When Ellen Sims and her husband, George, moved back to the Mobile area last fall, it was a homecoming for her. Growing up at Cottage Hill Baptist Church, Mobile, she never dreamed she would come back to an area church one day and accept a pastoral role.
Dudley Wilson, pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church, Mobile, said Sims had been in the congregation for eight or nine months when church leaders realized she “fit the criteria very well to serve in congregational development.”
Before coming to Hillcrest, Sims graduated from Samford University graduate and a Methodist seminary in Ohio and was ordained in an American Baptist Church.
The Hillcrest personnel committee approached her about taking the position of associate pastor, and the church unanimously voted her in.
Congregational development work, Sims explained, has been a broadly defined focus that includes ministering to college students, facilitating the work of the church council and various committees, expanding communication and outreach opportunities and preaching occasionally.
And now — on the heels of going through the disaffiliation process with Mobile Association — Sims said she believes her church and ministry have turned a corner.
“We can focus now on our authentic mission as a church. We are moving ahead with excitement and greater clarity about that mission,” she said. (TAB)
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