A Church of Her Own

Women have been among the most dynamic and successful ministers in all Protestant denominations; but in divinity school, Sarah Sentilles discovered that some of the best and brightest were having trouble and even leaving the church altogether. What was happening? To find out, she entered the lives of female ministers women of various ages, races, and denominations and emerged with the first real portrait of what it's like to lead as a woman of faith today. Filled with humor, heartbreak, and triumph, the women's stories take us from calls to the pulpit through ordinations and service. Despite many churches' resistance conscious or not to re-imagining what it means to be a minister, many of these women are achieving remarkable transformations in their congregations. In their inspiring determination to perform the creative, life-giving work to which they are called, these women illuminate a way that the church can revitalize itself. What's at stake is nothing less than the future of the church itself.

SARAH SENTILLES earned her doctorate in theology and her master of divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School and is the author of Taught by America: A Story of Struggle and Hope in Compton. She lives in Camarillo, California.