December 4, 2001 | TERRI JO RYAN; Tribune-Herald staff writer |
Waco native Dorisanne Cooper will return to the city early next year to become the senior pastor of Lake Shore Baptist Church, making her the second female Baptist senior pastor in Waco.
Julie Pennington-Russell, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church since August 1998, was the first.
With 86 percent of her new congregation voting last month for her hiring, Cooper also makes history in being teamed with a female associate pastor at Lake Shore — Sharlande Sledge, who has served that congregation 16 years.
“I hope that people will not think of it as a novelty, but as two people they’ve picked to lead them,” said Cooper, reached by phone in North Carolina, where she is the associate pastor of College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro. “Our styles will complement each other.”
Libby Bellinger, who headed the pastor search committee for Lake Shore, said Cooper bested more than 50 competitors for the post. The final five candidates brought in for interviews were Cooper and four men — one of whom was a Waco-area pastor, she said.
The committee sought someone with a Texas background or a connection to Baylor University, Bellinger said. But preaching skill was also a top criterion. From the beginning of the search, she said, Cooper’s sermons were a superior work product.
The 43-year-old church hopes to attract younger members with children, Bellinger said. Although several of the prime candidates were in their 30s, Cooper, 32, has a maturity level that a lot of her competitors lacked, Bellinger said.
Sledge was considered for the top job, Bellinger said, but the associate pastor indicated she is more interested in missions and administration than preaching.
Cooper replaces Brett Younger, who served Lake Shore for five years before being called to Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth.
“What’s drawn me to Lake Shore,” Cooper said, “is its willingness to not set the mold but do what is right for it.”
Cooper said she had to change some set minds when she started at College Park in 1996. “I don’t want to pretend it’s all been a joy ride, but (that congregation) has a lot of supportive people in it.” She got high marks for being able to handle with aplomb the senior pastor’s six-month sabbatical.
Uncertain at first
When she started at seminary in 1993, she said, she didn’t know immediately that she would go into the ministry full time. She had been raised around ministers and knew the challenges of the job and the political maneuvering behind the scenes, she said. But when she took some preaching courses, it opened up the Bible for her in a whole new way.
Cooper said she knew there would be but a few “pockets of opportunity” for female pastors in the Baptist realm.
The Southern Baptist Convention in June 2000 passed a resolution condemning the ordination of female pastors. In 1998, the Southern Baptists declared that a wife should “submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.”
Lake Shore left the Southern Baptist Convention in spring 2000. It remains affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the Alliance of Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Paul Stripling, executive director of the Waco Baptist Association, an organization of 120 autonomous member congregations, said he knows the Cooper family well and is happy for the new senior pastor.
“We honor the autonomy of each local Baptist church to call whomever they feel God has led them to minister to their congregation,” he said.
Pennington-Russell at Calvary Baptist in Waco said she is thrilled for her new colleague and her new pulpit.
“I look forward to having her as a colleague in town,” she said. She described Cooper as articulate and compassionate, with leadership qualities that will help her church go far.
The Rev. Michael S. Usey, pastor of College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C., where Cooper will serve through Dec. 30, is a Baylor graduate who was an associate pastor at Seventh and James Baptist Church for four years after his seminary training. Cooper was in his youth group there, he said.
“The hard part about being a Baptist minister is you know that you cannot work with your colleagues for long, and the most talented ones will move on more quickly,” Usey said. “I hope Lake Shore is ready for all this woman can do.”
After spending her elementary grades at St. Paul’s Episcopal School, Cooper attended seventh through 12th grades at Vanguard College Preparatory School, from which she graduated in 1988.
Cooper attended Baylor University, graduating magna cum laude in 1993, with majors in psychology and German and a minor in mathematics. She continued her education at Princeton Theological Seminary, receiving her master’s of divinity degree in 1996. At Princeton, she won the Jagow Preaching Award.
She recalled running into some resistance in seminary from those who “didn’t think it was in God’s plan to have a woman preacher.”
Another Waco connection
Her husband, David Tatum, also a Baylor graduate with a degree in social work, builds furniture at Marshall-James in North Carolina. He will follow her back to Waco in January after selling their home. He will explore opportunities in the social work field here and consider building their new home himself, she said.
Cooper is the daughter of William and Thelma Cooper of Waco. Her father, who teaches philosophy at Baylor, is the retired dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. Her mother teaches the piano pedagogy course.
They are longtime members of Seventh and James Baptist Church, Cooper said. “But I hope they’ll sneak over to hear me now and then.”