In the fall of 1983, I arrived in western North Carolina to serve as an intern at the Baptist Student Union (BSU). Baptists all over the county were in a bruhaha over women in ministry. The local newspaper had carried an article about the Tuckaseigee Baptist Association meeting that listed Sue Fitzgerald, the representative from Mars Hill College, as a Reverend.

The irony was that Sue had been bringing greetings from Mars Hill College at associational meetings throughout the mountains of North Carolina without a problem for more than a decade. Pastors throughout the region valued and respected her. The issue was not Sue, but the Rev. in front of her name.

I slid into the back row of the church to see if Rev. Fitzgerald was there and how it would all play out. I had been ordained for less than a year and was interested in how local pastors would respond to my role at the BSU.

When the presiding pastor introduced her, I held my breath. A guileless woman in her mid-fifties purposefully walked to the front of the church, stood before the communion table, and told about a free lending library program Mars Hill College offered to all churches in the region.

She left out that she had designed the program and convinced the college’s president to provide access to all the materials published by the Southern Baptist Convention to the small and often poor congregations throughout the mountains.

She could have defended her calling and extolled her ministry relationships with many present that day, but that was not her style. What she did say was spoken with confidence and humility, both of which have been hallmarks of her lifelong faith journey.

I shared an office with Sue when I worked at Mars Hill a decade later. Our paths had crossed before that, and my respect for her had only grown. When those interviewing me for the campus job asked what I thought about working with Sue, I replied that I had been able to serve in the mountains primarily because of the path she cut for other women. 

But Sue never saw herself as a Pioneer. She was doing what she believed she was called to do.

After getting to know her, I asked if she knew about the controversy she was walking into that August day years before.  She said she did. I also asked why she stood in front of the pulpit rather than in it, and she told me she knew she had the right to stand in the pulpit, but had she exercised that right, they would not have heard a word she had to say about the mission and ministry of “The College,” as she always referred to Mars Hill.

She chose to be heard.

Her father once told her, “Daughter, you stand like a tree planted by the water, but every once in a while, you may have to shake your leaves at them.” 

That is how I saw her do ministry.

She did not draw attention to herself, but she was no shrinking violet. She was persistent and consistent once she believed something needed to be done. She never started a church or a non-profit, but she taught many seminary extension classes to equip both men and women, striving to help them understand the Bible and how to equip the church.

She was the first to visit if someone in the area was sick or in need, regardless of the time or weather. She asked the young man who mowed her grass if he would take her car and fill it with gas. He told her it was three-quarters full.  She said, “I know, but I never know when I am going to be called out and how far I may have to go.”

For as long as she could, that is how she lived her life.

Sue now lives in an assisted living facility in the middle of the state. Her stories and legacy live in the hundreds of students she mentored, pastors she shepherded, and multitudes she walked alongside in their joy and sorrow. She was given honorary doctorates and various awards, but the memories of the people she loves sustain her.

I went to see her at her new home. Finding her room was complicated. She walked me to the first set of doors when I was leaving.

When we arrived, I told her I wasn’t sure I could find my way out. She looked up and said, “You see those exit signs? I’d follow them.”  Still giving compassionate direction and guidance: That is Sue Fitzgerald.

Editor’s Note: This reflection on the ministry of Sue Fitzgerald appeared in the May/June 2024 issue of Nurturing Faith Journal. Rev. Fitzgerald passed away on August 30 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The team at Good Faith Media is thankful for her pioneering work and witness.