By Bob Allen
An assistant professor at Central Baptist Theological Seminary and associate pastor at a Kansas City-area Baptist church will be honored with an award at this summer’s biennial gathering of American Baptist Churches USA.
Ruth Rosell, pastor of care and counseling at Prairie Baptist Church in Prairie Village, Kan., is this year’s recipient of the Merit Award for Pastoral Counseling, one of several prizes presented to recognize clergy and lay leaders for significant faith-based work by American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
Rosell, who grew up in Tanzania as the daughter of Lutheran missionaries, shares her teaching position at Central Seminary — a theological-education partner of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship — with her husband, Tarris (Terry) Rosell, professor of pastoral theology, who joined the faculty in 1999.
As associate pastor at Prairie Baptist Church, Ruth Rosell provides pastoral care and counseling at no cost to church members and the community at large. She led the church to join the Interfaith Hospitality Network, which provides housing, meals and transportation to county homeless. She has led education workshops about depression, and worked with her husband to help their church resettle refugees and immigrants from Laos and assist in establishing the Lao American Baptist Church in Lenexa, Kan.
While identified as an American Baptist Church, Prairie Baptist is familiar to many CBF folks. Central Seminary President Molly T. Marshall, educated at Oklahoma Baptist University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a member of the church and a deacon.
Other award winners announced Feb. 14 by the home-missions arm of the 1.5-million-member ABCUSA include Steve and Mary Hammond, co-pastors of Peace Community Church in Oberlin, Ohio. They will receive the Edwin T. Dahlberg Peace Award for their ecumenical and peacemaking work at Oberlin College.