Another challenge for Dr. Butler is tackling the church’s complex administrative needs. She is hiring ministers to assist in leading the church and managing its $14 million budget. Some 30 programs—from prison ministry to a popular preschool to a lesbian and gay ministry—are being re-evaluated. The one thing that does run on autopilot, said Dr. Butler, is the building, which is maintained through an endowment of $150 million and dozens of staff.

Months before the Rev. Dr. Amy K. Butler stood behind the pulpit of Manhattan’s Riverside Church, she took a seat in front of it—as a tourist.

She made the weekday visit a year ago, without telling anyone, to just “feel the building,” she said.

“I remember just walking in, sitting there and thinking, ‘Oh my God, I can’t do this,’ ” Dr. Butler said. “This pulpit has a life of its own.”

Riverside, a liberal Protestant church known for its history of social-justice advocacy, has hosted world leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Desmond Tutu and Bill Clinton.

When Dr. Butler, who previously served at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., was appointed Riverside’s leader last year, she became its first female pastor and the latest woman to break the so-called stained-glass ceiling.

But she also faces thorny challenges: re-energizing an 85-year-old church whose membership has flagged in the past few years, trimming programs, developing others, all while boosting fundraising efforts.

“I know that this church is begging for new life,” said Dr. Butler, 45 years old. “That process of resurrection involves some dying. This is what we believe in our Christian tradition.”

Riverside has been through nearly a decade of transition. The last full-time pastor, the Rev. Dr. Brad R. Braxton, resigned in 2009 after less than a year on the job.

Leaders say the church plugged along with temporary pastors, operating in a kind of maintenance-mode. Plans to rebrand the church or open a homeless shelter in an unused part of Riverside’s building were put on hold—until now.

The management turnover resulted in some of the church’s declining attendance, leaders say. Membership now stands at 1,750.

Some 600 parishioners regularly turn out for Sunday services, but the pews in the gothic cathedral, built with funds from John D. Rockefeller, can hold 2,500.

Dr. Butler, too, is coming out of a low period. Last spring, shortly before she delivered her candidacy sermon in New York, she had to take her ailing brother off life support.

“It’s been such a year of overwhelming highs and lows and finding myself,” she said.

Helping Riverside find its mission and vision is a task she relishes, but before she can get there, she has to do a lot of listening. It is a trait that comes naturally to Pastor Amy, as she likes to be called, growing up the eldest of five siblings.

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