My parents raised me, their oldest daughter, and my three sisters to love Jesus outside of much church influence. We learned about Bible stories, we prayed together, we were always encouraged to ask questions, we listened to Evangelical worship music, and we would consistently church hop. When I was young, I was rewarded for and often competed over Bible memorization through different church-sponsored programs. I know what the Bible teaches because I committed so much of it to memory in these formative years.
I remember a few experiences when I was little with kids at school who did not know who Jesus was. It was confusing to me, and I started to realize the world is a lot bigger and more diverse than I thought. I attended a private Christian high school. There, I learned in Bible classes and weekly chapels. I was a model student. I was active in the student council. I built positive mentor relationships with younger students. I tried various Bible studies, youth groups, and churches with my friends’ families. I started serving and leading on worship teams. Leading worship was hugely formative for my spiritual experiences of my faith.
If I were asked to pinpoint a conversion experience, I might call it more of a holy confirmation that Jesus had claimed me. I was 14 and wrapped up in an emotionally abusive and sexually coercive friendship. One morning, I was so miserable that I felt physically ill. I remember weeping and praying for peace and strength to get out of this situation. For the rest of that day, it felt like God was holding my heart as I went and told my mom everything and as I was given some harsh consequences at home and at school.
From that experience, I learned that God was with me and still loved me, but my faith community condemned me and hurt me deeply so I would learn a lesson. I learned that God’s love was unconditional. But the people of God showed me their love was fragile, and my position in the faith community could change drastically depending on my actions.
I was invited to a missionary dinner at my Mormon grandparents’ house. Dinner conversation turned into a theological debate over the major differences between Mormonism and Christianity. I saw that we could have equally strong faiths in different things. Perhaps this is why I tend to be a universalist now, as I want to believe that all faithful connections with the Divine are important and valid.
My early young adult years were difficult. I went to a private Christian university away from home. I struggled to get plugged into churches or ministries that I felt effective in. I floundered for a couple of years before finally moving back home and accepting a position in youth ministry. I deeply loved ministering to my students, but my husband and I struggled with the rigidity of conservatism in this church context.
While struggling at this church, we got connected to a faith community that was so precious to me. This was a small group of people sharing life in a way that provided a safe space for exploration and self-assessment. This faith development was centered around emotional health and spiritual transformation, and that experience married those two practices for me theologically. As I leaned into that work in seminary, I resisted doing harm to my LGBTQ+ students who wanted to be loved. I lost my job for it. Then Spirit led me to the United Church of Christ.
I have met so many faithful people in all of my contexts throughout my life. All these heroes poured so much into me, and I never asked for it. I saw Jesus in their faces. I want to show other people Jesus, no matter the context I exist within or position I hold. I believe that Jesus would put love at the forefront of what we pour into others.
Statement of Faith
God, who Makes all things possible –
Jesus, who Modeled the way of Love –
Spirit, who Molds and holds all of us in the interconnected sanctity of Life –
All people are anointed, beloved, and empowered to co-create the world God dreams of.
My theological sense of vocation is best summed up by Katie Geneva Cannon’s directive to “do the work your soul must have.” Every person’s vocation, in my belief, is intimately connected to the way their desires orient themselves to the world around them. God’s fingerprints may be found on every person’s vocation. Ordination, then, confirms that your vocation must be covenantal, meet the needs of the Church, and demonstrate mutuality in ministry between the minister and the community to which the minister is called. When you receive an ordainable call, you are entering into a covenanted agreement with the community you will be serving, the Conference – as the authoritative ordaining body – and the Local Church that supports you. An ordainable call must be a good fit for someone who possesses the Marks of Faithful and Effective Authorized Ministers. It also needs to have a position description and scope of work that reflects those Marks.
I cannot imagine my future vocation without reflecting on how my sense of vocation has developed over the last several years. In 2020, I wrote this:
God is inviting me to bring about Kin-dom living by building bigger tables. I spent a lot of time feeling the need to earn my spot at the table. Jesus tells a parable about a great feast that was empty, so they extended the invitation, bringing in the marginalized, the outcasts, the “least of these” they found on the street. There was plenty of room for everyone at the table. When we come together, offering each other intimacy and solidarity, we bring the kingdom of heaven closer to our earthly experience. In youth ministry, I get to participate in God’s redemptive work of connecting people through love and healing. If I could do anything for Jesus, I would live in a way that indiscriminately invites everyone to the love feast at God’s table.
A lot of it still rings true for me, and it looks different now than it did then. Now, in the context of the United Church of Christ, I feel much more empowered to love the marginalized and the outcast and the church-traumatized. Sometimes, our vocation finds us. Sometimes, life prepares us for the next right step that we could never have seen coming.
I am fully alive when I am fully myself; I am a whole person, and my desires deserve to be heard. I want to find wholeness for myself. I want to help other people find wholeness. I want people to recognize that their spiritual selves are just as real and important as their physical, emotional, and mental selves. This is when I feel the most alive: connecting people to themselves, to others, to God, and to their whole lives. Now, that is within the context of Christian formation, pursuing ordination in the United Church of Christ to deepen myself into this ministry. Someday, it might look different, but I will be bringing about wholeness and healing.
To begin my portfolio on the Marks of Faithful and Effective Authorized Ministers, I invite you to watch this conversation. I sat down with Mike to discuss the Marks, my portfolio, and other big ideas about life in ministry. Ministry is personal and relational, and I hope that hearing from me will help ground my portfolio in depth and vulnerability that comes from embodied presence.
Along with my reflections on each Mark, I have provided a broad variety of examples that represent different aspects of my journey towards ordained ministry. Some examples come from seminary while others are directly drawn from my work. All represent my hope that these pieces may form a mosaic of my ministry.
I. EXHIBITING A SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION AND ONGOING SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
As a spiritual care practitioner, I have found that remaining connected to my own spirituality is important for providing compassionate and authentic care. I aim to encourage spiritual formation in others by modeling it and cultivating it within myself, as Jesus modeled in his life on earth. Through my education and experience, I have learned that rhythms of rest are deeply restorative practices for me. I maintain a balanced rule of life that prepares me for the kin-dom work of building bigger tables and loving people well. I practice listening to the Spirit so that I can engage in deep listening with careseekers. Spiritual grounding enables us to love and live with God. I know that I need to continue to work on intentionally prioritizing my own soul care in order to resist my natural tendency to over function and avoid feelings of burnout.
Examples
ThisRule of Life was developed early on in my seminary journey. It serves as a guide map for engaging in spiritual practices that allow me to care for myself, which in turn encourages me in stewarding my energy and resources.
I have also created some personal reflections on spiritual practices like Guidance, Rest, and Stewardship.
Recently, I preached a sermon on rest and stewardship as part of our church’s stewardship season (video below).
A sermon about rest & stewardship
II. NURTURING UCC IDENTITY
Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church – the head on the Body of Christ – grounds the oneness of all Christians in connection, cooperation, and collectivism. We are called to model this non-hierarchical way of being through engaged, relational participation in our communities. Since the beginning of my time with the UCC, I have built relationships with other UCC churches and leaders in the Platte Valley Association. I have also engaged in ministry at the Conference level, leading in youth work at La Foret and at the Rocky Mountain Conference Annual Celebration. I have learned about our UCC history and polity through seminary and through intimate experiences of witnessing the way our polity navigates us through challenges. In my ministry, I seek to create hospitable spaces for storytelling, truth telling, and transformation. I would love to continue to expand my work, building stronger relationships with my Association and the Conference and establishing relationships with the national setting.
Examples
In the summer of 2023, I designed and led a pilgrimage for UCC students from the Greeley and Fort Collins churches. You can read about how I designed the trip using theoretical frameworks I learned in seminary. You can also read my reflection on the trip in this blog post.
The Settings of the UCC was an assignment for my Polity course. As a visual learner, I also drew up a diagram that aids in understanding the inter-working of each setting.
Reflections from the Youth Track is a write-up that details some of the work and learning I did in leading the Youth Track at the Rocky Mountain Conference Annual Celebration.
Corpus Christianum is a critical essay on the body of Christ metaphor, especially through the lens of Calvin and church history.
III. BUILDING TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP SKILLS
I believe that as I partner with people in ministry, my enthusiasm and authenticity are key for empowering the people of God to listen for and live out the mission of God. Throughout my education, I learned that I have a natural tendency to see potential in people and develop it, and I am skilled at building connections between people, particularly across areas of difference. I would love to lean into this work more as I expand my ministry beyond children and youth formation.
In my particular context, I have worked to empower my students to affect change in the Church and in the world around them by partnering with the youth on Youth for Change, a Homelessness Prevention Fundraiser. For twenty years, the church’s youth hosted a Sleepout Fundraiser. In the last couple of years, the youth have been having conversations with me and our community partners about reforming the event to be more culturally aware and empathetic for people experiencing housing insecurity. This was a hugely important and successful event, where we brought in more than ten organizations who are fighting housing injustice to present to almost two hundred people from all over Fort Collins. We had a catered meal and a silent auction. We raised nearly fifteen thousand dollars. As I work with youth, I believe it is my job to make their ideas happen, and I want them to feel proud of the final product. Most of all, I am so proud of the way this event showed our community, including the elders in our church who loved the Sleepout, that change is possible and can be so positive.
This Youth Track Guidebook shows how I like to facilitate discussions with youth about what church should be like.
Worship for Children is a practical theology of worship that is accessible and engaging for our youngest friends.
This Youth Worship playlist is full of services that I have planned and led alongside my students.
Youth Worship Playlist
IV. ENGAGING SACRED STORIES AND TRADITIONS
I have a deep love for the sacred stories of our faith. Studying and memorizing passages of the Bible were foundational for my faith development. I am also sensitive to the ways that our sacred texts have been maligned and weaponized over the course of history. I practice careful interpretation of these sacred texts almost every week, as I have shifted our “Time with Children” during the worship service into being an accessible presentation of the text. Each week, I write an introduction to the story that places it in its historical context and I invite everyone listening to it to enter into a posture of curiosity and wonder. I want these stories to feel alive and exciting, as they are to me. In this same spirit, I love to play with the sacred texts. I invite students to do their own translations and rewritings. We engage in rituals and traditions with our whole selves. I would love to feel more confident in leading this work with folks who are older than me and have lived with the traditions longer than me. I want them to know that I value tradition, and I see that new ways are possible and important for us.
Examples
Interpreting 1 Corinthians 6:9-20 was an opportunity for me to academically deconstruct the scriptural interpretation I grew up with and reconstruct a more affirming interpretation and theology.
This worksheet shows how a discussion I facilitated at a La Foret Youth Retreat created some beautiful and deeply wise youth translations of a passage out of Corinthians.
These bulletins for children I create each week help our young friends follow along what is happening in worship so they can engage in the rituals and traditions in a more attentive and intentional way.
Rituals of Remembering (below) was a cross-generational formation offering that I created to engage in some sacred traditions around Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, and All Saints’ Day.
This YouTube playlist (below) has a few different moments where we got to play with the sacred text during worship.
Scripture Stories playlist
V. CARING FOR ALL CREATION
I often lean on Jesus’ words: “The most important one is Israel, listen! Our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You will love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31, CEB). I tell my students often that part of the commandment is to love yourself – something that plenty of us struggle with these days. God wants us to love ourselves as God loves us. I care for myself in therapy, in long walks, and in time well spent with my dear people. My spirituality is intertwined with my care practices, as displayed in my Rule of Life. I want to model these practices more, especially as I believe modeling this way of Love is important for the spiritual development of young people. I have completed Clinical Pastoral Education, where I practiced pastoral care conversations in both one-on-one and group settings. I am so blessed to be partnered with a congregation that cares deeply about the world.
Examples
This Collective Care Plan outlines the principles of how I plan to enact collective care in my ministry.
Here is a video of me discussing how and why I plan to integrate Womanist approaches to care in my ministry context.
I worked with our church’s Climate Action Ministry team on promoting Adult Formation that was centered on creation care, climate justice, and the idea of resurrection.
This Creation Care Fair Passport (below) shows the kind of formation experience I create each year for our students on Earth Day Sunday.
VI. PARTICIPATING IN THEOLOGICAL PRAXIS
What we believe about God is reflected in what we believe about ourselves and orients us to the way we live and make meaning. I have been a self-described theology “nerd” since taking Bible classes in middle school. I have moved through several different phases of my own theology, phases that have given me an abundant appreciation for faith that is meaningful and constructive. In the spirit of the universality of God and transcendent spiritual experiences, I love to partner with all kinds of faith-filled people. I resist working alongside people who uphold death-dealing and destructive theology. I believe that God is big enough to hold each of us in all of our diversity, but I also believe that God does not tolerate oppression or harm. I try to hold all of this in the same theological tension as I move through the world.
Examples
Colonialism and Christianity is a multimedia art piece and essay that explores the relationship between Christianity – particularly the early church – and colonization.
This sermon playlist (below) highlights moments where I have engaged in meaningful theological reflection.
Sermon playlist
VII. WORKING TOGETHER FOR JUSTICE AND MERCY
I enjoy connecting people, especially when we all feel passionate about the same vision or mission. I know the United Church of Christ is often called the “United Church of Causes,” and in my belief – which is informed and inspired by Womanist theology – Jesus and justice are not separate. I have worked with my Christian Formation Board on nesting a Black church in our building and confronting the internalized racism in our church system. I have connected the Christian Formation Board with other areas of the church, like Outreach and Mission and the Deacons, in order to expand formation themes and opportunities. I have reformed my Christian Formation staff’s job descriptions to include an intentional focus on radical hospitality for visitors, families, and all church members. I have led youth service trips where we have worked with indigenous communities who are partnered with an Episcopalian mission partner. I know that threading service and outreach through my ministry is a growing edge of mine, and I want to be considerate and intentional about the opportunities I present.
Examples
I helped our Outreach & Mission Board develop this Imagine Project Grant, incorporating definitions of “emergent strategy” and “mutual aid” that I learned in seminary.
These Kids & Youth Covenants (below) display how we build relationships and agreements that empower us to work well together.
I also worked alongside our Christian Formation Board and our Deacons Board to create our church’s Pray Ground, a space designed for children to access and engage in worship. See photos (below), an informational pamphlet, and a short talk from me on why Pray Grounds matter (also below).
Why Pray Grounds Matter
VIII. STRENGTHENING INTERPERSONAL AND INTRAPERSONAL ASSETS
At my core, I believe that all people are created in the image of God. Every person bears and reflects Divinity. This shapes the way I treat myself and the people around me. I believe ministry work intends to draw out and notice the Divinity all around us. We do this by following the model of Love that Jesus lived. We live and love in community with each other. I receive coaching and spiritual direction. I seek out mentors and co-conspirators. I believe that making space for a variety of voices allows for the diversity and unity of the Spirit to rise to the surface, so I invite several perspectives into my work. Ultimately, I want everyone I meet to feel love and warmth from me, as I imagine that is what we might feel if Jesus were sitting in the room with us.
A Practical Theology of Vocation traces some of my own experience with the development of my vocation, especially being a woman in a historically male-dominated field.
This Ministry Handbook speaks to my vision and mission, including much of the work explored through my portfolio.
This Curriculum Map offers a glimpse into how I approach formation across development stages for children and youth.
This Critical Vocational Imagination sums up my learning, my imagining, and my needs as I work through ideas about who I am and what I am meant to do.
BROOKLYN 