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Called By God
Moreover, because of her example of sacrificial giving coupled with the sound Biblical
instruction she gave on stewardship, each year while she was leader of the work there
the tithes and offerings doubled.
Because of Anna Knight’s spirituality, ability, and productivity, she advanced to larger
responsibilities. In 1913 she was called to serve as associate home missionary secretary
for the Southeastern Union Conference. This church administrative unit embraced the
states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and parts of Tennessee and Florida. Miss
Knight was invited to take responsiblity for overseeing the work in black churches and
schools. (From Singleton, “Vanguard of Torchbearers,” 1.) As the conference leadership
pledged her their cooperation and support, she thought that the only appropriate
response was to try.
Starting at the church in Atlanta, she organized the local membership for lay
ministry. Then she moved on to other cities in her territory: St. Petersburg, Charleston,
Jacksonville, Chattanooga, Nashville, Birmingham. In each place she trained and organized the members for ministry.
Never one to stop short of a strenuous work load, she voluntarily visited each church
school in her territory to give the students the benefit of an annual physical examination.
As part of a routine report, Miss Knight once mentioned that in the course of
discharging her responsibilities for that year she had written more than 1500 letters, all
in longhand. The administrators were amazed. Elder C. B. Stephenson, the union president, recommended that each conference share in the expense of providing Miss Knight
with a typewriter. As a result, the conferences presented this tireless worker with a
Corona portable typewriter. Starting from hunt-and-peck, she gradually developed
considerable skill as a typist. Thereafter many of her letters were written on the train
while the busy home missionary secretary was on her way to meet an appointment.
Her lifestyle was shaped by her travels. She planned her work a month at a time and
attempted to cover one entire conference before moving on to another. The itinerant life
apparently bothered her not at all.
Other responsibilities were added until Miss Knight was serving as associate home
missionary, educational, missionary volunteer, and Sabbath school secretary of the
Southeastern Conference. She was not called a minister, and she was not ordained. Her
authorization through her many years of ministry was variously called licensed missionary
and credentialed missionary. However, any man carrying her responsibilities year after year
would surely have been designated a minister and would have been ordained.
After she had cheerfully carried out her many and diverse responsibilities in the
Southeastern Union Conference for six years, on December 17, 1919, the General
Conference Committee concurred with the recommendation of the Southern Union
Conference that Miss Anna Knight be called to direct the home missionary work for the
colored people in that large field. (From General Conference Committee Minutes, December
17, 1919, 11-2 p. 496.) After earnestly requesting God’s guidance, she chose to accept
this challenge.

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