Mission Leader Within Segregated Methodism
Born in North Carolina, Lillian Warrick Pope grew up in Philadelphia, where she was a social worker in the Zoar Methodist Church. A graduate of the Bible Institute of Pennsylvania and Temple University School of Theology in Philadelphia, she was ordained a local deacon in 1939 by Bishop Ernest G. Richardson. This was unprecedented in her conference.
Lillian Warrick was employed by the Woman’s Division of Christian Service from 1940 to 1943 as the first black Field Secretary, and worked with the newly-organized segregated Central Jurisdiction. Her contribution to missions is distinctive and unique. With faith, courage, and dedication, she proclaimed the message of missions at a time of organizational transition in Methodism in a newly organized but still segregated church. She planned workshops for pastors as well as for women, taught in Schools of Christian Mission at Gulfside Assembly and elsewhere, wrote worship and program booklets for the Woman’s Division, and was one of the authors of the study text, An Introduction to Five Spiritual Classics. She was dean of the Delaware Conference School of Christian Mission.
Taken from They Went Out Not Knowing… An Encyclopedia of One Hundred Women in Mission (New York: Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 1986). Used with permission of United Methodist Women.
