06/11/2026
A history lesson about our tradition that is timely, given this week’s vote by the Southern Baptist Convention to further shut down women clergy.
"The Ordination of Women in the Christian Church"
by Dr. Lisa Barnett, DCHS trustee
Recent interest in the ordination of women into parish ministry settings—e.g., the recent controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention—has prompted members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to examine our own history into ordaining women. Although Clara Babcock has often been cited as the first in the Christian Church (ordained in 1888), Debra B. Hull’s work into women’s history in the Stone-Campbell Movement (SCM) identified earlier examples of women pastors being officially ordained into congregational ministry settings.[1] While many women in the SCM were actively involved in ministry and may have preached sermons, to our current historical knowledge, the earliest woman officially ordained as a minister “by the Christians” was Melissa Garrett Timmons Terrell in 1867. Then known as Mrs. Melissa Timmons, she was ordained pastor of the Ebenezer Christian Church in Clarke County, Ohio, on March 7, 1867, and was expected to earn a salary of $500-600 a year. She had already been preaching for this congregation for six months before the congregation decided to hire her permanently and ordain her.[2] According to John Franklin Burnet, a minister in the Christian Church, who wrote a booklet in 1921 for the Department of Publishing of The American Christian Convention, Rev. Terrell was probably the first “to be ordained by any denomination by direct authority of a Conference or local congregation.”[3]
Burnet writes that Melissa Garrett was born in Clinton County, Ohio, in 1834.[4] Melissa began preaching in 1856, and the 1860 census lists her as a minister for the Christian Church at age 26 for the Jefferson Township in Clinton, County, Ohio.[5] She was a member of the Southern Ohio Christian Conference when she married Rev. William Henry Harrison Timmons and withdrew from the Conference prior to her ordination but rejoined afterwards.[6] In 1877, the Conference held its annual session in Ripley, Ohio, and Rev. Melissa Timmons preached the Annual Conference sermon. Her text on that occasion was, "And on my servants and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy."[7] Timmons became a noted revivalist in southern Ohio and during her time preaching in the area, was called to be the minister at the Christian Church in Xenia, Ohio for a year.[8] Shortly after beginning her pastorate on March 1, 1881, Melissa divorced her husband W.H.H. Timmons on the grounds that he had been willfully absent for more than 3 years and that he was “now incarcerated in the penitentiary at Lincoln, Nebraska.”[9] Sometime later she married and became Melissa Terrell but by the 1900 census is listed as widowed. Besides her work in Ohio, she held pastorates at First Christian Church in Forest Home, Iowa and Springfield, Missouri.[10] Rev. Terrell was also active in suffrage and temperance causes using her ministerial position and credentials to speak in favor of both.[11] Rev. Melissa Terrell died on May 10, 1924, in Mason City, Iowa and her funeral was held in the Forest Home Christian Church (IA) of which she served as the pastor for several years.[12]
This brief synopsis of the life of Rev. Melissa Garrett Timmons Terrell demonstrates that with continued research, more information can be known about her life. However, more work is still needed to reveal more about her life and ministry. The same needs to be done for other women ordained within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Meanwhile, we celebrate the fact that the Stone-Campbell Movement does have an early history of ordaining women into congregational ministry.
Notes
[1] See Christian Church Women: Shapers of a Movement (1994, Chalice Press) and Hull’s entry in the Stone-Campbell Encyclopedia (2005, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
[2] Detroit Free Press, March 26, 1867, 2. The newspaper story contains information written by Rev. E.W. Humphreys, former editor of the Gospel Herald. See The North Missourian (Gallatin, MO), March 28, 1867, 2; and The Conneautville Courier (Conneautville, PA), July 2, 1924, 5.
[3] John Franklin Burnet, Early Women of the Christian Church: Heroines All (Dayton, OH: Christian Publishing Association, 1921), 26, https://webfiles.acu.edu/departments/Library/HR/restmov_nov11/www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/jburnett/ewcc/EWCC.HTM .
[4] Dawn Albrecht, Find a Grave, Memorial ID: 92491937, Forest Home Cemetery, Poweshiek County, Iowa, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/92491937/melessa-terrell .
[5] “Women as Preachers,” The Kansas City Times, November 4, 1896, 4; and 1860 United States Census, Jefferson Township, Clinton County, Ohio, digital image s.v. "Melissa Garrett," Ancestry.com.
[6] Burnett, Early Women of the Christian Church, 25. See also Debra B. Hull, Christian Church Women: Shapers of a Movement (St. Louis, Chalice Press, 1994), 29.
[7] Burnett, Early Women of the Christian Church, 27.
[8] The Xenia Gazette (Xenia, OH), November 19, 1880, 8; The Xenia Gazette (Xenia, OH), February 18, 1881, 8.
[9] Clinton Republican (Wilmington, OH), March 10, 1881, 2.
[10] Burnett, Early Women of the Christian Church, 27; “Some of the Women,” The Oskaloosa Herald (Oskaloosa, IA), November 7, 1889, 1; “Women Urged to Take Courage,” Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1893, 2; and The News-Herald (Hillsboro, OH), November 14, 1901, 8.
[11] “Report of the Iowa Annual Meeting,” The Woman's Tribune (Beatrice, NE), November 19, 188, 7; Xenia Semi-Weekly Gazette (Xenia, OH), August 19, 1881, 1; “The Woman Suffragists,” Sioux City Journal (Sioux City, IA), September 22, 1892, 1.
[12] The Conneautville Courier (Conneautville, PA), July 2, 1924, 5; and Albrecht, Find a Grave, Memorial ID: 92491937.
Image from John Franklin Burnet, Early Women of the Christian Church: Heroines All (Dayton, OH: Christian Publishing Association, 1921), 24.
