Ashley Guthas wasn’t angling to become Jimmy Carter’s pastor.
Yet she became another part of history when she was called as pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga. — a church where the former president and his wife, Rosalynn, were charter members and where Jimmy Carter sometimes mowed the grass.
Millions of Americans know of the church because of Carter’s longtime Sunday school class tourists would flock to every Sunday.
What most Americans don’t know is that the Carters’ church is among a growing number of churches in America with female pastors. Guthas became Maranatha’s first female pastor in June 2024, just a few months after Rosalynn Carter’s death and while Jimmy Carter was at home on hospice care.
The church is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Guthas is a 2023 graduate of Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta, where she earned a master of divinity degree and was a Stassen Scholar. Her first introduction to Maranatha came when Barry Howard, then senior pastor at The Church at Wieuca in Atlanta, recommended her for pulpit supply while the Plains church was without a pastor.
Pastor Ashley Guthas at the funeral service for former President Jimmy Carter at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., Thursday, Jan. 9. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
“Maranatha called, and I made the trip down to Plains to preach,” she recalled. “It wasn’t long after, I shared a phone call with (Mercer professor) David Gushee and I remember his words precisely. He said, ‘They want you.’ I said, ‘What do you mean they want me?’ He said, ‘Maranatha wants you to be their pastor.”
However, the decision wasn’t that simple.
“I went to seminary simply to learn, and I trusted that even if the knowledge offered nothing more than helping me to be a better mother, it would be worth it,” Guthas said. “I did not have a career goal in mind at all. I did not want to be a pastor of an entire congregation.”
Not only that, but she was going through a divorce at the time and didn’t think any Baptist church would hire her.
“Boze Godwin, one of the deacons, called me. I remember being alone in the gorgeous sanctuary of The Church at Wieuca. As he talked to me about the possibility of coming to Plains and being their pastor, I almost broke down. I said, ‘Sir, are you aware that I am in the middle of a divorce?’ He said, ‘Ma’am, that will not be a problem for us.’”
That was the opposite of what she expected to hear.
“I stayed in the unhealthy relationship I was in for 17 years because I believed if I divorced, I would never be allowed to work in a church again.”
“I stayed in the unhealthy relationship I was in for 17 years because I believed if I divorced, I would never be allowed to work in a church again. I believed God would abandon me. I believed I would not be able to serve, and I knew I loved the church immensely even though it had also caused me immense pain. So, to hear Boze’s words affirm that they wanted me, just as I am, even with the label of divorce looming over me, would not hinder me from serving or working in a church offered healing in a way, I never thought that would come. Yet, I was still doubtful that I would be able to step into that role.”
Her self-doubt led her to reject the opportunity and take on a staff role at Northside Drive Baptist Church in Atlanta.
But the pastor search team at Maranatha said they would wait.
“I wasn’t even sure I should be a pastor as a woman,” Guthas said. “There was quite a lot that I have had to untangle from beliefs that sunk down deep. I’m still on a journey of unlearning.
“When I informed Maranatha that I had chosen to work at Northside Drive Baptist, Betty Godwin came up to me and said, ‘Well, we will just have to think outside the box. We will wait a year for you.’”
And that’s exactly what the Plains church did — they waited for Guthas to hear and accept the call they believed God had given.
“The year of 2023 was unreal overall, from finalizing a divorce, graduating from seminary, taking my first solo trip to Africa and renting a car to drive myself to the desert, to having Afghan refugee women live with me and my daughters, to returning to work full time. There were more transitions and changes that took place than I could have ever imagined. Moments of immense pain leaving my daughters for the first time and moments of joy being in my apartment and creating a space with freedom and peace. I think every piece of the joy and the pain helped prepare me to be in Plains. “
“Well, we will just have to think outside the box. We will wait a year for you.’”
At Northside Drive, she found support for herself and her daughters as well as for the Afghan women she worked with.
“They uplifted and encouraged me as I took my first steps navigating life without having my daughters each day,” she said. “They believed in me as a minister and a pastor. It was there that I was given more opportunities to preach, and I was affirmed as having an equal place in the pulpit. It was a place of healing, although the time frame was much shorter than I imagined.”
There’s another connection here, though: Northside Drive Baptist Church is where the Carters worshipped when they lived in the governors’ mansion in Atlanta.
Within that promised one-year time frame, Guthas came to agree with the folks from Plains that she was to be their pastor.
She arrived just six months before Jimmy Carter’s death and the national media attention that once again fell on the church.
“Given that I don’t have previous experience as a pastor, I can’t compare it to anything else personally, yet I do believe I have the most amazing deacons,” she said. “I feel supported and cared for. I feel they trust me to lead even if I feel unsure of myself sometimes. The congregation is made up of individuals who have been here since the church began and those who have just started attending. We have those who voted for Kamala and those who voted for Trump. We have wealthy and we have those with very little. We have those who carry significant wounds and those who daily choose freedom and healing. We have young and young at heart. We have those who are ‘Bible believing’ and those who don’t profess Christianity but are curious and need community. We have those who never thought they would come to any church ever again and those who have likely not missed a Sunday in 90 years.”
The church is more than its best-known members, now departed. But their legacy runs deep in the congregation, she said. “The more I learn of President Carter, the more convinced I am his legacy and his commitment to religious freedom and equality will live on here at Maranatha.”
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