Every Friday Baptist Women in Ministry introduces a fabulous minister, and today we are proud to introduce you to Sabrina Smith. Sabrina IS what a minister looks like!
Sabrina, tell us about your ministry journey and the places and ways you have served and are serving.
In many ways, my ministry journey has just begun, but my life has been full of ministry moments. I did a few semester-long internships with youth and children, but only recently did ministry become my main focus. On June 24, 2018, I began as the solo pastor of Pine City Baptist Church in Pine City, New York. This is my first pastorate. I have the privilege of leading worship for thirty or so faithful members of a long-standing church every Sunday. We sing together, pray together, and on occasion, I get them to interact with me during my sermons. Nothing compares with that hour each week! I am also learning to love visiting those members of my church who cannot make it out to the service because of their health. Those conversations have been some of the most blessed of my time serving here.
What have been your greatest sources of joy in ministry?
My greatest source of joy has been experiencing those moments when I am able to recognize that God has done something through me. Those moments when I go to visit someone and I arrive just at the moment they were feeling most depressed or abandoned, and we pray together. Or when a sermon hits home with someone, and they make a connection that I didn’t even see. Or when someone asks a question, and although I don’t think I have an answer, I find myself speaking, and it is exactly what they needed to hear. Those moments that I can take no credit for, but I can see that God is using me. Those moments keep me going!
What have been the greatest challenges you have encountered in ministry?
I am a young Baptist woman raised in the foothills of Appalachia with the accent to prove it. And all of those things would seem to be challenges to being in ministry. I have certainly read enough about them being obstacles and challenges, and they were. They are. I get the typical “YOU’RE the minister?” reaction. I get the jokes about my accent and find myself talked down to as if I lack intelligence. I still have to prove myself capable of providing care and making decisions despite my young age. But I think my greatest challenge is not any of those. My greatest challenge is myself. I never would have imagined myself doing this. If you had asked me as recently as a couple of years ago what my future held, I would have told you any number of things, but not this. My biggest challenge is believing that God called me to this, especially when confronted by any of these other challenges. God and I still have a lot of conversations about it. “God, are you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY sure?” But, I love what I am doing, and I know I am where I am supposed to be, now if only my imagination would catch up with my reality!
What advice would you give to a teenage girl who is sensing a call to ministry?
Explore that feeling. Take a class or ten. Read books about women preachers and women pastors. They exist (the books and the female preachers and pastors), even if they are hard to find. Find someone that you trust to talk to about your call. Most importantly, pray. Pray alone. Pray with others. Ask others to pray for you. Go somewhere that you can sense God’s call, feel God’s presence, and just sit in silence for a while. If you feel called to ministry, do not accept “God doesn’t call women to do that” as a valid reason for not pursuing it, because they aren’t calling you. God is.