Our church has been without a pastor since last November. The pastoral search has been going on. I’ve not been part of the process, for I’m not on the church board. Thus I was on the sidelines all that time.

The way it’s done in our denomination, the church members vote on who the new pastor is. The church board typically acts as a search committee. They are aided in this by our district superintendent—a person roughly equivalent to a bishop in other denominations. In this case, our district superintendent was once pastor of our church, so he took—I won’t say special interest. Let’s just say he knew us well and certainly looked after our interests.

He went through some number of candidates, based on interest shown in moving to the North Arkansas District, or based on other information he had. Lots of prayers were also being sent up, as happens whenever we’ve had a pastoral change. Prayers, not only from our congregation, but also from our District Superintendent and also from those people who he contacted and who interviewed with our Board, either remotely or in person.

One day in March came the announcement came that a candidate had been identified to call as senior pastor. There would be a meet and greet of the candidate on Friday, March 31, and a vote of members on Sunday April 2.  Alas, we were gone to West Texas at that time, helping our daughter during her own pastoral family’s long move.

The next day, a post to a private Facebook group for our adult Sunday School class indicated the potential pastor’s name. Up until this point, I was fairly sure that the candidate was a woman. I can’t explain how I knew that. Divine revelation? No, I won’t go that far, though I won’t rule it out. I was just sure it would be.

Let me interrupt my own narrative to explain that the Church of the Nazarene has always welcomed women in ministry. And I don’t mean limited to children’s ministries, missions work, or other assignments that have the appearance of being “women’s work.” We have always embraced women to be ordained and step into roles as pastors of churches and evangelists. This is a 115 year history—actually more than that, as it probably goes back to around 1895.

This is a position I agree with and embrace. I know there are some scriptures that seem contrary to that, but other scriptures seem to point to a good number of women in New Testament times who fulfilled key leadership roles.  Each person must read the entirety of the scriptures, seek God’s guidance, and decide in their own mind about this issue. I have, and am comfortable with my decision.

That said, women have been in a distinct minority among the rolls of our pastors. Whether that’s because of churches having decided they won’t have a woman pastor for whatever reason, or whether it’s because not many of our women have sensed a call to pastoral ministries (and we can conjecture why that would be, including perceived or stated resistance among churches and parishioners to have women as pastors), is an open question. I’m not going to speculate further on that.

So, all of that said, we will soon welcome Rev. Jeni Hall  as our senior pastor, the first female lead pastor in the church’s history. Her husband, Mark Hall, is also being called to be our worship arts minister, as that post is also vacant. Currently pastoring on the Oregon coast, they are moving closer to home, as Jeni was from Hartville MO and Mark from Coffeyville KS. They will be about equidistant between those places, I think.

The vote to call them was overwhelmingly favorable, well above the 2/3rds majority needed to extend a call. Rev. Hall accepted. Her first Sunday will be June 4.

Not only will this be the first time for our congregation to have a woman pastor, it will also be my first time to have a woman pastor. I have no problem with that. In fact, I welcome it.

And wouldn’t you know it, most likely we will be out of town that weekend and won’t get to greet her on her first Sunday. Welcome, Pastor Jeni and Pastor Mark, should you read this. Thank you for obeying the call of God, first into the ministry, then to our church. I’m looking forward to being part of what God has planned for our congregation under your leadership.