The Rev. Stephanie York Arnold, the first woman senior pastor at First United Methodist Church of Birmingham, will be stepping down from that role in February to take a CEO-level post at a denominational agency.

Arnold, who had been on staff at First United Methodist since 2010 and senior pastor since 2018, has accepted a job as general secretary of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women of the United Methodist Church, effective March 1.

Monroeville attorney Dawn Wiggins Hare, who has been general secretary of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women since 2012, completes her final term and retires on Feb. 28, 2025.

“She’s been a mentor to me,” Arnold said of Hare. “She’s an incredible woman. I’m thrilled, and a little terrified to follow in her footsteps.”

Arnold will finish her duties as senior pastor of First United Methodist during a retreat at Camp McDowell on Feb. 16.

“That’ll be my last day with the congregation,” she said. “That’s the hard part. First Church is such a wonderful congregation.”

But Arnold said the congregation is in a good place for a transition.

“There are so many of my peers in the wider United Methodist church who are able and gifted to come serve, whose gifts are different than my own,” she said. “That is the beauty of the United Methodist appointment system, that we don’t stay in one place for forever, but we change and we rotate and the church continues on.”

Arnold and her husband, Steve, a metallurgical engineer, have two children: Georgia, a sophomore at Auburn University, and Sawyer, a freshman at the University of Alabama, who grew up at First United Methodist.

“I feel like it is the right time for the church,” she said. “It’s just hard to give up something you love.”

The goal of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women has also been a passion for Arnold.

“GCOSROW’s mission or their mandate is to advocate for the full inclusion of women throughout the total life of the church,” she said.

The United Methodist General Conference this year passed a proposed constitutional amendment, Paragraph 4, which calls for the inclusion of gender in the list of reasons why someone cannot be forbade membership in the UMC.

She’ll be lobbying for that proposal.

“It has to be ratified, because it’s a change to our constitution,” Arnold said. “Because we are a worldwide church, women’s rights are not what they are here, everywhere.”

She’ll also continue to lobby for better pay and equity for women pastors, and in other roles.

“Women’s lay leadership roles in the churches are still not where they need to be as far as sitting on finance teams and leading church administrative boards,” she said.

Her agency also handles sexual harassment and abuse complaints, “which are a deeply unfortunate” part of the job, but “still a reality,” she said.

She also will advocate for the expansion of inclusive language. “So that God is not just seen as a masculine persona, but is expansive and wide, so that all people can see themselves envisioned in that divine presence.”

Advocating equality for women in the church is a step toward equality for all, she said. “It’s just about equality.”

As a United Methodist denominational executive, she hopes to do her part to mend the rift that led to a denominational schism, with many churches opting to leave the denomination over the past few years.

“Everybody who has still chosen to remain part of the United Methodist Church is doing that work and has the opportunity to be an advocate for that healing,” Arnold said. “Everybody, I feel like, wants to move forward. That was a really painful and disappointing loss. That’s part of our faith. We believe that with loss there is also renewal and resurrection. What we’re left with today is a United Methodist Church that wants to be its best self and move forward and focus on the positive.”

See also:

‘Unholy threat’: United Methodists sue breakaway beach church

A 198-year-old Methodist church in Alabama asks judge to drop ‘United’ off legal documents

Elba to Theodore: 9 more Alabama churches sue United Methodists to keep property

Selma’s oldest church sues United Methodists in an effort to keep its property

Alabama congregation founded in 1847 sues United Methodists, says it owns church building

Baptists and Methodists helped build Alabama, now they struggle to keep churches, members

Arnold served on the General Commission’s Interagency Sexual Ethics Task Force; created resources on the topics of pay equity and expansive language; wrote and produced “Her Truth” video and curriculum for the North Alabama Conference COSROW; and presented at The UMC’s Do No Harm Sexual Ethics training in 2018.

“We are thrilled that a leader with a commitment to our mission and ministry as evidenced by Stephanie’s track record has been elected,” Hare said. “Stephanie will provide a bright energizing light in guiding, interpreting, and modeling inclusion of women to the world through the local church’s witness.”

Bishop L. Jonathan Holston, who took over in September as bishop of United Methodist churches in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, also praised York’s selection.

“Rev. Stephanie York Arnold is a gifted leader whose heart resonates with the purpose of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women to advocate for full participation of women in the total life of The United Methodist Church and to help the church recognize every person – clergy and lay, women and men, adults and children – as full and equal parts of God’s human family,” Holston said. “She has lived out these values in her service to the local church as a pastor, to our Conference through the various leadership roles she has served — including as a member of North Alabama’s COSROW and to the General Church through her years as a member of the General Board of Church and Society. She is a talented communicator who works to cast a vision and embolden others to bring that vision to life together. The United Methodist Church will be blessed with her service as the new general secretary.”