Religious Leaders Find Fulfillment

January 29, 2007

Author: Anna Sudar

Source: The Post Online

http://thepost.baker.ohiou.edu/articles/2007/01/29/features/17258.html

Bethany Fulton wanted to be a writer. She never thought she would become a Presbyterian pastor.

After graduating from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pa., with a bachelor of arts in English communication and media technology, Fulton said she had her life all planned out: “Poet laureate of the U.S. by 25.” But after a job writing commercials fell through, she began to get nervous. Clarity came when she found a flier about career opportunities in the Presbyterian church from a resource center. Something clicked, she said.

“I was sitting outside on the ground and I basically looked up and said ‘OK, I got it,’” Fulton said.

Fulton and other female religious leaders in Athens have similar stories on their road to becoming clergy members. They all felt as though they were called into positions of religious leadership - an opportunity that has opened for them only in the past 50 years.