Calling it a sermon would be a stretch of the imagination, but I managed to babble on for maybe 5-7 minutes about my faith journey thus far. It was a brief testimony, really. The most striking thing about that morning, however, was that as I stood in that pulpit, I had the overwhelming sense that this was what I was to do with the rest of my life...to tell others about my own faith in a way that would help them accept that faith for themselves. It was as clear as day, and I went home and told my family that I wanted to be a minister. I was called to preach.

Time went by, and I stuck by that calling. I listed that in my high school yearbook and went off to college with that plan. Also during that time, I began to become involved in the charismatic movement and regularly attended an Assemblies of God church on Sunday and Wednesday evenings. I read the Bible voraciously and came to believe what it said very literally.

While I was in college, the pastor at my home church retired, and my mother was appointed to the search committee to find a new one. As we talked about that on the phone, she told me that one of the candidates they were considering was a woman. I don't remember that I said anything to her at the time, but I was mortified. "Ugh," I thought, "I don't want a woman pastor!" Not only did it feel unsettling to me, but it was unbiblical. Didn't Paul say very specifically that women shouldn't speak in church?

My righteous indignation grew right up to the point where it hit the fact that I was a woman planning to become a minister, and then I sat down with a thud. What was I doing? Instead of questioning my theology or my interpretation of Scripture, I questioned my calling. I must have misunderstood what God meant. Maybe I was to be involved in other ways in the church instead.

In the few years after my graduation from college, I came back home and got involved in every aspect of church life, trying to find my niche. I was Sunday School Superintendent and chair of any number of committees. I directed the choir, taught Christian aerobics, led the youth group, and wrote puppet shows, plays and musicals for the church. I thought about being a missionary. But it didn't work. I was called to preach, and that calling would not go away.

Finally, I began to realize that there might be other ways to hear the troublesome passages of Scripture; and I began to realize that yet other Scripture passages seemed to support what God was calling me to do. When I moved and became a United Methodist, I learned about the Quadrilateral, which describes the way John Wesley made decisions. He looked at Scripture as being very important, but he also considered church tradition, reason, and experience. He allowed women to preach because he could not deny that the Holy Spirit was working through them and blessing their ministry. That seemed right to me.

And so at last, at age 33, I entered the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta.
In June of 1994, I was appointed to my first church. Now that I am in ministry, I run across a number of people who wrestle with the issue of women in ministry. For that reason I wrote down some of the ways I came to grips with the issue for myself.