The Rev. Glenda Hope: One of the first women ordained in the Presbyterian Church
As a new hire at Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco in 2007, the Rev. Glenda Hope was one of the first to welcome me. As I got to know her and her ministry in the San Francisco area, I was also inspired by her long career of justice work. She is the founder and executive director of Network Ministries, a nonprofit offering job skills, affordable housing, pastoral care and political advocacy for the San Francisco neighborhood known as Tenderloin, and the founder of SafeHouse, a program supporting women experiencing sexual exploitation and housing instability.
In my Presbyterian education, I learned the names of Margaret Towner and Rachel Henderlite, the first women ordained as ministers of Word and Sacrament. In meeting and getting to know Glenda Hope, the first woman ordained in the Synod of the Pacific, I can say she is truly my model, my hero, my bright light. As a fellow graduate of the Presbyterian School of Christian Education, she is also a kindred spirit.
Glenda is fierce in her care and advocacy of the poor and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, be they good church people or city politicians. She has shaped the ministry of many, but maybe more importantly, sees and cares for people society doesn’t want to see, much less know. In her retirement, when she comes to worship at Old First Presbyterian Church, I know I have a supporter and advocate, and that is such a gift to my sometimes weary heart.
In honor of the 55th anniversary of Glenda’s ordination, I offer readers the bio that Old First Presbyterian Church published in honor of our church’s 175th anniversary.
55 years of ministry
Glenda Hope was ordained at Old First Church in 1970 as a minister of Word and Sacrament, the first woman ordained in our synod and one of the very first ordained women in the entire Presbyterian denomination. She has worked passionately with people in need and advocated for God’s justice in the world.
The Reverend Glenda Hope was born in 1936 in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up there in a Southern Baptist family. She received a BA in English Literature from Florida State University in 1958. In 1960, she completed an MA in English Bible at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. In 1969, she completed a Master of Divinity at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. She was ordained as an assistant pastor at the Old First Presbyterian Church in 1970, where she served until 1972. She attracted many young people to the church through a ministry which included “contemporary” worship services, and a popular production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” the first production of that musical in the San Francisco Bay Area. After leaving Old First, she served as pastor at Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church, helping bring them back from the brink of closure.
A ministry of compassion and justice
For more than four decades, Glenda has worked in San Francisco’s troubled Tenderloin district, ministering to the poor, the homeless, and prostitutes trying to get off the streets. In 1972, with her husband, Scott Hope, she founded San Francisco Network Ministries and Safe House. For 25 years, Glenda’s San Francisco Safe House has provided housing and supportive services for sexually exploited homeless women and drop-in support services for women through The Hope Center. Hundreds of desperate and abused women have found hope and a new life through Glenda’s work, and many of them view her as a representative of Christ’s love in the streets of San Francisco.
When she retired at age 78, she founded an aging-in-place network in her neighborhood. The City Department on the Aging has since adopted this group as “a model for reaching the isolated elderly and building a mutually caring community.” Glenda now worships regularly at Old First, where she feels at home. A documentary movie of her life and work is in progress.
Erwin Barron, Cindy Burt, Lori Yamauchi, Mary Russell, Tom Culp and Steve Tabor created the biography published by Old First Presbyterian Church.
