By Grayson Hester

One of the gifts of the Cooperative Baptist community is the ease with which ecumenical partnerships can be formed and relationships nourished. 

Untethered from strict hierarchical power structures and emboldened by congregation-centric polity, CBF churches can cast wide their relational nets and reach across all sorts of aisles — both literal and figurative — to meet their congregants’ and communities’ needs. 

A prime example of this occurred recently in the partnership of Thriving in Ministry (TIM), a CBF initiative, and Baptist Women in Ministry (BWIM), which joined hands to create and sustain a mentorship program for women in CBF and non-CBF ministry alike. 

“It’s a great partnership,” Kelly Adams, the director of CBF’s Clergy Support Ecosystem, said. “Historically, we’ve had good partnerships with BWIM, and this just felt like a no-brainer.” 

Every year, Thriving in Ministry facilitates ministry cohorts geared towards specific groups within CBF life for the purposes of fostering relationships, creating connections and supporting ministers and their churches. 

This year, the initiative faced a very good problem: too much money. As a result of the disruptions wrought by Covid lockdowns, Thriving in Ministry found itself with a surplus of  grant money and an abundance of imagination in how to spend it. 

At the exact same time, Rev. Dr. Meredith Stone, executive director of BWIM, faced the opposite problem: Her grant money was running out. 

Given the two organization’s illustrious history – including a recent jointly developed curriculum titled Equally Called – and the fact they had received the same grant, a solution to the problem was only an email away. 

“Meredith Stone emailed me late fall [2023]; there was an overwhelming response to mentorship cohorts for 2024,” Adams said. “A lot of these women are CBF-affiliated, and we could have a whole second cohort. We did not want CBF-affiliated ministers, even half of a cohort, to be turned away from an opportunity when we could create a strategic partnership.” And so they did. 

It’s not the first time BWIM and CBF have coordinated on projects together. CBF contributes between three and four percent of BWIM’s annual budget — more than any other Baptist organization — and enjoys a commonality of mission and outlook. 

And since CBF is not the only network with which BWIM works (the Alliance of Baptists, National Baptist USA and Progressive National Baptist Convention are others, to name a few), it is helpful for projects such as these to define what the collective work is and for whom it’s being done. 

“Having partnerships defined around a project helps understand the ways we work together,” Stone said. “We’re inviting women and congregations to participate in our programs. These specifically defined partnerships are helpful in us knowing what our relationships look like.” 

If this current cohort is any indication, the relationship between CBF (Thriving in Ministry, specifically) and BWIM looks like abundance, community and a harvest of fruit. In it, CBF-affiliated ministers are paired with those with more experience to lift one another up, provide wisdom and engender ongoing relationships. They first met in January of this year, and the benefits have been evident ever since. 

“With CBF’s money, that they’re sending us via Thriving in Ministry, we are sponsoring one group within the program, that is only CBF pastors,” Stone said. “These funds are supporting a mentoring group of CBF pastors, led by a former CBF pastor.” 

This partnership is, in short, “mutually beneficial,” Adams said. “You already have that relationship, deepening that mentoring/coaching relationship,” she expanded. “You’re talking with a group here, individual mentoring there and then receiving individual coaching from that same person, where you outline deeper goals specific to your ministry context.” 

And that’s what it all comes back to, for both Adams and Stone: the ministry context. Women in ministry, although supported by CBF and BWIM since their respective inceptions, nonetheless face specific obstacles in their ministerial careers (not to mention their daily lives), and therefore require specific support. 

That can look like the mentorship pairings, position-based retreats like Polyphony (for music ministers), or groups, like Pastora and Pan-African Koinonia, that are organized around the intersections of gendered and racialized identities. It can look like someone saying the powerful but simple sentence, “I hear you, I see you, I believe you.” 

“Women have unique needs and perspectives on how they exist in this system that is still largely male-dominated,” Stone said. “Women experience compounding difficulties related to our gender. Whenever we’re in those community relationships, we’re able to say: ‘We’re not alone, these experiences are real, and there are ways that I can address that it’s happening.’” 

These communities are crucial. For those women who are serving in congregational settings, their thriving (or lack thereof) is directly tied to the thriving of their churches. 

Burned-out ministers run the risk of leading to snuffed-out churches. Baptist Women in Ministry and Thriving in Ministry endeavor to prevent that. 

“The people are what keep us in it,” Adams said. “Our Fellows have said that, ‘If it weren’t for this group that I kept in touch with after Fellows, I might not still be in ministry.’” Indeed, all ministers deserve a place to commiserate, collaborate and congregate. But for women and ministers who embody other marginalized identities, their capacity to minister, and minister well, depends on having such places. Places, not just to share grievances, but to cultivate joy. Places, not just to shoulder burdens, but to imagine brand-new worlds. Places, not just to offer support, but to expand the very definition of the Gospel. 

“Often, women in ministry, despite the problems, have the joy of seeing girls in their churches who say, ‘Oh, I can grow up and be a preacher one day, too,’” Adams said, “because they see it in the pulpit. They see you leading with the robe and the stole, speaking in worship. In other churches, that’s not allowed. But, in BWIM-supported churches, girls see that on full display every Sunday, thanks be to God.” 

To support the thriving of women in ministry is to support a healthier, happier and more effective church. One that doesn’t just replicate patterns of male domination, but disrupts them and models the kind of equitable Kin-dom Jesus calls us to begin.  

When organizations like CBF and BWIM partner, share their resources and help sustain programs like the mentorship cohort, they help move this tired old world one step closer to that Kin-dom vision. And the whole church will be better for it. 

“When we empower women, we will have congregations of people who prioritize the empowerment of others,” Stone said.  “Which will then transform the Church so that the overall health, wellness and reach of the Church might be bigger than we might ever imagine.”