Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching Shifting the Culture of Our Churches

By Pamela R. Durso, Executive Director, Baptist Women in Ministry

Tina Bailey preaching at Gateway Church in Indonesia

In 2011, 184 Baptist churches joined together to observe the fifth annual Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching. This yearly emphasis, sponsored by the Baptist Women in Ministry, invites churches to have a woman preach during the month of February. The Month of Preaching is named for an eighteenth-century Separate Baptist woman preacher, who preached alongside her brother and husband in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, and the emphasis is both a celebration of women’s God-given giftedness and an opportunity to educate congregations about women in ministry.

The event has grown since in 2007, when 55 churches took part in the inaugural Month of Preaching. This year’s involvement far surpassed any previous year, with 77 more churches participating than last year’s 107.

This year churches in 20 states (Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia) and the District of Columbia invited women into their pulpits to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. Churches in Cuba, Indonesia, and Uganda also participated.

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