Since 2019, the Center for Leadership Excellence, in partnership with COSROW, has been lifting up the voices of lay and clergywomen in ministry through Encouragements—monthly emails designed to inspire, encourage, and offer practical ways for women in ministry to support one another. This month, we’re honored to share words from Rachel Kwashe, pastor of Winstead UMC in Wilson NC.

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I thought everyone affirmed women in ministry until I got to my Intro to Ministry class in college. I was given an assignment where I had to defend my “position.” I thought it was absurd. Who thought women couldn’t be in ministry?

Read John 20:18
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

When I was three years old, my dad’s district superintendent had a holiday party for pastors and their families. Her name was Lynn Pier-Fitzgerald and I never forgot it. The summer after my sophomore year of high school, I went to a conference camp and saw her for the first time since I was six. I was assigned to be in her small group for the week. Towards the end of the week, I told my small group that I was in intensive outpatient treatment for anorexia. The last night of camp, Lynn said to me: “You HAVE to get through this to do what God has called you to do.” In her statement, I saw a resurrection hope I did not yet believe was possible. She believed that I was called and she believed I could do it.

It was not until that assignment in college that I realized the reason I had never questioned a woman’s ability to serve in the church was because I had seen Lynn as a district superintendent early in my childhood. I had grown up with women serving in every area of the church, both locally and globally. My dad was the only pastor I had but, through the United Methodist connection, I was surrounded by women as district superintendents, bishops, Sunday School teachers, missionaries, music ministers, children’s ministry directors, and more. I was shaped by them and their faith. Lynn probably never imagined that, by having a 3-year-old girl come to her house for a Christmas party, she would be the first to teach her that she could be called to ministry, too. But that was the effect she had on me.

Take Action: Think about the girls in your ministry context. How are you sharing your call and gifts with them? How are you affirming their gifts?

Listen: A Woman by FAITHFUL

In partnership,
Center for Leadership Excellence and the Commission on the Status and Role of Women