Heal Our World, O Christ-Sophia: BWIM
Congregational Hymn at Annual Baptist Women in Ministry Gathering.
Heal our world, O Christ-Sophia; heal us all, we pray;
fill us all with loving kindness; show Your peaceful way.
Christ-Sophia, heal our world, we pray;
fill us all with loving kindness; show Your peaceful way.
Hear the urgent cries of children, marching for their lives;
help us now to end the violence, so they all survive.
Christ-Sophia, heal our world, we pray;
fill us all with loving kindness; show Your peaceful way.
Women rise up now for justice, calling out “Me Too”;
Black Lives Matter movement joins in making all things new.
Christ-Sophia, heal our world, we pray;
fill us all with loving kindness; show Your peaceful way.
Help us join Your work of healing, that we all may thrive;
give us grace and strength for action; keep our hope alive;
Christ-Sophia, heal our world, we pray;
fill us all with loving kindness; show Your peaceful way.
Words © 2018 Jann Aldredge-Clanton (from Incluive Songs for Resistance & Social Action)
State of Women in Baptist Life
During the luncheon program preceding the worship service, Meredith Stone, BWIM Executive Director, expressed the great need for healing in our world and in our churches. She proclaimed the value of women’s gifts, callings, freedoms, and leadership, saying we need more opportunities to use our gifts. She acknowledged the path for women in ministry continues to be uphill and rocky. She cited BWIM’s newly released State of Women in Baptist Life report, including these troubling statistics: 86% of Baptist women in ministry report continuing to encounter obstacles to ministry; 72% say they must provide more evidence of competence than male counterparts; and 25% report sexual assault or harassment in their ministry settings.
Rev. Dr. Gina Stewart Preaching
At the worship service of the BWIM gathering, Rev. Dr. Gina Stewart preached a rousing, healing, freeing sermon that inspired numerous standing ovations. Rev. Dr. Stewart is senior pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and president of the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society, the first woman to lead a major Black Baptist institution in America.
In her sermon she proclaimed that, like the crippled woman in Luke 13, female clergy know what it means to be paralyzed by sexism, patriarchy and other forms of emotional and psychological abuse. The sin and pain that derive from systemic prejudice “have created suffering and keep us in bondage and powerlessness.” But while others saw the crippled woman as a fixture to be ignored and whose healing could wait, Jesus viewed her with compassion and healed her on the sabbath, which infuriated the religious authorities.
Women ministers, like the woman in the story, have been told all too often to wait for restoration and justice in our striving for freedom from disenfranchisement and marginalization, Rev. Dr. Stewart preached. “‘One more day won’t kill you,’ they say. But Jesus saw her healing as critical. And he didn’t blame her or castigate her.” Women are not to be considered inferior because they are created “in imago dei … to preach and to pastor.” Rev. Dr. Stewart called on women not to tremble before hierarchy and those who doubt and disparage their callings. Ministering boldly is to be healed like the woman in the synagogue. “In God’s economy, any time is the right time to be free.”
Responsive Benediction
Leader: Like Lady Wisdom who Proverbs describes as being present when the heavens, oceans, mountains, and seas were set in place, through Christ, the Word of God, all things were made.
People: Christ Sophia, fill us with the loving kindness of your wisdom,
that we may be able to live a more peaceful way.
Leader: Christ Sophia helps us know better, and the wisdom Christ gives compels us to do better. We cannot be complacent with inactive and non-transforming knowledge. Wisdom requires action. As Maya Angelou taught us,
People: When you know better, you do better.
Leader: We know that 86% of women in ministry experience obstacles in their ministry because of gender.
People: We know better, we will do better.
Leader: We know that women of color in ministry experience every obstacle in greater measure than white women.
People: We know better, we will do better.
Leader: We know that over 25% of Baptist women in ministry have personally experienced sexual harassment or assault in their ministry settings.
People: We know better, we will do better.
Leader: We know that Baptists have experienced only marginal progress for women in ministry over the past 6 years.
People: We know better, we will do better.
All: May Christ Sophia continue to teach us. May the creator continue to inspire us. And may the Spirit, our Sustainer, move us to action. Amen.