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My Mom the EvangelistBy Vicky Hall Your big question generated a lot of discussion around my house this week. You see, back in the late 40s and 50s, my mother was a successful evangelist. My mother, at that time, was Sis. Anna Faye Parish; she traveled around the Midwest with another young lady preacher, Sis. Wanda Wooldridge, and they held many revivals throughout Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee. There were mighty moves of God and many souls came to the Lord. In the middle 50s, Mom met my Dad. He is a preacher's son from a well-respected family and had an outstanding reputation, having been in church since he was young. However, he was not a minister himself. Mom relates that once she and Dad married, things begin to change. Her efforts to continue to preach and evangelize were heavily criticized. The invitations began to decline. People, by not asking her to speak, tacitly told her the choice was either her marriage or her ministry. The invitations to speak eventually stopped altogether. My mother was told that if a young woman wanted to preach, she should never marry. The person expressing this view went on to say that an unmarried woman represented purity in the pulpit. A young man, on the other hand, should marry as soon as possible because it improved his ministry. While this may have been the view of one person, it appeared that many others were like-minded. Still, the results of my Mother’s ministry have lived on through many years. There were numerous times during the years I was growing up when we would meet someone who had heard Mom preach years before or had attended one of her revivals. They would comment about how much they had enjoyed that revival or how they had been saved during that meeting. And these folks, twenty years later, were still walking the walk. When Mom was preaching, God anointed her and He honored her efforts with results. If a woman cannot preach and God doesn’t call her, why would He give her both anointing and results? Mom relates that the most receptive state to the lady preachers was Illinois. This was because of the ministry of two special ladies. Many churches were started in Illinois by Sis. Grace Cook and Sis. Florence Clooney. During the early days of Pentecost, they would hold revivals in a town and begin to build a church. One particular town even welcomed them and roped off the Town Square, allowing them to hold services in the middle of town. They would get a church started and beginning to grow and soon a man would show up and say God had called him to that church. These ladies would give him the church and move to another town and do it all over again. Today, Illinois still has several churches pastored by women. We serve a great big God and He is well able to do all things. He is the one who does the calling and who appoints his ministers. God is not limited by gender. Man, on the other hand, is limited and often ties God’s hands by not allowing God’s chosen vessels to operate freely. How many churches have we lost and how many souls have slipped away because limitations have been handed down by man as to who could minister? God looks for 'whosoever will' and to be a certain gender is not necessarily a requirement. If you are a willing vessel and God calls you, He has a place for you. I suspect that God needs women because, in most cases, the women who are preaching are doing so in places most men won't go. The “preaching women” that I am aware of today are in remote areas or places off the beaten path. Could it be that women are tougher and have the strength and commitment to endure in these areas? Sadly too, most of these women are my mother's age. Women have not been encouraged to preach¾in fact they have been strongly discouraged, especially in the last 30 years. Women have been subtly told they can only help their husband. Most churches would go into shock if a woman stood up to preach because they haven't seen it in so many years. There is an additional danger in man placing a calling on a woman who is not truly called of God. There are many wonderful ladies who are married to our ministers. I see and sense a movement, perhaps unnoticed, to lace a calling on these ladies equal to their husbands. We are seeing many ladies conferences run by the wives of the prominent ministers of the organization. Some of them may be called to preach by God, but more seem called by their husband or their position within a district. There is a great work to be done. The harvest field is ripe. To answer that call will take everyone. Where God needs workers, He is calling those He has chosen to go. Why must man’s approval to do a work be so difficult, if God is the one doing the calling? ninetyandnine.com
ã 2000, Vicky Hall, -------- Vicky Hall lives and works, but doesn’t sing and dance, in Nashville West (otherwise known as Branson, Missouri.) Have an opinion on an article? Let us know how you feel! Click feedback & fill us in. |
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