A few weeks ago, on the occasion of our church’s Children’s and Youth Sunday, I co-preached with a 10-year-old girl.
She and I have known one another for a good long while now. I came to First Baptist on St. Clair in Frankfort, Ky., first as an intern in seminary and then again in the fall of 2020 as associate pastor for children and spiritual formation. In 2020, she was 4, and our first interactions were via Zoom, where she participated in a Godly Play group I led on Sunday evenings.
Our roles have shifted these last five and a half years. I’ve moved from my associate position into serving as the church’s co-pastor. I’m the first woman in our 200-plus year history to hold that senior pastor title and to be a regular voice in the pulpit. Meanwhile, she’s grown from a bright, spunky preschooler into a thoughtful and articulate fourth grader.
Amanda Smith
A few years ago, when I began to discern with FBC what it might look like for me to be co-pastor, we agreed children’s ministry would remain part of my work. And so, these days, I share in preaching, pastoral care, church leadership and administration, but I also spend Wednesday nights with our church’s kids and teenagers and have the opportunity to continue to know them well.
So when it came to planning for Children’s and Youth Sunday this year — something we hadn’t done in a while — I knew I wanted to look for ways to incorporate the giftedness of our particular group. Alongside that, I knew exactly who to ask to co-preach with me. And I wasn’t a bit surprised by her answer. It was, without a moment’s hesitation: “Really!?!? YES!” And she grinned as she did an excited little dance.
A week and a half or so before we preached together, with plenty of brainstorming and preparation under our belts, she and I spent an afternoon at her kitchen table crafting our sermon, a back-and-forth in which we explored the story of Jesus’ encounter with the blind man in John 9. This was, for me, a holy moment.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. I was in college the first time I heard a woman preach, and it blew me away. But as I sat at her kitchen table, typing as she narrated her ideas, I realized not only has this 10-year-old grown up understanding women in the pulpit as a norm, she’s learned what a sermon should look like from me.
“We’ll start with a funny story to get people interested and make them laugh, like you do,” she told me as we began. “And at the end, I want us to say that thing you say when you preach: ‘And, so First Baptist …’ together.”
“She’s been a witness as our church has made space for me to live fully into my calling.”
As I packed up my things to leave that day, her mom and I marveled aloud at the fact that her daughter has grown up in a church where she’s not only been told her voice and her gifts are welcome in every part of who we are, but that she’s watched as it’s been proved true. She’s been a witness as our church has made space for me to live fully into my calling, as it not only celebrated me as a preacher and a pastor but also allowed me to help shape a role that fits who I am.
On Children’s and Youth Sunday, she stood on a stool next to me in the pulpit and she preached with the poise and the tone of someone who does it every week and with the confidence of someone who knew she belonged there. She was phenomenal.
Undoubtedly, the most powerful moment was when she connected the blind man washing the mud from his eyes to her own baptism a few summers ago. She told her story. She remembered aloud the things I said, standing next to her in the water. And then she noted that like the man born blind, the first things she saw afterward was, of course, water.
But she had something he didn’t, she noted, something she wished he could have had. When she wiped the water away, she saw a whole congregation of people who love her, who’ve been cheering for her since she was small, and who are on her team as she walks through life.
Our congregation cheered for her again that Sunday. At the end of worship, I invited her to stand next to me in the foyer so everyone could greet her as they departed. And it was a joy — another holy moment — to overhear the things they said.
They didn’t just tell her she did a good job. They complimented her ideas and her stories and her voice. They told her about their favorite parts of her sermon. They affirmed that she is gifted — that they were proud the day she was baptized and were proud again today as she used her talents to lead them. They told her they hoped she’d preach again — that she clearly belongs in our pulpit.
I am profoundly grateful for First Baptist Church on St. Clair and for the space this congregation has made for me and for my calling as it has evolved. I am thankful for the way they’ve affirmed each step of my journey from intern to associate to pastor and for the ways in which they have been willing to step out on faith and move toward both new models of leadership and new kinds of leaders.
And I’m thankful not just on my own behalf, but for the sake of those who will come after me — for the girls, like this 10-year-old with whom I co-preached, as well as the ones who prayed, read Scripture, played instruments and took up the offering that day who will never have to wonder if there is room for their skills and their giftedness in this place or in the world.
May we continue to show them we are cheering for them, always, and they belong everywhere God calls them to be.
Amanda Smith serves as co-pastor of First Baptist Church on St. Clair in Frankfort, Ky. In her free time, she makes quilts and hangs out with her adorable and chaotic dog, Gus.