Baptist Women in Ministry (BWIM) celebrated 25 years of fellowship and advocacy with a laid-back dinner meeting and concert June 19. An overflow crowd enjoyed down-home cooking and music by Kate Campbell at the eclectic Center for Southern Folklore in Memphis.
Leaders presented awards named for pioneer Addie Davis to two seminary students, and read biographical vignettes about early leaders in the movement, as well as present and (hopefully) future women who excel in the practice of ministry.
Historians Pam Durso and Eileen Campbell-Reed presented highlights of “A Twenty-Five-Year Retrospective of Baptist Women in Ministry,” which they co-authored. Statistics from the report indicate that the number of Baptist women pastors or co-pastors has grown from 14 in the early 1980s to 113 in 2007 (75 solo pastors, 38 co-pastors). During the same period, the number of women ordained as ministers grew from 200 to 2,000.
To learn more, attend a workshop to be led by Durso and Campbell-Reed on Friday at 1:30 p.m., or download the report. A brief history of BWIM can also be found in the June issue of Baptists Today.