Paula Austin, left, youth pastor at Centenary United Methodist Church, shared time with high-school students including Jo Ann Henry, center, and Allison Johnson, at McDonald's before school.

Nancy Gillard, pastor of Lutesville Presbyterian Church, read a story to her children, from left, Austin, Claire and Barbara Gillard.

People are often surprised to learn that Paula Austin is a minister.

Austin, the youth pastor at Centenary Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau, isn't quite sure how to take that.

"People don't get freaked out about a doctor or a lawyer who's a woman," she said. "But for some reason, in religion, it just is weird for some people."

The backbone of local churches for centuries, women are leaving the kitchen and heading into the pulpit.

Austin, 29, has been a deacon in the Methodist church for three years, "but I've done ministry since college," she said.

She's one of a handful of women ministers in Southeast Missouri and one of a growing number nationally.

In many denominations, women aspiring to the ministry will run into a stained glass ceiling, because women cannot be ordained. Ordination of women is hotly debated, and forbidden, in the Roman Catholic Church. The Anglican churches in Scotland, England and Ireland recently approved ordaining women.

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod does not allow ordination of women, and many Baptist denominations will not accept women in the ministry.

But the role of women is changing even in churches that don't allow women to be ordained. Women serve as readers or ushers in many Catholic parishes and serve communion.

And many denominations have always allowed women to preach or serve as lay ministers.

Nancy Gillard, the pastor of Lutesville Presbyterian Church, has been ordained for 10 years, including the last year at Lutesville.

"In the Presbyterian church, there are a lot of women in the pulpit," she said.

When she was in the seminary, Gillard said, many of her classmates were women, and enrollment now is about 50-50.

The ministry is Gillard's second career. She started out working in advertising, but didn't like it. So she decided to follow her heart and it led her to the pulpit.

Gillard and her husband, Grant, are a two-church couple. Grant Gillard is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson.

The Presbyterian church has allowed ordination of women since the 1950s, Gillard said.

Norma Crader, formerly the pastor of the Lutesville church, was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963.

Now retired, Crader fills in at different churches in the region.

"I had no problems," Crader said. "I had 12 years of Christian education before I even went to the seminary. And I was preaching regularly before the church even voted to ordain women.

Not all women have been so lucky, she acknowledges.

"I have not had the snide remarks or the negative attitudes," she said.

JoAnna McCauley, pastor of the House of Prayer in Cape Girardeau, appeared for many years as a singer at churches throughout the area, and became a minister about eight years ago.

"You can sing all day long, and that's fine, but when it comes to preaching, a lot of these people won't accept you," she said.

Many of the churches that welcomed her singing voice didn't want to hear that voice ringing from the pulpit, McCauley said.

"When I became a pastor, they rejected me," she said.

But she persisted, and now sees attitudes changing in many churches.

"There's been a great uprising" among many denominations when it comes to ordaining women, she said.

"I think it'll take time," Austin said.

Many Christian denominations won't allow women to be ordained because they argue that none of Christ's disciples were women.

"We don't know that," Austin said. "Of the 12 who are listed in the gospels, there were probably another 300 disciples."

And, she points out, according to the Bible, a woman was the first to learn Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. Mary Magdalene saw Jesus after his resurrection and was ordered to spread the news.

"When the men saw Him, they ran away," she said.