1976 – Rev. Ray Cameron and Women's Work
Rev. Ray Cameron was a design and development engineer before entering the ministry. He graduated Eureka College, Brite Divinity School, and the Lexington Theological Society and was serving as Associate Minister at Central Christian Church when he was named Woodland’s 10th pastor. Cameron would serve eight years.
His most notable innovation might have been the Children’s Moment which was shared during worship at Woodland beginning on January 11th, 1976.
The congregation was saddened in March of 1976 to learn that Elmore Ryle - who had pastored Woodland between 1964 and 1971 - had passed away while serving the Simpsonville Christian Church. His wife, Margaret Ryle, known affectionately as “Momma,” would return home to Woodland that June where she remained a faithful member until her death in 2019.
As part of a Christian Women’s Fellowship general meeting, Fan Lee Dalzell presented a History of Woodland’s CWF. Afterward, the women traveled to the Lexington Cemetery for memorial services commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of women’s work in the Christian Church, as described by Mrs. Carolyn Neville Pearre. According to the Encyclopedia of the Stone Campbell Movement, Pearre was known as the “Mother of the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions.” She had founded a missionary society in Iowa and spent much of her time corresponding with women across the country until the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions was established in October of 1874. She continued serving the board as corresponding secretary and its leading public speaker. When she died in Danville, Kentucky, in 1910, she left behind on her dressing table an envelope containing her CWBM offering. She is buried in the Lexington Cemetery.
On Sunday, December 18th, 1977, the congregation of the Woodland Christian Church voted to allow women to become Elders. The first female elders were Emily Ball, Gladys Scheer, and Bertha Wilhoit. The church was hardly the first to allow women to pastor or hold church leadership positions, but the late seventies would see an increase the number of women serving as leaders of the church. Scheer would go on to become the first woman to serve as Chair of the Elders.
His most notable innovation might have been the Children’s Moment which was shared during worship at Woodland beginning on January 11th, 1976.
The congregation was saddened in March of 1976 to learn that Elmore Ryle - who had pastored Woodland between 1964 and 1971 - had passed away while serving the Simpsonville Christian Church. His wife, Margaret Ryle, known affectionately as “Momma,” would return home to Woodland that June where she remained a faithful member until her death in 2019.
As part of a Christian Women’s Fellowship general meeting, Fan Lee Dalzell presented a History of Woodland’s CWF. Afterward, the women traveled to the Lexington Cemetery for memorial services commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of women’s work in the Christian Church, as described by Mrs. Carolyn Neville Pearre. According to the Encyclopedia of the Stone Campbell Movement, Pearre was known as the “Mother of the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions.” She had founded a missionary society in Iowa and spent much of her time corresponding with women across the country until the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions was established in October of 1874. She continued serving the board as corresponding secretary and its leading public speaker. When she died in Danville, Kentucky, in 1910, she left behind on her dressing table an envelope containing her CWBM offering. She is buried in the Lexington Cemetery.
On Sunday, December 18th, 1977, the congregation of the Woodland Christian Church voted to allow women to become Elders. The first female elders were Emily Ball, Gladys Scheer, and Bertha Wilhoit. The church was hardly the first to allow women to pastor or hold church leadership positions, but the late seventies would see an increase the number of women serving as leaders of the church. Scheer would go on to become the first woman to serve as Chair of the Elders.
- Trader, 149-153