My stomach was queasy, and my hands began to sweat. Today was the day! Today was the day that I had been waiting for, the day that I did not know I needed. Today was the day I stood behind the pulpit for the first time as the “preacher.”
As I waited for the service to begin, sitting in the empty church office, I glanced over my sermon notes one last time. I felt confident in the material, but I was still befuddled that I, Megan, was about to preach a sermon to a real congregation. I was elated and nervous! I took a few minutes to reflect on my ministerial journey up to this point. I thought about all the people and experiences that helped me get to this place, but my mind stuck on one specific event.
I was casually working at a booth for my alma mater, Carson-Newman University, during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s General Assembly. I was greeting guests, listening to people relive their glory-days, and encouraging young people to attend the school. Then a man, a very kind man, introduced himself as alum. He asked my husband and me about our connection to Carson-Newman, and when he learned we were seminary students, he asked about our ministerial journeys. During the conversation, the man and I realized that we were from the same hometown, and he immediately said, “You should come preach at our church!” I politely declined and informed him, “No, you want my husband to do that. He is a much better preacher than me. He has a lot of experience, and I have never preached before.” By this point in the conversation, my husband had stepped behind me and was pushing me toward our new friend. The two of them agreed that I needed an opportunity to preach. I cannot describe all of the wonderful, freeing emotions I that felt in that moment. They believed in me! These two preachers affirmed my gifts and encouraged me to preach. There was no reason I should have hesitated, but I did. A flood of emotions rushed over me when I finally was offered this opportunity to preach. How can I preach? I have never preached before, I am not skilled. I assume this is how many of the early church mothers and fathers felt when God asked them perform important tasks.
That kind man, Rev. Ed Sunday-Winters, empowered me and furthered my ministry. He invited me to preach in February, during Baptist Women in Ministry’s Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching. Rev. Sunday-Winters had never heard me preach, but he believed in me, and he believed that both women and men are called by God to preach the gospel. I will always be indebted to this kind pastor for believing in me and for providing my first opportunity to preach. He unknowingly connected me to the sisterhood of women who have felt the power of someone believing in them and leaving room not just at the table, but in the pulpit. And on that special day in February 2014, I joined that sisterhood, and now I am honored to say that I am a Martha Stearns Marshall PREACHER.
Megan Hurst Carter is a third-year student at McAfee School of Theology and serves as associate pastor of youth at Peachtree Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.