Sacred Sistering: A Devotional for Women of Color Ministry Leaders

By RISE Together Mentorship Network

Sacred Sistering is designed as a collection of devotions, poems, and prayers to inspire women of color toward an enduring sense of faith, hope, and spiritual direction in life and ministry leadership. The uniqueness of this devotional is found when women of color reflect on the narratives of biblical women, the

• Language: English
• Publisher: Union Theological Seminary
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781736748350

RISE Together Mentorship Network

RISE Together, founded by Reverend Dr. Lisa D. Rhodes, is a multicultural mentorship network where women of color experience safe and sacred spaces for vocational discernment and leadership cultivation within Sistering communities. In cities across the country, RISE connects women of color seminarians and early/mid-career ministers to seasoned female pastors, chaplains, interdisciplinary faculty, and community leaders. Through women-centered intergenerational support networks, RISE educational modules promote strategies for Renewal, Inspiration, Support, and Empowerment that assist women of color to overcome the challenges they confront as a result of racial and gender inequalities in ministry.

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FROM SISTERHOOD TO SISTERING

This section lifts up heart-felt devotions that explore the joys of sistering moments, regrets, and missed opportunities, as well as experiences of tensed and challenging seasons that impact a woman’s decision to support or abandon a sister. Sisterhood consists of both dyads and communal networks of women connected by a common interest, religion, vocation, and need. In times of hardship, joy, and pain, celebration, challenge, and achievements, sisterhood networks have historically served as a relational and organizational covering, conduit, and context for learning the practice of Sacred Sistering— a more intimate and interpersonal act of care, concern, and counsel given to women individually or collectively. Sisterhood provides the communal and collective mirror for the practice of Sacred Sistering that calls for a deeper interpersonal communion between each other and God. Moving from belonging to a sisterhood to embracing Sacred Sistering is is a holy practice that calls each of us to a higher level of ethical responsibility for the care and support of our sisters of color in ministry and leadership.

REVEREND ANDREA D. LEWIS, PH.D.

The Ties That Bind—Ruth Clung to Naomi

…your people shall be my people, and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16)

Ruth and Naomi’s relationship is a beautiful model of the sisterhood among women in Christ. Family circumstances of loss, sadness, and survival brought them together, but their love for each other, expressed in their sistering and mothering relationships, sustained their journey. Many of us as children, teenagers and young adults have experienced this type of sistering and mothering in relationships with older women.

I was blessed to have a Naomi and Ruth type of love in my life with Aunt Lou, my adoptive grandmother who guided me through the seasons of infanthood, childhood, adolescence, and young womanhood. She planted the seeds of knowledge and kept me in line through the seasons.

Because Aunt Lou had no children of her own, her neighbors, friends, and family members knew and loved me. I attended family reunions and to this day, her family continues to welcome me with open arms. Just like Ruth and Naomi, they were my people. The bonds transcended blood lines and were empowered by God’s love.

Just as Naomi nurtured Ruth, Aunt Lou provided loving support over the years. Even after her death, I hear her words of wisdom that guide me through the highs and lows. Ruth and Naomi had a one-of-a-kind relationship. They were more than daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. They were sistered. Their relationship encompassed the joys and pains through the seasons of life we as ministerial leaders face daily. After the deaths of their husbands, Ruth clung to Naomi, learning lessons and growing in God just as we nurture the relationships in our congregations, and with sisters and mothers in