Women Ministers

Recently, a minor mishap in assembling a piece of furniture at our daughter’s new manse in Whitmire, SC necessitated the 22-mile drive to nearby Newberry, SC to the locally owned furniture store. The friendly folks at Morris Furniture Store (this is like free advertising!) were helpful and as I was paying for our purchase, the cashier asked what brought us all the way from Franklin, TN to South Carolina? And I proudly replied that our daughter was now the pastor of the Whitmire Presbyterian Church in Whitmire, to which the cashier replied, “Oh, I’m Lutheran myself and I knew that we Lutherans had lady pastors but I didn’t realize the Presbyterians had lady pastors, too.” I told her that I was a pastor, too, as was my husband and we engaged in a wonderful conversation about churches, preachers and genders.
Her comment about “lady pastors” reminded me of when Will and I moved to Ripley, Mississippi where not only were we the first clergy couple that Tippah County had ever known, I was the first woman minister the county had ever known. (Well, there was supposed to be a female pastor at one of the Methodist churches but something happened and she ended up going to another church. I don’t know the story, but wish I did). And as often happens when one is a “first,” the local newspaper wanted to write an article about me (there had already been an article about Will and me). The interviewer for the article was a quiet young man named Kenny Goode, whose name appeared as a byline under most of the articles that appeared in the Southern Sentinel, leading me to believe that perhaps he was the only writer on staff. Kenny, a native Mississippian, hailed from the Potts Camp/Hickory Flat area, southwest of Ripley. Kenny was also a lifelong member of the Church of Christ and from our first handshake, admitted that he had never met a woman minister and in fact, didn’t know that women ministers existed.
Kenny and I had a long chat, which felt less like an interview and more like a theological discussion. While I have encountered folks who, not favoring women ministers, have been somewhat antagonistic and confrontational with me, Kenny seemed fascinated if not somewhat puzzled by this “woman minister” thing. The interview drew to a close; Kenny and I stood up to exchange goodbyes. He said, “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you and I hope we’ll meet again sometime. . .” and then he stopped and looked at me. “But what should I call you?” he said, “Should I call you Brother Sally?” I considered for a moment, realizing that in a very real sense, Kenny had paid me a compliment. I said, “No, you can just call me Sally.”
That day, a newspaper reporter from Ripley, MS learned about the existence of women ministers, and a woman minister learned that to survive in the male-dominated world of priests and ministers, sometimes it’s a compliment to be called “Brother.”

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