My Journey as a PRISSY Preacher: Part Three of a Three-Blog Series By Mary Alice Birdwhistell

March 28th, 2011

In the fall of 2009, I moved away from everyone and everything I knew in Kentucky to begin studying for my Master of Divinity degree at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. Before moving, I had applied to be the children’s minister at Calvary Baptist Church, also in Waco.  I actually assumed the church would want someone older and more experienced, so I didn’t seriously think that I would get the position. I moved to Waco on a Saturday, visited Calvary on Sunday, interviewed on Tuesday, and was offered the position on Thursday.

Obviously, I was blown away. Learning to navigate a completely new life at a brand new school and in a new part of the country was overwhelming, and now I was also going to add a new job at a new church, all within less than a week of moving to the hundred degree heat of Waco. The more I learned about the church, however, the more I felt God calling me there. I learned that Calvary was the one of the first Baptist churches in the state of Texas to have a female senior pastor. Although she was no longer serving there when I arrived, Julie Pennington-Russell had left quite a legacy at that church, and affirming women in ministry is still important to Calvary today. I also I learned that Calvary sees all of its ministerial staff as pastors who are involved in worship planning, preaching, leading the Lord’s Supper, and ministering in various areas of the life of the church. The idea both scared and thrilled me at the same time. By the next week, I had accepted the position.

On my first Sunday to preach at Calvary, the church was blown away when I told them that this would be my first time to officially “preach” in a Baptist church. But I was so relieved that that my desire to preach wasn’t something I would have to hide at Calvary; preaching was a part of my life that I could finally publically acknowledge and pursue. After that first sermon, I was moved to tears and so thankful and amazed that God had brought me into this incredible community of faith.

In the winter of 2010 I participated in the inaugural Festival of Young Preachers in Louisville, Kentucky, an initiative led by my mentor and professor Dwight Moody. I was one of nineteen women to preach at the festival out of the ninety-two 92 young preachers from different traditions and denominations participating in the event. A pastor came up to me one day during the festival and said, “Of all the sermons I’ve heard today, I will remember yours.” His words stuck with me. I realized that God was starting to use other people to affirm me as a preacher. Preaching wasn’t something hidden or secret about me anymore. In a sense, I was coming out of the closet as a preacher, a prissy preacher, and I liked it.

Currently, I’m in my fourth semester at Truett Seminary. I’m taking my first course in preaching, and as you can probably imagine, I love it. Each day, God speaks to me in new ways and encourages me in my calling. This preaching class has definitely led me into a season of discerning God’s calling on my life, and I’m so thankful for the ministers, professors, family members, and friends who are walking alongside me in this process.

At this point, I can say a few things with certainty: I’m open to God’s calling on my life and am fervently praying about it. I know that God could very well be calling me to be a preacher. When I preach, I’m reminded that I’m doing at least part of what God has created me to do. I also know that I love the Baptist tradition, and I’m committed to it. I am not willing to leave the Baptist church in order to preach.

I do believe with all my heart that God DOES call women to be preachers. And we don’t need to try to be like men in order to do that. Sometimes, God can even use a petite, red-headed girl who wears pearls and dresses to preach his Word. I feel called to preach with the unique voice that God has given me, and I believe the feminine voice is one that the church desperately needs to hear, along with a diversity of other beautiful voices from within the community of faith.

So I am continuing to pray, humbled to preach, and excited to see where God leads me on my journey as a “prissy” preacher.

Mary Alice Birdwhistell is a student at George W. Truett Theological Seminary and minister to children at Calvary Baptist Church, Waco, Texas.

My Journey as a PRISSY Preacher: Part Two of a Three-Blog Series By Mary Alice Birdwhistell

March 24th, 2011

I remember the first time I heard a woman preach. I was a freshman at Georgetown College. To be quite honest, I didn’t really like her. Based on what I’d been taught growing up and the male models I had seen as preachers, I felt that she was trying to be something that she was clearly not called by God to be. After all, God didn’t call women to be preachers. This woman preacher had a short, masculine hair-cut, wore a dark pant-suit, and even tried to talk in the low voice of a man. Secretly, I was thankful that God would never call me to be a preacher, because it simply wasn’t at all part of who I was to talk and dress so masculinely.

During my junior year, I took a class called “Women in the Christian Tradition” taught by Sheila Klopfer. We looked in-depth at what the Bible does (and does not) say about women, and I learned that there is such diversity, even within the biblical text, about the role of women in the church. I learned about women who were serving in leadership roles in the early church, and I was amazed at the way Jesus treated women compared to how they were treated by others within that culture. Granted, I was also not oblivious to other verses in the New Testament that seem to limit the participation of women in worship and in church leadership. However, I did learn that the issue was definitely not as “black and white” as I had been led to believe growing up. I left this class with more questions than answers—not only questions about the Bible, but questions about who God is and who God could be calling me to be.

While taking this class, I was approached by our associate campus minister, Bryan Langlands, who asked if I would be willing to preach at a nearby Methodist church. I looked at him in shock and said, “You want me to preach? In the pulpit? On a Sunday morning?” Bryan looked back at me in shock and responded, “You mean you’ve never done that before?” I explained to him that I had “shared my testimony” at my church back home. I had “spoken” at our campus worship service at Georgetown. I had “taught” Bible studies to campus groups. But I had never preached, in a pulpit, on a Sunday morning. I accepted the offer with hesitation. I secretly wondered if I could be disobeying God by going to preach at a Methodist church, but I prayed and asked God to guide me in this decision. I never felt like God was saying “no.” I was honestly was surprised when I felt at peace about my decision to preach.

So I did it.

I preached.

In the pulpit.

On a Sunday morning.

And I loved it!

When I was preaching, a surreal sense of joy overcame me. I felt like I was using my gifts and abilities, doing exactly what God wanted me to do. But I also remember feeling even more torn after this experience. How could God call me to do something that God didn’t call women to do? Would friends and family members ever understand or accept this calling? Would a Baptist church ever hire me as a woman preacher? Overwhelmed by such questions, I continued putting preaching on the back burner, trying to convince myself that I was more suited for another type of ministry.

My mentor and campus minister, Cynthia Insko, didn’t let me forget about my call to preaching. I so appreciate the time she devoted to guiding me in my spiritual journey. Cynthia had a gift for asking “soul questions” that made me pause to reflect on what I felt God was saying and doing in my life. I remember saying to her on several occasions, “But Cynthia, I just don’t think women are supposed to preach!”  She would smile back at me and patiently continued to encourage me as a minister . . . and preacher.

That spring, I had the opportunity to “give my testimony” during worship at my home church on Baptist Women’s Day. (This is the one Sunday of the year that they let women take up the offering and hand out bulletins and visitor cards during the service.)  Granted, the church didn’t call it “preaching” and they moved away the pulpit and gave me a small music stand to use instead, but I didn’t care. It was such an encouraging experience for me to be able to share with my church a piece of my ministry, and of myself, that they had never seen before. Again, I was overwhelmed with joy and fear at the feeling that I was doing exactly what God had created me to do.

Mary Alice Birdwhistell is a student at George W. Truett Theological Seminary and minister to children at Calvary Baptist Church, Waco, Texas.

My Journey as a PRISSY Preacher: A Three-Blog Series By Mary Alice Birdwhistell

March 22nd, 2011

My brother has always called me “Little Miss Priss.” While growing up, he would usually play outside in the creek behind our house, collecting buckets full of slimy little creatures, and I would play inside with my perfectly-dressed and accessorized Barbie dolls or paint my nails with sparkly purple nail polish. When he wanted to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I wanted to watch The Little Mermaid, dreaming that one day I too would become a real-life Disney princess.

Over time, “Little Miss Priss” shortened to “Prissy,” and for some reason, this nickname that I consider to be a term of endearment has stuck with me. Granted, it probably doesn’t hurt that I still love the color purple, that every DVD I own happens to be a chick-flick, and that I have enough dresses in my closet to wear a different one every day of the month. Even at the age of twenty-three, many of my “prissy” tendencies, for better or for worse, are now part of my identity.

Another much more important facet of my core identity is God’s calling on my life to ministry. I experienced this call at Cedarmore Baptist Camp in Bagdad, Kentucky, when I was in sixth grade. And this calling wasn’t just an idea that popped into my head during an invitation time; I truly heard God’s voice and understood that God wanted me to commit my life to serving him.

Thankfully, I had a youth minister who encouraged me in this calling and allowed me to use my gifts to serve in our youth group. I developed a love for studying and teaching God’s Word, and sometimes our youth minister let me speak at our youth-led worship service, although he did teach me that women were not supposed to teach or to have authority over men. For some reason, this principle didn’t apply to the youth group, and I was okay with that.

By this point in my life, had I been a male, everyone would have identified me as a new up-and-coming preacher. After all, that’s exactly what they told the boys who were leaders in the youth group and who taught Bible studies or spoke in worship. I remember wondering why God couldn’t just call me to be a preacher too. I felt like so many of my gifts and interests matched up with those required to serve in this role. However, I had never seen a woman preacher and had always been taught that God did not call women to be preachers. I wasn’t at all bitter or upset by this fact; it was just the way things were.

I do remember asking someone at church why women couldn’t be preachers, and she told me that we were simply too emotional for the job. She just didn’t think women were wired to do the funerals, hospital visits, and counseling sessions that pastors are required to do. The thought of doing a funeral didn’t sound too appealing to me anyway, so I dismissed the idea altogether that God could call me to be a preacher.

I didn’t know of any women whose ministries matched what I felt God was calling me to do until the popular women’s minister Beth Moore came on the scene. The first time I heard her speak at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, I was mesmerized. When Beth spoke, I heard something I hadn’t heard before: a woman’s voice. I saw a woman dedicated to learning and enthusiastically communicating God’s Word to others. In her, I saw myself. Before long, people began telling me that I was destined to become the next Beth Moore, and I believed them.

Although my church and denomination did not encourage me to be a preacher, I do not want to imply that they did not encourage me as a female in ministry. I served on staff as a ministry intern for several summers and led in various areas of children’s, youth, and music ministries. So much of what I have learned about church ministry, I owe to this incredible faith family, and I am forever grateful for the ways in which they have affirmed and equipped me as a minister.

I am also thankful that I had the support and love of my pastor’s wife, who served as the children’s director at my church. Because of her influence in my life I developed a love for children and a joy to see them learn what it means to follow Jesus, a passion I still have today.

Without the encouragement of my church family, I would not have pursued the call to ministry at all. Although I couldn’t articulate what that call was at the time, I continued to trust in God and looked forward to seeing His calling unfold in my life.

Mary Alice Birdwhistell is a student at George W. Truett Theological Seminary and minister to children at Calvary Baptist Church, Waco, Texas.