Girls in the Pulpit

Last summer, when I attended the Young Clergy Women Project's Testimony Conference in Washington DC, my colleagues and I wrote a manifesta of what it means for us to be young, female and clergy. One of the lines of this manifesta that echoes in my head often is:

Let little girls play in the pulpit.

On Sunday, before church when she would be baptized, one of our little members told me that she wants to be a minister. After the hand shaking ritual after worship, I went back into the sanctuary to see this same little girl playing in the chancel. Her father reminded her that if she was going to be a minister, she couldn't roll around like that. Not intending to undermine her father, I encoruaged her to play in this space and then asked her if she wanted to see something "really cool."

I took her hand and led her to the pulpit where she cooed into the microphone and smiled boldly in stepping into this sacred space.


It was truly a moment for all little girls that dream of following God's call into the unknown.