VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 6/10/21)—The Advisory Team of American Baptist Women in Ministry (ABWIM) will host a workshop, Radical. Redeemed. Ready: Imagining New Possibilities for Women in Ministry, during the online ABCUSA Biennial Mission Summit on June 25 at 4 p.m. EDT. The workshop will feature the key leaders of ABWIM’s upcoming June 2022 “Celebrating Ministering Women: Radical. Redeemed. Ready.” Conference at Green Lake Conference Center in Green Lake, Wis. including the Rev. Adalia Gutiérrez Lee, MD, the Rev. Dr. Zina Jacque, the Rev. Dr. Trinette V. McCray, and the Rev. Lauren Lisa Ng.
The workshop conversation will be moderated by the Rev. Dr. Patricia Hernandez, ABCUSA associate general secretary for ABWIM, and will spotlight the ways women in ministry have continued to respond to God’s call despite ongoing challenges, blazing new trails, exploring new pathways, and imagining new possibilities for ministry and leadership.
Speaking about her experience as a woman in ministry, the Rev. Dr. Trinette V. McCray, the president of the National Black Caucus of the American Baptist Churches, observes, “As an African American woman, I have had in my formation the benefit of my family, faith, and my cultural principles, specifically, the teachings of the seven Kwanzaa principles known as Nguzo Saba.” She continues, “From this foundation and lens, I see women in ministry fulfilling their call, as I have and am supported, by standing on the principles of Imani (Faith), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), Ujima (Collective work and Responsibility), and Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), specifically. These things and more feed and fuel what I see for women in ministry today and generations to come.”
Rev. Lauren Lisa Ng serves as the director of Leadership Empowerment for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies where she oversees the Co-Creator Incubator Initiative, a two-year integrative program for missional entrepreneurs that helps grow ministry ideas into viable ventures with a Christ-centered mission. She reflects on the influence entrepreneurship has played in her own journey as a woman in ministry and how it is cultivated through the Co-Creator Incubator cohort, writing, “…we are taking note of the women and men in the mission field who are carrying the torch of our entrepreneurial American Baptist heritage and showing us fresh manifestations of that innovative spirit for a new people in a new time…We are imagining with them and with you new pathways and possibilities for ministry and leadership.”
In anticipation of the workshop, Hernandez notes, “American Baptist churches have been ordaining women for over 100 years. While much progress has been made, many challenges continue to exist…Join us as we hear from trailblazing, innovative leaders and together imagine the future!”
Find more information about the ABWIM workshop and register to attend the Biennial Mission Summit here. More information about the panelists and the June 2022 “Celebrating Ministering Women: Radical. Redeemed. Ready.” conference can be found here.
American Baptist Churches USA is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with approximately 5,000 congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.