In July of 1989 the Good News Women’s Task Force sponsored a workshop for United Methodist women at the Good News Convocation held at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. Julia McLean Williams, then Executive Vice President of The Mission Society for United Methodists, led the workshop. It was very positive and Christ-centered, but also very honest. Julia gave the women ten minutes to “gripe” and then moved toward identifying answers for renewing women’s ministry at the local and national level. The theme for this event, which ended up being prophetic, was “Bind Us Together, Lord.”
     There was much excitement and appreciation on the part of workshop participants underscoring the awareness that evangelical women within the United Methodist Church were not being represented by many of the programs and policies of the Women’s Division. When the meeting was over the women clustered around the leadership team saying, “All of this is wonderful, but how are we going to achieve the things we have envisioned?” The women were promised that possibilities would be explored.
      The concept of developing a network for evangelical United Methodist women was formed from an evaluation meeting following this workshop. This was not to be a separate organization, but a network to come alongside and represent the evangelical perspective.  With the ease of an idea whose timing God had ordained, a coalition was formed between the Good News Women’s Taskforce, The Mission Society for United Methodists and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, with approval from the board of directors of all three groups. It was important to pull from the expertise offered through these three organizations because of the broad theological, political, social and missional scope of the Women’s Division. The Evangelical Coalition for United Methodist Women (ECUMW) was launched.
     In December 1989 the first ECUMW network mailing went out. This packet introduced the coalition and its purpose and contained pro-life material. The ECUMW was given a page in the Good News magazine beginning with the January/February issue and from there word of the network spread. Although we have never done a major solicitation, the network has grown by steady increments over our fifteen year history. The network is now comprised of thousands of evangelical United Methodist women, most of whom are active members of UMW, some of whom are involved in local women’s ministries—and all of whom are concerned about the state of ministry to women within the UMC.
     The name of the network was changed a few years into our existence to the RENEW Network. RENEW is the acronym for “Renewing, Enabling, Network for Evangelical Women. This better interprets the two-pronged purpose of RENEW: renewal at the local level and accountability on the part of the Women’s Division.
     A reorganization placed RENEW under the Good News Board of Directors and Oversight Committee, while the network continued to manage its program through RENEW’s Steering Committee and Support Team. A strong coalition remains with the MSUM and IRD, and, in addition, a representative from Lifewatch, Transforming Congregations and Bristol House were added to the RENEW Steering Committee. With only three people in the home office, it is obvious that much of RENEW’s program ministry is accomplished through active, competent members of our Steering Committee and Support Team. And, of course, the real work is done at the local, district and conference level by members of the network.
     Over our 15 year history RENEW has:
resourced women with documented information to confirm their own findings; sent representatives to Women’s Division board meetings, UMW Assemblies and other conferences sponsored by or participated in by the Women’s Division, reporting accurately what was seen and heard; produced supplemental program resources to balance UMW resources that often address issues from a singular perspective; issued a Call for Reform of the Women’s Division that has evoked widespread participation on the part of local women; developed inspiring models for effective women’s ministry. All this and much more!