Dr. Hyveth Williams is a professor of Christian ministry and homiletics at the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. Prior to that appointment in 2009, she served for over thirteen years as senior pastor of the Campus Hill Church in Loma Linda. She was the first black female pastor and the first female senior pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. In this video clip, Dr. Williams encourages Adventist churches and conference leaders to take a chance on a woman pastor because she will render outstanding service to the Lord and the church.

Dr. Williams is not the first to say that. An experienced pastor in New York wrote this to the conference president about a woman pastor, Lulu Wightman, in 1897: “I say as I have said all the time in reference to Sr. Lulu Wightman, that a good lady worker will accomplish as much good as the best men we have got, and I am more and more convinced that it is so. Look at Sr. Lulu W.’s work; she has accomplished more the last two years than any minister in this state….” (S. M. Cobb to A. E. Place, Aug. 6, 1897. NYC 11, 1897 incoming.)

There were many women ministers in Ellen White’s day. In fact, there were far more female pastors, proportionately, in her era than now. Maybe we should learn something from history.

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