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Sample Article: Hall, Janet Douglas (1863-1946)

Janet Douglas Hall; pioneer woman evangelist and pastor, was born 19 April 1863 near Brussels, Ontario to Robert Douglas (b. ca. 1836) and Jane McKersy Douglas (b. ca. 1839). She was the oldest child in a family of at least six children (two daughters and four sons). On 27 March 1889 she married James Hall (29 April 1860-15 July 1932), the son of William Hall and Margaret Hoath Hall. James and Janet Hall had two sons, William Robert and Lorance Douglas. Lorance died in 1924. Janet Hall died 18 November 1946.

Janet Douglas grew up in a Presbyterian home in Huron County, Ontario. In her late teens, she moved with her family to Michigan, near Brown City. In February 1882 she was converted in evangelist meetings held by David U. Lambert, an Evangelical United Mennonite (later Mennonite Brethren in Christ) minister. She began children's meetings in her home on Saturday afternoons during that summer. In the early months of 1883 she assisted S. B. Shaw, a holiness evangelist, in his meetings in Grand Rapids through visitation and personal witnessing. On one occasion she led a prayer meeting when Shaw's wife was unable to fill the appointment. Following this meeting she was asked to hold revival meetings in a nearby vacant church, which she did for five weeks.

According to her own testimony, she scarcely know how to preach, so her services consisted primarily of testimonies followed by a 10-12 minute sermon. However over 100 persons professed conversion at these initial meetings. She then held evangelistic campaigns in other areas of Michigan, sometimes facing opposition because of her gender. On one occasion a woman advised her to "let the men preach, and go home and help your mother."

In March 1884, the Indiana-Ohio-Michigan conference of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ noted that Janet Douglas had received a permit from the Quarterly Conference in Michigan to "labor as an evangelist," and that in several months she had led 70 persons to Christ. It then duly recognized her as an evangelist within the conference. Consequently she was the first woman recognized by a North American Mennonite denomination as an evangelist and preacher. In fall 1884 Douglas began a city mission in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the first city mission of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ denomination. In October 1885 the first General Conference of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ noted God had chosen holy women to "prophesy and labor in the church," and thus resolved to allow "a sister thus chosen of God" to preach and labor for the salvation of souls under the supervision of a minister or presiding elder. In practical terms this meant she was not ordained, but was recognized as the equivalent to a probationary minister, and invited to participate in in the annual meetings of district conferences. In time (beginning in 1904) such women evangelists and mission workers became known as "ministering sisters." Janet Douglas's evangelistic work began a long period of leadership by women in the Mennonite Brethren in Christ denomination, particularly in city, and later overseas, missions. The leadership of women decreased in the mid-20th century as the Mennonite Brethren in Christ shifted theologically more towards fundamentalism and away from its holiness roots.

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