Rev. Gwendolyn and Bro. Robert Benjamin
Rev. Benjamin is married to Robert Benjamin Jr.; together, they have five children, fourteen grandchildren, and eight grand-grandchildren. She serves as Board Member and Secretary for the Western North Carolina Conference Board of Examiners, Chair of the Resolution Committee, Member of the Judiciary Committee, and Secretary of the Conference Board of Trustees. She is also secretary of the AME 2nd INC. Board of Trustees, Member of the SED Inter-banking Initiative, Past Coordinator of the Western North Carolina Conference-Women in Ministry, and Burke County Ministerial Alliance.
She is a member of the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women, and a Board Member of the Western District Community Development Cooperation. She served as spokesperson on the Anti-hunger Leadership Team and lobbied on Capitol Hill for legislation on world hunger.
After nineteen years at Merrill Lynch/Bank of America Securities, she retired. She managed brokerage operations for Dean Witter and Kidder Peabody, developed employee training materials, facilitated workshops, and managed Associate Development.
She was called to ministry at St. Stephens AME Church in Baltimore, Maryland, under the leadership of Dr. William A. Gray III, and preached an initial sermon in October 1987. She was licensed in October 1988 and ordained an Itinerant Elder in the AME Church in May 1994.
She developed and administered the “Mo Better Youth Ministry” at St. Stephens until January 1994. She transferred to Charlotte, North Carolina, and served at Greater Bethel; there, she served on the ministerial staff as coordinator for ministries to people experiencing homelessness. She hosted a local thirty-minute weekly community-based public television program that she wrote, produced, and presented called “TESTIMONY.”
She volunteered in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System, tutored in the NorthStar Reading Partners Program, and facilitated girl’s mentor sessions at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina.
She has served in pastoral leadership at Adams Metropolitan AMEC, Charlotte, Hartland AMEC, Morganton, Pearson Memorial AMEC, High Point, Gaston Chapel AMEC, Morganton, and Wayman Chapel AMEC, Graham, North Carolina.
She graduated from Gardner-Webb University with a BS in Business Administration and the M. Christopher White School of Divinity at Gardner-Webb University with a Master of Divinity (MDiv) and is a Recipient of the Robert L. Lamb Award for Academic Excellence.
She is a Certified Chaplain, having trained in Clinical Pastoral Education at CaroMont Regional Medical Center (CPE).
