Rev. Ralinda Golback’s heart was so full of praise that it was palpable. You could almost take it in both your hands and hold it, feel it, hear it, wrap yourself in it.
She had just been installed as pastor of the church where she had been a member for 30 years, and this was obviously the fulfillment of a dream. It was too much for her to keep inside and so she shared it:
[audio:https://myauctionfinds.com/staging1/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/ralindasermon2a.mp3]
Rev. Golback – Ralinda to church members – was the new pastor of First Colored Wesley Methodist Church. It’s a small black church situated on a corner in a neighborhood in South Philadelphia that has become gentrified. Where it once may have drawn members from the rowhouses around it, those years have long gone. The face of the neighborhood has changed – not only in what the neighbors look like but in the notion that Sunday morning is for church.
On the day of Rev. Golback’s installation, most people were likely not thinking of that. They had come out on a late Sunday afternoon for her special service. And special it was.
She was the church’s first female minister, the outgoing pastor Rev. Charles Fenwick noted. That was just as revealing about this church as about other black churches across the country. Not many congregations are accepting of women as their ministers. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement in 1963 that 11 a.m. on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America could also apply to the pulpit.
First Colored Wesley Methodist Church got its first minister in 1820 after some members decided to form their own church independent of Richard Allen’s Bethel Church (now Mother Bethel AME Church), according to First Colored’s history. The church was incorporated as First Colored but became known as Wesley AME Zion Church. More than 100 years later, internal disagreements led to another group of members leaving that congregation and reuniting under the First Colored name.
As a member of a Methodist congregation, Rev. Golback – who was ordained in 2009 and elected as pastor in March 2012 – is in a denomination far ahead of most, especially the Baptist and Pentecostal.
“Most Baptist churches still don’t have women ministers,” said Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, who wrote the spiritual blog Soul Rhythms and grew up in the Pentecostal church. “They can teach Sunday School and minister in that way, but not as pastors.”
The AME and United Methodist Church have been more accepting, according to Lamb and my web research. A 2011 study sponsored in part by the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women in the United Methodist Church found that the numbers were still low – along with the salaries of female ministers – among the denomination’s pastors.
A sprinkling of females have excelled, though: The Rev. Leontine T.C. Kelly, who became the first female bishop in the United Methodist Church in 1984 (she died in June at age 92). The Rev. Vashti Murphy McKenzie, who was named the first female bishop in the AME Church in 2000. The Rev. Prathia Hall, a veteran civil rights activist and pastor of Mount Sharon Baptist Church in Philadelphia (she died in 2002).
In my research, I found a few articles about a black woman here and another one there being selected at churches whose histories spanned a hundred years: A church in York, PA, got its first female minister this year after being around since 1781. A church in Harlem got its first pastor after 107 years. A 119-year-old church in Philadelphia got its first female minister in 2009.
I attended the installation for the female pastor in Philadelphia. The church was packed, and many of the guest ministers and speakers were women. As I sat there, I could feel and see the history in this church – on the walls, in the pews. It was the same feeling I got at Rev. Golback’s installation, but the joy at St. Paul’s seemed more contained. Rev. Golback’s was the kind of outpouring that made you happy in a different sort of way:
[audio:https://myauctionfinds.com/staging1/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/ralindasermon3.mp3]
I had gone to the installation at St. Paul’s with Yvonne and her minister, the Rev. Cynthia T. Turner, who with her now ex-husband had founded the Dayspring Community Church 15 years ago. Rev. Turner, who became pastor six years ago, is a fantastic minister and thoughtful writer, having penned “Righteous Mind” posts as part of Yvonne’s blog.
Several female ministers said in news stories on the web that it was hard gaining acceptance even after being chosen. The old boys’ network, one noted, existed there, too.
The reasons for the lack of acceptance appeared to be varied, based on tradition and our notion of who a minister should be. Some folks found scriptures in the Bible – or not – as their “proof” that women should not be preachers.
I find it interesting that while most churches are led by men, their congregations are made up mostly of women. Walk into any church on a Sunday morning, and you’ll see the backbone of the church filling the pews not the pulpit. With such, you’d think that there would be more women up front. But that doesn’t make a difference, especially since some of us don’t like the idea either.
A female friend told me recently that she’d never go to a church with a female minister. It was a surprise coming from someone who most often was so liberal in her thoughts. When I questioned her about it, she said she didn’t have a good reason for her feelings.
She should’ve been at Rev. Golback’s installation. Her testimony was proof that women can spread the word equally and as forcefully as men.
[audio:https://myauctionfinds.com/staging1/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/ralindasermon4.mp3]
