Lola Russell broke through the stained-glass ceiling Thursday.

So did 31 of her female Georgian classmates, who were ordained along with four male candidates in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Alexis Russell (ENLARGE)

'My grandfather was an AME minister, two uncles were ministers, my mother was born in a parsonage,' Lola Russell said.

LIVING Latest Headlines: Zoo raises $40K in campaign to keep pandas  Georgia Aquarium to welcome 10 millionth visitor  Aquarium adds 4 sandbar sharks to exhibit  Cellphones serve as '$300 baby rattle'  Athens ranked among best places to live  • More Living Stories • Living photo galleries • Georgia Aquarium news and photos • Zoo Atlanta news and photos

The gender split of this class of up-and-coming ministers is unusual, but is a growing phenomenon in the AME and other churches.

In retrospect, Russell said, after coming through the bumpy mid-career turn, it seems a natural choice.

"My grandfather was an AME minister, two uncles were ministers, my mother was born in a parsonage," she said.

But when Russell was born 49 years ago, pulpits and women mixed about as easily as anointing oil and holy water.

There were exceptions, including Jarena Lee, the famous AME leader whom a bishop approved to preach in 1819. But men have dominated pulpits and positions as bishops in denominations, though the pews are dominated by women.

Changes in society and church politics are finally opening doors for many women to fulfill a call that they have long heard but been unable to respond to.

"There have been breakthroughs in the process in the last couple of decades or so, and now women are in a better positions to acknowledge and receive and act on their call to ministry," said Jacquelyn Grant, professor of systematic theology at Atlanta's Interdenominational Theological Center.

Wider acceptance of women as leaders is the trend in business, but the pace is slower in houses of worship. Attitudes among the brethren in most denominations are changing as women prove themselves in leading roles, Grant said. Still, the process is not complete.

"Even in the enlightened day in 2008, we still have folks who harbor these attitudes. ...Even though some doors are opened, the doors are not opened wide," she said.

Russell is all optimism. She knows her calling came from God, not man, though it took it a while to sink in.

She was struggling through midlife four years ago. Her marriage had failed. She was raising three children as a single mother and juggling that with her career as a writer and public information officer at the Centers for Disease Control. Then an uncle, one of the ministers, died, which caused her to sit and think and pray.

"Things I thought were going to work out in life just weren't working out," she said.

She began to lean more on her faith, which led her spiritual side to hear a calling to ministry, she said. That meant back to school, to seminary.

"I had two children in college with me and an 11-year-old," Russell said.

Grant said the number of women in seminary grew through the 1970s to the 1990s. She was one of seven women in a class of 200 ministers in the early 70s. Now about one-third of the students are women at the Interdenominational Theological Center, which serves a number of denominations.

The number of AME women pastors in this class is remarkable, said Mark Chaves, a sociologist of religion at Duke University, a school with ties to the United Methodist Church.

About 20 percent of white mainline churches — Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopalian among others — are led by women. Among conservative evangelical churches, that shrinks to 5 percent. And among black churches, that number drops even further, to 1 percent, according to a 10-year-old study Chaves did.

"That is why this [ratio in the AME class] is a real shocker," he said.

Bishop E. Earl McCloud Jr. of the AME church said early examples such as the 19th century's Jarena Lee have helped women. The organization has elected three women among its 20 bishops since 2000.

Women are showing their qualities by their grit, he said.

"Women are willing to dedicate themselves to the training required more so than the men are seemingly willing to do it," McCloud said.

"Women are willing to make the sacrifices, and for many, this is coming to them as a second career."

Though the CDC is still her day job, Russell said she intends to stay in the church she attends in Stone Mountain while she continues her training and learning. She believes she will one day lead her own church.

"Women have been successfully juggling children and family life and work for a long time," she said.

"There's no reason we cannot successfully blend this component in. The only addition is, God has called me into this."