Misfits in the suburbs
When Bec Cranford-Smith graduated from seminary, she figured she would go to Atlanta and start a congregation in the urban center. But Margaret Aymer at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary challenged her: “Why go to the city?” Aymer asked. “There are enough new churches there. Why not plant a church in the suburbs, where you’re from?”
Cranford-Smith didn’t want to go back to Douglasville, Georgia, a suburb 20 miles from Atlanta, where Baptists and Pentecostals populate the religious landscape. She had been hurt by her conservative upbringing and had been asked to leave the Assemblies of God denomination because of her feminism and her inclusive stance toward LGBTQ friends, among other things.
“They were very nice about it. They blessed my ministry,” Cranford-Smith said, but the pain of rejection was still evident in her voice, and she didn’t want to return.
