The First Baptist Church in Bridgehampton has its first female senior pastor in its nearly 100-year history.

Rev. Tisha Williams became the first woman elected to lead the church in 2018.

"I don't look like what people would think a pastor's supposed to look like and that has nothing to do with being a woman, but everything," Williams says.

Williams has a mohawk and calls herself the "Ginger Rogers of pastoring" because she does everything backwards and in heels.

Williams says she thought she was going to be an actress and went to school for theater. She was even a pageant queen.

She says her life as an entertainer turned toward the church instead.

"I just started to feel, a little over 10 years ago, this incredible pull to the pulpit," Williams says. "I mean, just overwhelming, where I would be in tears every Sunday."

After answering what she says was "the call" to be a faith leader several years ago, Williams answered another call from the people of First Baptist Church in Bridgehampton, which did not have a pastor.

"Worship is important, but how we reach out beyond these four walls is what matters the most and what people will remember about our church," Williams says.

Williams says while she is the first woman elected to lead the church, she hopes she won't be the last.

"The idea that someone is coming behind me, thoroughly appeals to me and the fact that maybe I knocked down some bushes and blazed a trail and did all the heavy lifting, so they wouldn't have to," Williams says. "I love it. There's nothing I love more."