125th Article Series:A Day in the Life of Our First Black Woman Evangelist
The June 1, 1910, issue of The Evening Light and Church of God Evangel printed a letter from Evangelist Rebecca Barr about a day in her ministry in the Bahama Islands. Her day began early in the morning and ended with a worship service that included washing the saints’ feet. Barr wrote to Evangel readers, “At five o’clock Sunday morning we went down to the water side and three were baptized. At eleven o’clock service was preaching, and the Lord was wonderfully with us, and at three in the afternoon we had Bible reading. Sunday night the Lord’s Supper, and the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians was preached from. After the sermon was delivered the Lord led me to read the thirteenth chapter of St. John and explain every verse until I got to the seventeenth verse, and then we went into the performance of the chapter, and the Lord Himself was there. Impressions were made on the hearts of the people such as had never been before in any of our services. I must say that the children of God are happier since they have obeyed the commands as given in Matt. 28:19 and St. John 13. O, it is glorious! I want you all to pray that we may make full proof of our ministry out here. Times are very hard, and forty-eight cents in the collection is considered large. Your sister in the Lord till Jesus comes. Rebecca Barr”
Evangelist Rebecca Barr is best known as one-half of the ministry team that first took the Church of God outside the continental United States. In 1909 Rebecca and her husband, Edmond, experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the Pleasant Grove Camp Meeting in Durant, Florida. Then in November of that year they felt compelled of the Lord to take the Pentecostal message to his native Bahamas.
It is impossible for us to know how typical this Sunday was for the Barrs as they ministered throughout the Bahamas, but is clear beyond all doubt that Rebecca was an active partner in ministry. Other descriptions of her ministry report that she was “making full proof” of her call and that people were being saved, sanctified and baptized with the Holy Ghost. According to Edmond, “God is just sending my wife to people who are rebellious against His words, and as she lays her hand of power upon them they go to the floor and stay until the Comforter comes in.”
To the best of our knowledge, on May 31, 1909, Rebecca Barr became the first black woman minister licensed in the Church of God. Earlier that year the fourth Assembly had agreed to license women who ministered the Word. Her “Evangelist’s License or Certificate” even included the authority “to baptize” and “to administer the Lord’s Supper,” but there is no evidence that women administered these ordinances in the Church of God at that time. Although little is known about the ministry of Rebecca Barr, there is much evidence that God answered her prayer and made full proof of her ministry.
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This article was written by Church of God Historian David G. Roebuck, Ph.D., who is director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center and assistant professor of the history of Christianity at Lee University. This “Church of God Chronicles” was first published in the May 1999 Church of God Evangel.
