"Preaching is such a gift", says Reverend Radhika Sukumar-White, a minister and team leader at Leichhardt Uniting Church in Sydney.
"Throughout history, great changes happen through great oratory. Preaching has the ability to change hearts and change lives, call people to action and call people to account."
Sukumar-White was 20 when she had a call to ministry.
It was, she says, a "God speaking to me in Morgan Freeman's voice … kind of experience."
Sukumar-White had always wanted to work with people and was studying physiotherapy at university at the time.
Her life would take another path, however.
With her calling came the realisation that "I was going to be able to walk with people and help people using the gifts and skills that I have in the Church, which I so loved," she says.
"That was a really affirming thing to feel."
Sukumar-White, whose parents migrated to Australia from Sri Lanka in the 1970s, grew up in the Uniting Church.
"My parents' parents were converted by American missionaries in Sri Lanka in the early twentieth century," she says.
"When they migrated to Australia, the Church was the first thing they sought in making Australia their home."
Once called, Sukumar-White began the "rigorous process" to become a Minister of the Word, including three years' study at United Theological College in Parramatta, plus numerous interviews and field placements.
She was ordained in 2016, and in 2019, joined Leichhardt Uniting Church, an affirming church that welcomes LGBTQI+ people in its congregation.
"It's a young community of faith — two-thirds would be under the age of 35," says Sukumar-White.
"The community is incredibly switched on when it comes to justice, not just queer inclusion, but climate action, First Nations issues, asylum seeker policy."
'Gender is just not a factor for us'
The role of women in the Church — controversial in other denominations and dioceses — has been resolved in the Uniting Church in Australia.
"It's not even a question," says Sukumar-White.
Sukumar-White believes women have a lot to offer as preachers of the gospel.
"There's something powerful about women in the pulpit," she says.
"I think we bring a different energy."
Giving women a platform to preach
The saying "You can't be what you can't see" has particular resonance for Tracy McEwan, who recently completed a PhD examining the participation of Catholic Gen X women in the church in Australia.
In Catholicism, church law forbids laypeople – including all women — from delivering the homily during Mass.
In the dozens of interviews McEwan conducted with Catholic women during her research, she heard a "recurrent story about feeling isolated and marginalised".
The lack of visible female leaders in faith communities "has a huge impact" on the young women in their congregations, she says.
"Having another woman in your line of sight makes a difference."
"There is research that shows that girls who have leadership role models have better self-esteem and self-efficacy which takes them into adulthood."
McEwan is a member of Women and the Australian Church (WATAC), an ecumenical organisation established in 1984 to advocate for "a church where the full equality and dignity of women are recognised."
In 2021, WATAC and the Grail, a fellow ecumenical women's organisation, launched Australian Women Preach, a podcast that gives women from all Christian denominations a platform to preach the gospel.
"We wanted to promote these women who were already doing that in their communities every Sunday [to show] this isn't something new," says McEwan.
Sukumar-White appears in a special Australian Women Preach episode to mark 2022 International Women's Day.
She says the podcast "is a great opportunity for other denominations to hear the power of women preaching."
'I was never able to fully be myself'
Like Sukumar-White, Kate Englebrecht was young when she realised she wanted to pursue a life in the Church.
"When I was 15 or 16, I had a strong sense of being drawn into theological thinking, reflection [and] church life," she says.
"My parents were quite devout Anglicans, and church was a big part of my life."
At school, she developed a passion for spiritual literature.
"I was very interested in reading John Donne and George Herbert and wonderful poetic pieces of work that reflected on God."
She studied Arts at university to become a teacher.
While she loved teaching, she felt something was missing.
"I was never able to fully be myself in that space as I felt I wanted to be," she says.
"It felt like I was firing on four or five cylinders when there was six there."
The path to ordination
In her mid-twenties, Englebrecht started a theology degree.
"By the time I'd finished, women were very seriously being considered for ordained ministry," says Englebrecht, who was accepted into an ordination program.
"I was in my late twenties, and I started studying a Master of Theology with a view to being ordained in the Anglican Church."
Englebrecht studied through a Catholic institute, a decision that would change her life.
Exposed for the first time to "great classical writers of the Catholic tradition" — Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross — she was transfixed.
"I thought, 'Wow, how come I didn't know about these people?'."
By the time she finished her degree, she "felt deeply drawn to Catholic life and the heart of the Catholic tradition".
At 31, she converted to the Catholic faith, a "huge decision" that meant giving up her dream to join the ministry. Still, she says, "it felt right, and it always has since".
Englebrecht returned to teaching before pursuing a career in Mission leadership, pastoral care and, more recently, chaplaincy at a prison in central west New South Wales, a role she finds immensely rewarding.
"It's a daily challenge because each inmate that comes through the door is a different story and a different need," she says.
"It's my attempt, again, to bring life to a sense of calling that is not ordained ministry but as close to it as I can get."
Sharing the 'gift of Christianity'
Behind Englebrecht's calling to ministry is "a longing to share this extraordinary gift that is Christianity," she says.
"At its best … it's extraordinarily liberating and profoundly beautiful."
Englebrecht counts herself as a feminist, which can jar with her Catholic faith.
"It's hard politically, it's hard spiritually, it's hard in the day to day running of business," she says.
Englebrecht would like to see a future where the Catholic Church allows women to take a more active role.
"Wouldn't it be great if women in their twenties were invited to participate in the life of the seminary, to discern as they can what their vocation might be?"
"I fear that it won't happen for a long time yet."
Initiatives like Australian Women Preach give Englebrecht hope, however.
"It gives me a shot in the arm on a Sunday to sit down and listen to the podcast and hear a woman break open the scripture and reflect on the Word," she says.
Englebrecht was equal parts delighted and terrified to contribute to the podcast herself.
"I've written homilies for priests … but I've never been allowed to deliver it," she says.
"Someone asked if I'd do it again — absolutely! I'd do it every week if you let me."
She believes the podcast has the potential "to shake a few cages".
"To hear women preach is extraordinarily empowering," she says.
"The world is fuller, not lesser, if you allow women to preach."
