answering the call
“There was a time when certain people in the church would never miss an opportunity to remind me that they had held me as a baby, or changed my diapers,” says Sanders, who first felt called to ministry at Swarthmore.
There, she joined a student-led Bible study group and was a director of the campus gospel choir. She also was a DJ for a WSRN gospel show.
“It was my way of contributing to the blossoming of Black culture at Swarthmore,” says Sanders, who studied math and Black studies.
“From [Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Professor Emerita of History] Kathryn Morgan, I learned how to collect and analyze oral histories,” says Sanders.She went on to pursue theological studies at Harvard Divinity School and used oral histories in her dissertation on the religious conversion of enslaved African Americans.
She’s been teaching Christian ethics at Howard for nearly 40 years. “You see somebody. They need help. Do you walk by them or do you try to stop? That’s the ethics of the Gospel,” says Sanders, referencing the parable of the good Samaritan. “Jesus told us that this is what it means to be a good neighbor.”
When she moved back to D.C. for the position at Howard, Sanders returned to Third Street Church.
One Sunday, the pastor asked her to fill in while he underwent a medical procedure. Unexpectedly, and to the shock of the congregation, the pastor did not survive the surgery. Sanders was at a crossroads.
“I had to decide, ‘Am I going to step up or am I going to step away?’ ” says Sanders. She stepped up, first on an interim basis, and then was elected by the congregation to serve as senior pastor.
The church has only had three pastors in its history, with Sanders the first woman in the role. Her husband, Alan D. Carswell, and their two adult children, Allison and Garrett, participate in the educational, media, and music ministries at Third Street Church of God.
“Our faith enables people to not only be set free, but it fosters thriving,” says Sanders. “Thriving is what I think ministry should be about.”