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The Rev. Mari Wiles will be installed as the first female senior pastor of First Baptist Church on Anderson Street.

Wiles was ordained at the same church while serving as its youth minister.

She hopes her leadership normalizes women in the pulpit for both girls and boys.

FAYETTEVILLE — Nearly 35 years ago, a young pastor at First Baptist Church on Anderson Street was asked whether she could see herself one day serving as a senior pastor.

“I think if God ever prepared me enough for that, I think it would be wonderful," the downtown church’s youth minister told The Fayetteville-Observer Times reporter in October 1990. “I am taking it one day at a time."

That young pastor will come full circle on Sunday when the Rev. Mari Wiles, now 63, is formally installed as the l

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