Mary Lynn Tobin

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But her true Road to Damascus moment came in February 1981, the first time she heard a woman preach. The woman was a layperson, but at that church in Eugene, Tobin watched her invigorate the gospel reading and in that moment, Tobin saw all signs in her past pointing to the ministry: her work as a youth director, planning youth events and as director of music at her church back home.

"It was a mystical experience," she recalls. "At that time, there weren't many women ministers. I was struggling with whether women should be ordained or not."

She went to San Francisco Theological Seminary and by 1985, she was preaching at a 2,500-member Presbyterian church in Atlanta. There was some resistance, mainly churchgoers who had issues with her earrings or shoes and sometimes her message. But the women, Tobin says, felt affirmed because they had a female minister and some were inspired to go to seminary. In 1989, Tobin and her husband, Dave Campbell, a college professor, decided it was time to move. 

Doors opened and Davis called them. Her husband started working at the university and she joined the ranks at Davis Community Church. The church emphasizes hospitality, giving brown-bag lunches to homeless people every day.

"People in this community are so overburdened," she says. "I think that comes out of a misguided notion of prosperity. Prosperity is a state of well-being, of wholeness, of health and security. As a Christian, I believe that prosperity cannot be attained alone. We are only as prosperous as we take care to see that the global community is prosperous."

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