Women’s ministry pioneer Rhonda Kelley dies

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary on Saturday reported Kelley’s passing after a long battle with cancer. She was 72. Current first lady of NOBTS, Tara Dew, remembered Kelley as a “good and faithful servant,” who would leave an impact on the Seminary, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Kingdom of God as a whole.

What did Kelley do in women’s ministry? In 1992, then-SBC President Ed Young appointed her to a task force examining women’s roles in ministry. For more than two decades afterward, Kelley led and helped develop at NOBTS what would become a women’s ministry training program. Kelley also helped pioneer the modern women’s ministry movement with her time as managing editor of the “Women’s Study Bible” in 1995—which has since sold millions of copies. She also authored and edited for numerous other women’s ministry books during her lifetime.

What else did she do? She served with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, the Women’s Ministry Network, and served a term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention Minister’s Wives

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