ATLANTA (ABP) — An organization seeking to encourage, advocate and network Baptist women in church leadership has begun recruiting churches to set aside a Sunday in February to invite a woman to preach.
Raygina Beale was the Martha Stearns Marshall preacher in 2010 at Knollwood Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C.
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Last year the number of churches participating in Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching topped 100 for the first time, nearly double the number that took part when the emphasis was launched in 2007. Pam Durso, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, said the event has grown in popularity each year, and she hopes the trend will continue the fifth annual Martha Stearns Marshall Month in 2011.
Durso, who took over as leader of the 28-year-old Baptist Women in Ministry in 2009, said it is time for churches to start making plans by picking any Sunday in February and inviting a woman to preach. It can be a member of the church, a student or professor from a nearby seminary or Baptist university or someone in the community. Churches may also contact her directly via e-mail for ideas on preachers to invite.
After scheduling a woman preacher, participating churches can download a certificate from the BWIM website to print out and present to the pulpit guest in recognition of the day.
Baptist Women in Ministry also sells T-shirts with a message "This is What a Preacher Looks Like" that can be given to the guest preacher as a commemorative gift. A book inspired by the shirt, This Is What a Preacher Looks Like: Sermons by Baptist Women in Ministry, was published in May by Smyth and Helwys.
Churches can then report details of their event for a listing of participating churches and preachers to be included in the spring issue of the Baptist Women in Ministry newsletter.
Martha Stearns Marshall Month is named after an 18th-century Baptist woman in North Carolina. Although lesser known than her husband, David Marshall, Martha Stearns Marshall nevertheless preached alongside him and her brother, Shubal Stearns. They were leaders in a series of revivals along the Eastern Seaboard that came to be known as the First Great Awakening.
The two families eventually settled at Sandy Creek near what is now Siler City, N.C., in 1755. That marked the introduction of what historians call the Separate Baptist tradition in the South. In contrast to the Regular Baptists — mostly urban congregations that shied away from the emotionalism associated with the revival movement — the Separates preached a fiery evangelism that became a staple of the Baptist witness that soon spread across the South.
Baptists in the South today are not known for inclusion of women. The Southern Baptist Convention, the second-largest faith group in America, officially declared opposition to female pastors by amending its Baptist Faith and Message confessional document in 2000.
While supportive of women ministers in principle, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, formed in 1991, still has a relatively small percentage of its partner churches pastored by a woman. Along with providing women an experience to refine their pulpit skills in a live worship setting, a main goal of Martha Stearns Marshall Month is to introduce congregations on the fence about women in ministry to a new perspective on "what a preacher looks like."
"For the past four years Baptist Women in Ministry has invited Baptist churches to participate in this annual event, and it has been a source of joy and discovery for many women and churches," Durso said. "Martha Stearns Marshall Month provides us all with a chance to celebrate — to celebrate God's good work in our midst."
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Related ABP stories:
More than 100 churches take part in month celebrating women in pulpit
Q&A: Baptist Women in Ministry leader Pam Durso
Baptist churches encouraged to invite a woman to preach in February
Women take pulpits nationwide for sponsored day of preaching
Learn more about Martha Stearns Marshall Month at the Baptist Women in Ministry website.
See Martha Stearns Marshall Month on Facebook.