ATLANTA (ABP) — A total of 104 churches reported inviting a woman to preach in February for an annual promotion both to celebrate and educate congregations about women in ministry.
Pam Durso, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, said churches in 18 states and the District of Columbia participated in the 2010 Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching.
Durso said the influential 18th century Baptist woman preacher for whom the event is named — largely forgotten by many historians — "would be proud" of the response, which has grown from 55 churches since the first year of observance in 2007.
First Baptist Church of Williams in Jacksonville, Ala., which has welcomed women preachers for many years, participated formally in Martha Stearns Marshall Month for the second time.
"In our church we believe that God can call anyone to the ministry and to serve, and so we take this opportunity to support the calling of women to ministry," Pastor Mike Oliver said while introducing Terri Byrd, associate coordinator of Alabama Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Byrd preached about the raising of Lazarus, noting that while performing many of the miracles in the Bible, Jesus involved others around him, even if in small ways.
She described driving to churches to collect medical supplies for Haiti — including some who told her it might not be worth her time because they managed to come up with only one box or basket. By the time she finished, it added up to 2,000 pounds of supplies. She delivered them to an airplane hangar in Florida, where she saw hundreds of volunteers sorting through similar donations from all over America.
"What seems like a little bit of effort on one church's part is a huge, global, cooperative effort going out to the least of these," Byrd said. "The little things you do here today make a big difference eternally in the Kingdom of God."
Oliver described Byrd's sermon as "just outstanding, a wonderful message."
"When God calls somebody and you make yourself available to that calling — as a congregation we receive people like that, like Terri — then we will not be disappointed," he told the congregation. He said later the church will definitely invite her to preach again.
For the first time, this year Martha Stearns Marshall Day was observed outside of the United States. Lauren Colwell, associate minister for spiritual formation and families at First Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., preached through an interpreter at Iglesia Bautista Genesaret in Sancti Spiritus, Cuba.
Colwell said she was apprehensive at first about getting a clear and relevant message across in English but those fears were dispelled when with her limited Spanish she heard how well the woman translator communicated not only her content but also matched the tone, inflection and emphasis in her delivery. Colwell called it a "powerful experience" to share the act of preaching in two languages before her church's sister congregation in Cuba.
Bailey Edwards Nelson preached twice for Martha Stearns Marshall Day, once at the church where she serves, Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., and once at First Baptist Church in Rockingham, N.C. It was her first time to preach as a mother, having given birth to her son, Aidan, on Dec. 17.
"To step into the pulpit for the first time as a mother was a distinct and overwhelming intersection with the ever-creating God," Nelson said of the experience. "My son has colored the way I approach the Holy, and as a result, the way I approach the task of preaching."
Englewood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., invited two coeds from William Jewell College to preach. In his welcome to worship, Pastor Micah Pritchett recalled how small churches in Texas helped him get started in ministry by giving him an opportunity to preach while he was in seminary.
"Those little country churches play an important role in preparing young ministers for ministry, but most of those little churches won't invite a woman to come preach," Pritchett said. "Young women don't get those opportunities that I had. Today we are saying that we support women in ministry — not just in theory, but in a very practical way as we bless and encourage these two young women as they explore God's call on their lives."
Guest preacher LeAnn Gardner told Providence Baptist Church in Charleston, S.C., she was invited to preach Feb. 7 because moderate Baptist churches across the country had chosen the day to celebrate a female preacher "who proclaimed the gospel long before Baptists thought there was something weird about that."
"So you could conjecture that I am preaching because it is 'women in the pulpit day,' but I have a hard time making sense out of that," she said. "You see, the first time I preached at Providence Baptist Church was in 1999 when I was 23 years old. Several women have been ordained in this church. And perhaps even more powerful is that young girls and boys grow up in this church never wondering why certain people can do this or that because of their gender."
The Providence Baptist Church Facebook page later carried the observation that "a female in our pulpit isn't that unusual — which makes Providence an unusual Baptist church — unfortunately."
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press. This story includes information from a Baptist Women in Ministry press release.