(RNS) — In early November, the Rev. Carolyn Cavaness was already bracing for a big task — preaching the closing sermon at the fall convocation of the First Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
But as she was about to go the pulpit, she was surprised to hear she had received a much grander assignment: The district’s bishop introduced her as the new pastor of the nearby Mother Bethel AME Church, the historically Black denomination’s founding congregation.
Mother Bethel was founded by Richard Allen in 1791 after Allen, a Black lay preacher at Philadelphia’s St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, saw a white official at the church pull his fellow Black preacher, Absalom Jones, to his feet as Jones knelt in prayer.
Cavaness is the first woman to lead Mother Bethel.
A fourth-generation preacher, Cavaness, 41, long knew she was going to enter the ministry. “I had a preacher’s license before I had a driver’s license,” she said in an interview.
RELATED: COVID-19 health emergency is ending but faith-based vaccine clinics continue
The Newark, New Jersey, native moved just 10 miles to her new church from her old one, Bethel AME Church of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, where she had helped 2,000 people get COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic and partnered with other organizations in the Philadelphia suburb to distribute 800 prepared meals for an annual community “Friendsgiving” outreach.
She thinks of the pastor’s role, Cavaness said, as a “designated maidservant,” a phrase she uses as she prays before preaching. “I’m here to serve,” she said. “I’m here at this table that God set aside for me to impart and to bring his Word to his people.”
The Rev. Carolyn Cavaness, center, leads a worship service …