that all we have to do is stand up for our rights a little bit and
the conference will cave in.  We are going to do some sit-ins at the local
conference offices in the next couple days, and of course the big 
day comes on September 23 when we have the first ordination service
for women at (what's that place called?  Slibo?  Skibo?) Sligo.. that's it.
I'll keep in touch...it's really great here!  All my love, Melissa."

His Melissa going to be a pastor?  The thought absolutely stunned him.
This just wasn't like her.  She'd said it was great at CUC.  Minnesotans
are only supposed to say "It could be worse."  She'd said she was going
to join in a protest activity.  Good Minnesotans just gritted their teeth
and bore their injustices patiently.  If she'd just done some teenage
thing like getting a boyfriend or dying her hair purple, he could have
taken it.  But studying for the ministry?  Whatever had gotten into this girl?

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing inside the 
house.  He rushed to try to pick it up but got there just in time to 
hear the answering machine click off.  The message was short and to the 
point.  "Pastor, this here is Mrs. Lutefisk.  We about this womens ministry
service today must talk."  He climbed into his pickup truck and started 
driving out to her farm.  He thought about what this woman had done for
the church over the years.  She and her late husband had been pillars
of the Lake Wobegon church ever since the thirties.  The old white
church had stood out on the Swede Road right across from their farmhouse.
Their son hadn't joined the church and had never made much of himself,
but his wife had opened the Chatterbox Cafe and so they'd been able to 
move the church to the upstairs of the Chatterbox once the old building fell
apart.

Once he pulled up, he saw Mrs. Trondheim's old Dodge Dart in the driveway
as well. Mrs. Lutefisk threw a couple apples into the Vita-mix and offered
him a glass of freshly squeezed juice.  "Elder Helm," she said, "What
for do they have women's ministry day?"

"It's to affirm that all believers have equal opportunity to minister
before God.  We want to say that in Christ all believers, male and female,
can be called to do anything in ministry for God?"

"So this is fine how-de-do.  Women run the church for last
hundred and fifty years and now they want we should be equal?  Is just a 
move to grab control.  If women start preaching, who is going to run the
church?"

"I think it is plot," said Mrs. Trondheim.  "Lars, my boy he is big
evangelist out West.  If he listened to his father he would just be a
farmer now, but he listened to me and now he is big shot.  Now his wife
wants him to settle down near Loma Linda but I tell him no, is too many
earthquakes there, keep preaching the gospel.  If I was pastor who would
make sure he did the right thing?"

Mrs. Lutefisk continued:  "First they wanted church clerk so I said
all right I will clerk.  Then they wanted Ingathering leader.  Then it 
was home and school.  Then Ingmar died and so I had to be elder.  Then 
they came up with this new-fangled womens ministry thing and we had
to fill the office somehow so I took that.  But they want we should be 
equal now.  They want we should preach.  Why we should be equal?  We run
this church and we teach now the young ladies how to run it."

Mrs. Trondheim chimed in:  "If you want to affirm women in ministry you should
focus on all the things women already do.  If we don't have a preacher,
we can turn the satellite dish on and let that be our preacher, or
play one of Lars' video sermons.  But you take the women out of the 
church and you don't have a church.  Same with headquarters.  It is 
the secretaries there that do all the work.  I heard your daughter was
wanting to be a pastor, but if I was you, I'd tell her that she could
make a lot more impact as a pastor's wife."

Pastor Helm wanted to protest but as his hand reached out to gesture
he felt the tie that his wife had picked out for him, and the tie-tack
that his daughter had picked out for him, and he decided to show restraint.
He asked Mrs. Lutefisk to make up a list of what she thought women's day
should be like, and politely excused himself.

It was all true, he realized.  Especially in Lake Wobegon, where all the
women are strong, women ran the church, and always had.  It was the men's
job to be good-looking and let the women experience their success vicariously
through them.  It was the women who had had the Jello-fest to pay for the
satellite dish.  When there hadn't been enough money that way, again Mrs.
Lutefisk had arranged with the Chatterbox Cafe to split the cost of the 
dish, and they'd run an extra cable over to the Side Track Tap as well.
Then Maria Jacobsen had the contact to let them rent the K. of C. hall
when the meeting room got too small.  As long as the men ran the grill and 
roasted the sweet corn, the ladies could get by fine.

Sweet corn? Oh my, he'd forgotten!  There was supposed to be a corn roast
downtown after the last ball game, and they were counting on him to bring
his grill and his corn.  He looked at the road and realized that he had taken
a wrong turn out of Mrs. Lutefisk's place and was headed further out of 
town by the minute.  He wheeled his truck around and sped for town, but as
he passed the square he could see that he was already much too late.  He could
see his wife, irate and sullen, cleaning up the last of the mess.  He kept 
right on driving.  About three hours later he figured it was safe to go home.
He expected to be given whatfor, but instead he found his wife crying.

"Oh, I feel so terrible," she said.  It's all over town now.  
If Melissa is going to be
a pastor, why did she announce it on Ralph's fax in the store where everyone
could read?  Everyone's talking about it.  We may never live this down."

"Relax, honey. This might be a passing fad.  You know how young folks that
first go away from Lake Wobegon always try these real wild ideas just to 
shock us all."

"No, it's not OK.  I called Melissa up tonight before you got home and told
her to stop this foolishness.  Who does she think she is?  I didn't send
her to Columbia Union College to become a preacher.  I sent her there to 
become a powerful career woman and then marry a preacher and control
his every move.  But then she started crying, and she said 'I hate you!'
and she hung up the phone."

They didn't hear from Melissa for almost a month after that.  But around the
first of October, a letter arrived, with an abstract-art picture enclosed.
It was addressed only to Pastor Helm, and, although his wife usually opened
his mail, she knew enough to leave this one alone.  

"Dear Daddy,"  he read.  "I was really depressed for a while after the 
phone call from Mommy, and even more depressed when the conference didn't 
honor the ordinations of the women that were ordained at Sligo.  At first
I thought there was no use to keep on fighting, that women were never going
to win.  But then Mrs. Lutefisk sent me a letter.  "Why those general-
conference people in Utrecht against women's ordination did vote?  Because
their wives told them to."  And I realize that she was probably right. 
The best way for me to be a strong woman of Lake Wobegon is to corral
some minister that doesn't know better and make him vote yes next time around.

"With that in mind, I have enclosed a picture of me and my new boyfriend
Ulrich.  He has his theology degree almost done.  He is serving as assistant 
dean of men here this year while he finishes a couple more courses from Home 
Study.  Then he is going back to Germany and his folks have offered to pay my 
plane fare to come over and see him for a couple months this summer.  I am 
looking now to see if I can be a student missionary in Germany or Poland 
during next school year so I can be close to him.  He wants to come and
visit Lake Wobegon for Christmas.  I told him it would only be three years
until you retire and then he could take over the church there.

"I can't wait till Christmas break and give old Mrs. Lutefisk a hug.
She had some really good advice.  Why should I fight for my own rights
when I can train a man to do it?  I can't wait to see you either, Daddy.
Let us know if you want either me or Ulrich to preach.  All my love, Melissa.

He looked at the picture again.  There was the green-haired wonder-boy he had
met when he was out there, with his arms around a purple-haired Melissa.
Then he saw the P.S.:  P.S.  That picture doesn't show the awesome tattoo
I got on my stomach or my nifty navel ring, but I'll be sure to show
you when I get home.  Got to run..Ulrich and I have this great bible
study group going at the Euro alternative dance club!  xoxoxo.

And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, 
the men are good looking, and the above-average girls are growing
up to be strong women.