The Bishop’s Chapel in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was adorned with fine china and crystal and sterling silverware, as 120 ladies gathered for the Pre-Mother’s Day Tea, hosted by Friendship Church Outreach Ministry.
“The Lord has opened the door for women to be in leadership. We are not to be behind the man but to be beside him to work together,” said Bishop Bonnie Hunter, pastor emeritus and founder of Friendship Church Outreach Ministry in Chapel Oaks, Maryland. “As a female bishop, I am a spiritual mother to many sons and daughters to help them to become more than what God wants them to be.”
Hunter’s daughter, Lady Shonita Roy, president of the Women’s Ministry, Hunter’s daughter, said the event was not only to highlight mothers but to celebrate all the women and mother figures who help shape the church community and beyond.
“We wanted to celebrate the women who are important to us as well as women who had not birthed a child but are mother figures,” said Roy, wife to the church’s pastor the Rev. Dameion Roy.
While the event celebrated women, Pastor Roy noted that male participation was key in honoring the ladies during the event.
“It was important for the teenage and adult males to escort the women and to teach them to fellowship with one another in the love of Christ,” he said.
Friendship Church Outreach Ministry is affiliated with Bibleway Temple Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like other Pentecostal Churches, the house of worship places a significant value on order, traditions and roles such as “church mothers.”
Bishop James Jordan, pastor of Refreshing Springs Church of God in Christ, said: “The church mother, next to the pastor, is the next most important job in the church.’
“Mother Jean Smith is the Mother of Refreshing Springs,” Jordan continued.
Mothers of the church are like the mothers in the home. Those women have certain responsibilities to the minister and to the women, a very strategic part of the ministry.’
“You want mothers who are seasoned with experience. You want someone who has a softer side. The mothers are a very vital part of the church,” Jordan told The Informer.
Mother Lolita J. Perkins, president of the Mothers Board of the Church of God in Christ, said in a statement, “The primary responsibility of the church mother is to help build the women’s ministry through the utilization of auxiliaries, units, evangelism, and prayer ministry. ‘
“Everybody respected my mother, Annie Morgan, she was a church mother and mother of 18 children,” said Geraldine Morgan Capehart, who lives in the area.
With seven children and 20 grands, Mother Anita Gaston, is well-known in local church circles from the Church of God in Christ, to the Bible Way Temple Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
As a church mother, Gaston, 74, told The Informer she works hard to set a positive example.
“I just try to be an example to people – men and women,” she said.
