Pioneer. Trailblazer. Crusader. Newly-elected associate secretary to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Dr. Rosa Taylor Banks, embodies these words and more.
Pioneer. Trailblazer. Crusader. Newly-elected associate secretary to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Dr. Rosa Taylor Banks, embodies these words and more. With Banks’ election to the post she joins the ranks of two other women who have recently been elected to senior positions in the world church.
“As a pioneer it is good to see this pass,” she says, referring not only to her election but to Dr. Ella Simmons, a general vice president, and Daisy Orion, associate treasurer. “I’m filled with new joy.”
Banks has a long track record of “firsts.” At Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama she was the first female vice president; at the Adventist Church’s world headquarters she was the first female general field secretary; and in the North American region of the church she was the first female field secretary, first female director of the Office of Human Relations, and the first female associate secretary and the first female officer of the church in North America.
With this background, Banks is no stranger to being the first or only woman in top church positions. She was also one of the first women to preach in the church, at a time when other women were not allowed to preach. Although the church has not endorsed ordination of women, she is a credentialed commissioned minister and an elder of the Bladensburg church in Maryland. “I really don’t have to be ordained to serve the Lord,” she says.
As one of the founding members of the first commissions for women’s ministry, she is known for working to get more women involved in church leadership.
“The church was always struggling with what to do with women since Ellen G. White [one of the founders of the church] died,” she notes. “The women’s commission was developed to find out what can church do for women.”
Banks was the Women’s Commissioner of the Southern region of the church in the United States, where she helped to organize women’s ministries programs in each of the local church organizations in that union. After becoming the director of the Office of Human Relations for the church in North America, she coordinated the work of the Women’s Commission in that area and was one of the individuals who helped to organize the Women’s Ministries Department of the world Church.
In that capacity she said her job was to “make sure every cultural group and people group use their gifts and make sure there is no disenfranchisement of members.”
Her work for the church reflects that as she developed and coordinated the North American church’s policies for People With Disabilities, its Sexual Ethics Commission, its Multicultural Relationship Model Commission, and its Summit on Race Relations.
Calling herself “bold,” she says, “I know the Lord is with me as those who have served Him before me. I’m going in the name and strength of the Lord.”
“I just want to serve the Lord,” Banks says and that is her primary focus. She said she has been fortunate to have met supportive men throughout her church career, such as Dr. Calvin Rock, J.T. Stafford, Warren Banfield, and former world church president Neal C. Wilson.
“I’m sure there have been men who didn’t like my appointment but I know men that helped,” she says. “Men have been pushing me all the way, training me, not feeling intimidated, nobody had time to mentor but they took time.”
Banks is an author and speaker and has a masters and doctorate degree from the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She worked in the public sector as a teacher before she started working for the church.
“This is a new day for the church, many women who have fought, formed committees and prayed,” she says. She challenges more women to become more involved in the church leadership. “How will we learn if we don’t take that step?”
She is married to Halsey Banks, and they are the parents of three young adults.