Waco church believed first in Texas to call woman pastor

                                                                                                                    Vol. XI, No. 6, June/July 1998

Calvary Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, has called Julie Pennington-Russell as pastor in a 190-73 vote June 10. Pennington-Russell, 37, believed to be the first female senior pastor of a church affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has been pastor of Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco since 1993 and was its associate pastor from 1984-93. About 75 women now serve Southern Baptist churches as pastors, said Sarah Frances Anders, an emeritus professor at Louisiana College who has kept tabs on women in ministry for about 40 years. Around 30 states have at least one female Southern Baptist pastor, and most of them are in the East, she said, and about 1,300 Southern Baptist women have been ordained. But many of them have found places of service in denominations, such as the United Methodist Church, that are more open to their ordination, Anders said. Calvary is "a mainstream traditional Texas Baptist church," he added. "Our ad in the phone book shows that we are affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Southern Baptist Convention, (and) we are a Texas Baptist church." The church allows its members individually to decide how the portion of their gifts that goes outside of Texas is channeled, he reported. About 85 percent of out-of-state contributions go to the Fellowship, and 15 percent are sent to the SBC. The church ordained its first women deacons in 1990 and called and ordained Fran Porter as minister to senior adults in 1995. She is a member of the board of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs and has served on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's Coordinating Council. [BP]