Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 27, 1994 TAG: 9403250034
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Frances Stebbins
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Inside, the view is considerably different. Glade, soon to mark its 20th anniversary of founding, has a feminine voice at the end of the pastor's line. And nine months into her call, the Rev. Kelly Sisson is leading her community of "family and friends, not formal members," down a path she is not ashamed to call progressive.
It's a path, she points out, that has gone in a non-typical Southern Baptist direction ever since she first was invited to try the congregation in 1978 after coming to Virginia Tech as a freshman majoring in communications. Though the First Baptist Church of Ashland, in which both of her parents were deacons, had long admitted women to its lay leadership, Sisson remembers confronting her mother with the view that God could not be pleased with such a practice.
Thinking about that period in her life in her office, Sisson chuckles at her early conservatism. Professors at Tech and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, from which she graduated in the mid-80s, helped move her in the direction of ordained ministry at a time when this is still an option for only a few Southern Baptist women.
"I never intended to be a pastor, but I have always tried to be open to God," she said.
Today, as pastor of Glade Baptist, she is one of only about a score of women on the national level who are in full charge of a Southern Baptist congregation. It makes her feel both humble and delighted.
After more than seven years at a large Norfolk church where she served as an associate for youth and adult ministry, Sisson perceived that she was moving away from the traditionalism of most in the congregation. But she was shocked and hurt, she said, when in 1992 her position was cut from the staff - supposedly for financial reasons, but actually, she believes, because she was a young single woman. The firing happened the same week her father died.
After considering several ministerial options at 32, Sisson consented to come as sole pastor of the small Blacksburg church where a few people still remembered her as a student member from 1978 to 1982. One who was influential in the decision to call her was Edd Sewell, a professor under whom she had studied in the communication department. Sewell is a deacon at Glade, and his wife, Judy, is the clerk and a choir member.
Still "on my honeymoon" as pastor at Glade, Sisson has found the congregation open to change and its small size an ideal place to emphasize her view that church is an extended family. The bulletin carries her name as pastor and the congregation as ministers.
Innovative worship and being open to all people are the bottom line at Glade, Sisson said. This goes, she said in an after-church interview, for races, economic levels and sexual orientations. Many at Glade, she has noticed, "have been cut by the stained glass windows." That's her way of symbolizing rejection by more traditional churches.
Though the customary Baptist form of baptism is immersion, Glade has members who were accepted after having been sprinkled in another denomination.
They're friendly at Glade Baptist. Most of the congregation of about 35 - including the 11-person choir - were aware of the sojourner and many greeted me warmly. Like the pastor herself, many, though not all, were Baby Boomers.
Graduate students predominate among those who come regularly, and they have produced a crowded preschool department, though there are few older children, Sisson said.
Lent, the liturgical season before Easter which most Southern Baptists don't observe, was clearly marked last Sunday at Glade. Using a theme of "Whoever serves me, must follow me, and where I am there will my servant be also," Sisson opened the service at 11:05 with remarks on the importance of Lent as a penitential season, that Christ is a "comforter of unfinished people" and one who keeps us "from sinking and solidifying."
Two hymns, "How Long, O Lord, How Long?" and "O God Who Gives Life" did not come from the standard Southern Baptist hymnal of 1976, but were new works to which Sisson was introduced at a recent meeting of the Alliance of Baptists. The first hymn had a somber theme for Lent, while the second was sung to a familiar tune. For balance, the service ended with the old standard "Nearer My God to Thee."
Terry Chatting is pianist. Guest singer last Sunday was an old friend of Sisson's, Ann Roberts of Radford. With guitar, she performed "Where Are You Going?" from the musical "Godspell."
There is a five-minute time for silent meditation instead of a pastoral prayer at Glade, with several members offering prayers of thanksgiving at the time. The gradual coming out of a coma of a young man seriously injured at Christmas was cited by the pastor as welcome a resurrection as spring daffodils.
"Out of death comes resurrection more than once a year," she observed.
Her 15-minute message started with a story about being terrified of riding with two elderly relatives who, in their haste to get to an outlet mall for a sale, made a wrong turn and traveled down the wrong side of an interstate. Like them, many who call themselves Christians do not know where they are going and make wild promises to God with no conception of the consequences, Sisson said.
When Peter asked Jesus before the crucifixion where the Lord was going, Sisson observed that the impulsive disciple really was wondering how he would get along without his friend and master. Without a real relationship to Christ, people stumble through life as in a tunnel without a flashlight, the pastor concluded.
The little white church at 1600 Glade Road was for years used by a Lutheran congregation. Stained glass windows - but no immersion pool - grace its simple interior. Upgrading includes facilities for those in wheelchairs as well as a picnic shelter on the nine acres of scenic land. The worship area dates from 1902, and, with an addition built about 15 years ago, it has room for the expansion of membership Sisson expects will gradually take place. But she emphatically does not want a big church.
"When we outgrow this building, we'll start a mission, she said. "I believe life is in the smaller churches. . . . One reason I am proud to be here is this congregation knows who it is."
Sojourner appears monthly in the New River Current. Its purpose is not to promote a particular point of view but to inform readers of a variety of worship styles.
by CNB