Central Seminary student Andrea Huffman (left) was the recipient of this year’s Addie Davis Excellence in Preaching Award, presented by BWIM Executive Director Pam Durso (right) at the Baptist Women in Ministry annual gathering in Birmingham, Ala.
Central Seminary student Andrea Huffman received the Addie Davis Excellence in Preaching Award during the Annual Gathering of Baptist Women in Ministry on Wednesday, June 19, in Birmingham, Ala..
Andrea Huffman
Two awards were established in 1995 to honor Addie Davis, the first Southern Baptist woman ordained to the gospel ministry, and to give public recognition to gifted women seminarians. Huffman, part of Central’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, is one of five alumnae who have received this award, along with Jennifer Judd, Nikki Finkelstein-Blair, Belinda Creighton-Smith, and Tammy Jackson Gill.
Huffman said her first preaching experience “changed my life…I loved every second of standing up in front of my church family and delivering the message that God had laid on my heart,” in the BWIM newsletter Vocare.
“I felt a confirmation in my spirit that preaching was going to be a regular part of my life and ministry, and this confirmation was accompanied by a supernatural sense of peace and fulfillment.”
Carolyn McKinistry
Amy Mears, Andrea’s homiletics professor in Central’s WLI program, said, “Andrea brings good sense, authenticity, and integrity into the pulpit. She develops sermons with particular care…Those watching and listening have a sense that Andrea is, in fact, bringing good news – to them.”
Held at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, the BWIM gathering included a time of worship featuring a testimony and challenge by Carolyn McKinistry. An active participant during the Civil Rights movement, McKinistry escaped being killed with four girls killed when the church was bombed on September 15, 1963. She has made it her mission to spread a message of forgiveness and racial reconciliation as a result of these early formative experiences.
