Belita D. Mitchell, the first Black woman ordained in the Church of the Brethren, died Feb. 10 in Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Mitchell grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. During a 30-year career as a sales executive in Southern California, she attended Imperial Heights Church of the Brethren in Los Angeles and began to receive affirmations of her call to ministry.

She enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary and began serving as associate pastor at Imperial Heights in the 1990s. She eventually became part of the Church of the Brethren’s Black Advisory Committee, and while attending a meeting of the former General Board she spoke on behalf of the committee — and began to receive affirmations of her call to ministry. After being called as pastor of First Church of the Brethren in Harrisburg, Pa., she was ordained in 2003.

A vocal advocate for gun violence prevention, she worked for racial justice and peace. She served as moderator of the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in 2007, the first Black woman to do so.

She and her husband, Don, received the Revelation 7:9 Award in 2017 from the denomination’s Intercultural Ministries in recognition of leadership in making the Church of the Brethren an intercultural church.

“One thing Jesus did well was cross social and cultural boundaries,” she preached in 2022 at Annual Conference in Omaha, Neb. “…In the church, we need to stop looking at all the differences…and look at the needs. … If we trust the power of the Spirit in us, there’s no end to what we can do to share the love.”