ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
August 12, 2022
I love the story of the Christian Women’s Board of Mission (CWBM), a powerful organization within our denomination during the first fifty years or so. This organization empowered women beyond what many other Christian denominations were doing at the time. These were in the years following the Civil War, in which over 600,000 men had been killed. There was often a gap in leadership, especially in local congregations. Of course, as has happened throughout Christian history, women stepped up. Speakers through the CWBM began traveling across the country, and audiences who might never have heard a woman speak were left both scratching their heads and spiritually moved. From the book, the Stone-Campbell Movement: A Global History,
Frances “Birdie” Farrar was twenty-two years old and single when she became an organizer for the Virginia CWBW in 1896. At one place on her speaking tour that year, Farrar noted, “Many, I knew had come from curiosity to hear what a woman had to say, for, in some parts of Virginia, the people it very strange to hear a woman speak in public.” Later, Farrar told a group of women, “It was a woman who first carried tidings of the Risen Lord, and ever since Mary Magdalene gave that first joyous message… women would continue to tell the old story until every knee should bow and every tongue confess Jesus as Lord to the glory of God the Father” (page 70).
Farrar never considered herself an evangelist, but Clara Babcock, a leader from Illinois, was so respected that she was Ordained as a minister within the denomination in 1888. Of course, when the Stone-Campbell Movement began to fracture (into the Disciples, Independent Christians, and Church of Christ), women’s leadership was one of the issues. Today, there are still churches that do not allow women to teach children over the age of ten, believing women’s voices should be silent. I give thanks for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the way it has and continues to honor God’s call to women who have and are serving as powerful ministers of the Gospel… including a long history here at Cypress Creek Christian Church.
Gracious God, I give thanks for the first evangelists and preachers of the Good News of Christ’s resurrection. The women who had gathered at the tomb gave witness to what they had seen and heard, and the world has never been the same. Continue to call forth every voice and every life to bear witness to the victory of love over death and despair. Amen.
