RICHMOND, Va. — Women ministers from across Virginia affirmed their role as nurturers — encouraging other women who feel called to ministerial roles — during the annual gathering of Virginia Baptist Women in Ministry April 15.
“We are part of an exciting cycle,” said Ka’thy Gore Chappell, VBWIM’s outgoing moderator. “We have been birthed and we have opportunity to birth.”
“Feast: From Ground to Table” featured a lively combination of art displays, music and preaching, intermingled with food tastings and a shared meal. The event drew about 60 people to River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond.
Sharing baked bread around tables amplified the theme of Virginia Baptist Women in Ministry’s annual event.
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Chappell said the imagery of feasting and breaking bread mirrors the metaphor of Christ as the bread of life — imagery reinforced by baskets of fresh baked bread on each table, which served as a kind of appetizer for the later meal.
“We gather at the table to celebrate the seeds of life that come from the earth and travel through many hands to become the gift of daily bread,” a written theme interpretation given to each participant said. “We are the seeds forming to create from within bread for the world.”
Four ministers — three pastors and one seminary student — amplified the theme in their sermons.
“We’re not the primary agent of [spiritual] growth and expansion,” said Andrew Dellinger Jones, pastor of Millbrook Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C. “We’re tending a garden that God alone is growing.”
Like the sower in Jesus’ parable, the ultimate success of the gospel “doesn’t depend on you,” she said. “Neither does its failure. … Sow the seeds of the gospel and take genuine delight in whatever fruit you might find.”
Donna Hopkins Britt, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Roanoke, Va., said that, like many first century followers of Jesus, 21st century Americans crave what they don’t really need.
“What does anxiety do to our appetites?” she asked. “The crowds following Jesus were like a starved dog hunting for food.”
He fed them, she said, but “that wasn’t an end in itself. It was a sign” of his power to meet their needs of love, identity and security.
For Valerie King, pastor of Emmaus Baptist Church in Providence Forge, Va., Jesus’ first miracle at Cana was a sign that even in a world where there never seems to be enough, Jesus provides exactly what people need.
Jesus, his disciples and his mother, Mary, were enjoying the feast at Cana until the wine ran out, said King. But Mary isn’t concerned because “she knows her son and trusts him completely. Whenever Jesus is around, there is more than enough.”
King noted that Mary instructed the servants to “do whatever Jesus says,” trusting his response.
“Could it be that Mary has given the formula to address the question of why there’s never enough?” asked King. “Do whatever he tells you. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength.”
Brittany Riddle, in her final year at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, said Christians sometimes miss beauty and sacredness in actions they perceive as wasteful — in just the way Jesus’ disciples regarded the actions of the woman who bathed Jesus’ feet in expensive perfume.
But, “Jesus graciously received this gift of overabundant hospitality …,” said Riddle. “Through her action this unnamed woman blessed Jesus. Through her action she was blessed by Jesus. What she did was beautiful, wasteful, preposterous. What she did was worship.”
Riddle, of Louisville, Ky., was this year’s recipient of VBWIM’s preaching award, given annually. The master of divinity student serves on the staff of Grace Baptist Church in Richmond.
During a brief business session, new officers were elected for the coming year. Sheryl Johnson, a chaplain at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, will serve as moderator, and Maria Lynn, adult missions coordinator for Woman’s Missionary Union of Virginia, as moderator-elect.
Nancy Stanton McDaniel, pastor of Rhoadesville (Va.) Baptist Church will continue an additional year as past moderator. Chappell, the outgoing moderator, is leaving her position as an associate vice president at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond to become leadership development coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina.
Other officers are secretary Elizabeth Bartley, a Charlottesville, Va., minister and mother, and treasurer Barbara Jackson a Richmonder with long involvement in VBWIM.
Next year’s “Feast” is scheduled for April 27.