Like a growing number of women today, the Rev. Veronica Cannon was ordained recently to preach the gospel. What makes her somewhat different, perhaps, is that she also is marries to the Rev. Jerry Cannon, senior pastor of C.N. Jenkins Memorial Presbyterian Church.

I caught up with Veronica Cannon to talk about issues related to her calling. A Q&A from that interview is below. Some answers were edited for brevity and clarity. ~ By Michael Gentry

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Q: What prompted your decision to enter ministry?
I felt called to ministry. I felt God was calling me to reach out to people, to share the word of God with other people, to help people build relationships with Christ. I felt that I had gifts and talents that were leading me to ministry and to reach out to people mentally, spiritually, physically and emotionally.

Q: Did being married to a pastor affect your decision?
I don’t think it had a great effect. A lot of women are married to pastors, and vice versa, and they don’t necessarily get called to become ministers. I suspect it had an impact to some degree, but I really believe that the hand of God moved in my heart. And He (God) called me to ministry.

Q: At what point did you start to feel that pull?
Initially, I felt it when my daughter was very young, about 18 years ago. My children were so young that I did not do it at the time. And so, about 10 years ago, it came back very strong and I started thinking about it, and other people began to notice my strengths and gifts for ministry. I was feeling it inside. In the Presbyterian church, we call it an “inner calling.” An “outer calling” is when other people recognize it. And other people also began to recognize it. I had a friend who is a minister, she told me that I should stop running from it. I said, “I am not really running. I just can’t pick up and move to Chicago, New York, or Virginia, or even Atlanta, to go to seminary because my children are so young.” She said, “You don’t have to; you can just go to the seminary here in Charlotte.” And so I applied (to Union Presbyterian Seminary), and the rest is history.

Q: Now that you are an ordained minister, what will be your role at C.N Jenkins?
Well, I am not actually at C.N Jenkins. I am serving at Davidson College Presbyterian Church. I have been there since the end of August, and I am basically interim associate pastor there. I do some preaching and teaching. I’m involved in Bible study, officer training and visitation of people in the hospital. They have a retirement facility called The Pines, and I visit people there and those types of things.

Q: What goals do you have at Davidson?
My goal at Davidson is the goal that I have anywhere I go: to help people develop their relationship to Christ, because I think that is what we need to do -- spread the Word of God to people who don’t know.

Q: Being the first lady of a church is a pretty lofty position and a big role in itself. What can be done as a pastor that you felt couldn’t be done as a first lady?
As first lady, I really didn’t buy into the role that you had to do certain things. I did what I wanted to do in the church. I was active as I wanted to be, and things I did not want to be involved in, I wasn’t. But as first lady of a church, you can still get involved in ministry. I felt called to more preaching and teaching the word of God, and I felt the need to reach out to people in more of a pastoral way than I was able to do as a first lady.

Q: You said being married to a pastor didn’t necessarily push you toward ministry. Do you feel it is infectious in some way?
I don’t think you can live with a minister and be active in ministries with him and not have it impact you in some way. But again, I think the call is not from man; the call is from God.

Q: How has your family reacted?
They have been very supportive and very excited about this new phase in my life as an ordained minister of the Word and Sacrament. They have been, next to my husband, my number-one supporters.

Q: What difficulties have you encountered in seminary and now as an ordained minister?
Seminary is not so very difficult because I love the whole idea of learning and the whole institution of learning. It really helped me to grow in my faith. My faith was challenged, and I think that was the one thing about seminary that I would say had an impact. It makes you think outside of the box, and it really opened my eyes to a lot of issues and things that go beyond just what you may learn in Sunday school and what you might learn just sitting in the pews on Sunday morning. You actually have to broaden yourself and it challenges your faith. But it also helps to strengthen your faith. Since graduation, I think one of the greatest challenges has been just in getting the call. There are still a number of churches, unfortunately, especially in the African American churches, that still don’t really want to call an African American woman to the pulpit. I continue to preach on Sundays all over Charlotte, both in African American churches and white churches.

Q: Where do you think that closed mindedness to women preachers comes from?
I think the African American traditions. I believe that many African Americans are just tied to having a male pastor before them. Traditionally, that’s all there was. Many white churches have become a little more open to bringing women in as associate pastors in some of the larger churches and even some of the smaller churches. In African American churches, I think it’s just been a little more difficult, and most of the difficulties come from women in the churches. I think you get more resistance from women than you do from the men, and I have struggled with that.

Q: What do you feel God is saying to you through the struggle of trying to get that call from churches?
I think God has been encouraging me to just remain faithful, stay strong, and to realize that it was God that called me and not man, that it is God’s timing and not mine. I was very blessed to receive this call from Davidson College Presbyterian Church, and things are going very well.

Q: What kind of advice have you received from friends and ministers as far as pastoring?
Advice that I have been given from mentors, female ministers, has been almost the same as from everyone: to just love the people. No matter where you are, just love the people, support them, care for them, have compassion, show compassion, and remain open in spirit to what God is calling you to do and whatever direction God decides to take you.

Q: Do you sometimes run across any stubbornness in yourself?
Of course. I think I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t run into some stubbornness. That is sometimes why you get into a situation where God calls you to do some things you really don’t feel comfortable doing, and you just really don’t want to do, and you may not feel up to doing. But that is the amazing thing about God. He can work through all of that and work through you to help you overcome fears and any concerns. So yes, I have stubbornness, but I trust God will help me to work through them.

Q: All preachers have their own style of preaching. Has it been a task trying to keep other preachers’ styles from affecting you?
No, because I have always been told to listen to my own voice in ministering. I think it is helpful, and I think all ministers to some degree do listen to other pastors. You take the best of what they do in their preaching, male or female. But you have to establish your own voice. I can’t preach like my husband. He doesn’t preach like me. I can’t preach like a lot of other ministers. I have to find my own voice in preaching.

Q: Are there times when you are preaching that you find God answering some of the questions that you have had?
That has been probably one of the most amazing things to me about preaching. First of all, to prepare services, you do a lot of research, a lot of prayer, and there is a lot involved in preparing a sermon. It has been amazing to me that on Sunday morning when I preach a sermon, even though I have prepared it and it is the word I believe God has given to me to share with God’s people on that day, I have been amazed as I am preaching I have also been ministered to. The first time it happen it struck me as odd because I wrote the sermon and I know what the sermon says, but here it is ministering to me in a way that I did not expect. It’s like the word is bouncing back and I am hearing it myself. It is coming out of my mouth, I wrote it, and its coming from me, but I think it’s the power of the Word when God touches it that it can also minister to the one who delivers it. That has happened to me several times. As I am preaching, it makes me go, “hummm… I need to pay attention to this myself.” It’s been amazing.
 

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