LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — For the first time in its 112-year history, the Quaker Memorial Presbyterian Church has a female pastor.

Anghaarad Teague Dees took the helm last fall and was officially installed as a pastor in a service late last month. She said there needs to be a place where people can be themselves and hopes the church at 5810 Fort Avenue will be Lynchburg’s.

“Anghaarad” – pronounced An-hare-ad – is Welsh, meaning “voice of angels”. Dees knows the name comes with funny looks and over-the-top pronunciation attempts.

Dees, 48, and her husband, Zane, have been married for 13 years and have two dogs and two cats. She said she does karaoke occasionally, enjoys going out, parades, antiques, festivals, history, reading and movies.

Dees attended the University of Mississippi for Women and majored in vocal performance.

“I was a major voice on my way to opera and professional singing, but I don’t really have the ego for this job,” she said.

So she went to the seminary at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas.

“And when I arrived, it was like I had come home,” she said. “I loved my time at the seminary, I loved the reading, I loved the work I did when I was there. It was a nice moment.”

Growing up in First Presbyterian Church in Tupelo, Mississippi, there was a female pastor in the church since Dees was in elementary school.

“I never knew women couldn’t be ministers,” she said. “I had seen a woman in the pulpit. I had seen a woman do the work of the ministry and I came from a family of really strong women.

Dees’ father died when she was young. She described her mother as a phenomenal force who helped raise her with the help of five great aunts who never married.

“It was like a movie of all these strong women raising stronger women,” she said. “So I just had this amazing experience and this childhood of being around strong, loyal women.”

She thinks it’s normal for people to struggle with their faith and ask God questions because He can handle anything.

“I learned that the scriptures are this beautiful authoritative testimony of who God is and of God’s story with God’s people and that there is room for all of us,” she said. . “And so when I ran into fundamental attitudes, I was like, ‘No, God is great and good and loving and all are welcome. “”

Her seminary class was the first to have more women than men, and she felt like she was part of a turning point.

“I love the voice of women and every time people pushed against me I said, ‘You know what, the first apostles were the women,'” she said. news that Jesus rose from the dead, it’s the women. I mean, if you don’t listen to the women at the grave, then you’re missing an opportunity.

Dees said women bring a voice for the underdog to the ministry.

“They bring a different voice to the table and they bring a different voice to scripture,” she said.

Dees served congregations in Mississippi, Texas, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and most recently Valdosta, Georgia for seven years before accepting the position with Quaker.

During the pandemic, she was approached to apply for a new position elsewhere.

“COVID has been a very difficult time for pastors, and I know all professions can say it has been hard on them and made their lives difficult, but everything pastors do has been completely cut off by COVID,” she said. “We couldn’t go see our people. We couldn’t worship with our people. We couldn’t feed our people. We couldn’t go and take our people out into the community to do the work of Christ.

Pastors became the place where everyone took their frustrations and anger, she said, and while she wasn’t unhappy in Georgia, she said she was just exhausted.

“Every day you get an unpleasant phone call or email,” she said.

When asked to consider a different position, her file was placed on an online Presbyterian hub, where churches across the country saw her application and began contacting her.

“I was bombarded. I had never received so many interview requests,” she said. “And I just remember calling my husband and saying, I think there’s something to that. I think we need to listen and I think maybe we need to do some of these interviews.

Dees adored the Quaker Memorial congregational committee and said they were excited and ready for a high-energy pastor who offers something different.

“This church reminds me of the church I grew up in, and not only are the personalities of the people very similar, but Lynchburg is very similar to my hometown in Mississippi,” she said.

Susie Hubbard was one of the committee members who hired Dees last year. She said Dees was positive and showed tremendous energy.

“She was looking for a place where the smallest baby and the oldest in the church would all interact together, which our church was also looking for,” she said. “She definitely thought outside the box when it came to the traditional church.”

Bringing in the first female pastor in the church’s 112-year history initially sparked some skepticism among members, Hubbard said.

“But that first sermon she did, she walked in and it was just ‘Wow,'” Hubbard said. “I knew the church would embrace it, but you can’t keep everyone happy and we were a little worried there were people who would voice that, but we didn’t get it. When she finished and it was over, you could just see the people on the pews saying, “Wow, that’s going to be a good thing.” I think our congregation is very excited about what the future holds.

Before Dees joined Quaker in October last year, the church had an acting pastor for three years and was looking for a new leader.

The church completed a capital campaign in the midst of COVID, exceeded its goal and renovated the entire ground floor of the building.

“So that’s what I love so far about Quaker and what I’ve experienced as a kid growing up: they love their pastor, they need a pastor, but they don’t have you don’t have to have a pastor to tell them how to be the church,” Dees said. “They need me and they want me, but they don’t need me to tell them how to be servants of Christ .”