My Story So Far

I sensed the call to ministry from an early age, baptizing my baby dolls and drawing pictures of myself preaching. My parents encouraged my sense of call, and my Dad who is a minister connected me to a female pastor who became my first mentor.

Newly married, and after relocating from Michigan to Washington State, I ventured out from the evangelical Christian community that had formed me. The expansiveness I sought led me to follow signs to the United Church of Christ. Literally. I rode the Seattle metro bus to my seminary classes and kept seeing the same ad every day for Plymouth Congregational, UCC.

I found home in the denomination, with my ordination and first call as associate pastor of Eagle Harbor Congregational, UCC in Bainbridge Island, Washington. Those were sweet years. Our daughter was a baby when we moved to Bainbridge, and our son came along a few years later. It felt like the whole church had a baby when he was born.

After a time, I sensed a call to church planting, and began a new ministry called Tapestry. I learned so much from this experience and from this incredible group of people.

Teaching was the next leg of my ministry journey in the Seattle area. I was trained in Nia, a holistic movement practice. This transformed my awareness of myself as an embodied being. I developed Embody the Story, a method of integrating Scripture and movement, and began teaching it to intergenerational groups.

I also taught preschool, for schools in both the Presbyterian and Lutheran traditions. I went on to teach middle school specialist and wellness classes at Hope Lutheran School. I also served as Minister of Spiritual Play at Valley & Mountain United Methodist. Best job title ever. This church lives their vision like no other church I know.

I have served as Family Life Minister of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Seattle from 2018-2022. I learned a lot from the Episcopal world, and not just all of the complicated names for everything. In Nia we talk about the balance of form and freedom, and in this denomination there is more form and structure than the other denominations that have buoyed me. I am discovering the gift in this, that form is needed for freedom to flourish.

In 2022 I came home to the United Church of Christ and home to pastoral ministry when I was first called as a bridge pastor of Alki United Church of Christ and then a few months later unanimously called to put down roots and be their pastor. Alki UCC has sensed the call to live into a future story of evolving more fully into partnership with the surrounding community. We are uniquely co-located with a Jewish synagogue, Kol Haneshemah.

I believe it is essential for churches to be a beacon of hope in their communities, acknowledging that each person is of infinite worth and value. Humanity bears the image of God. Beautifully unique in our diversity of race, culture, disability and ability, personality, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, we reflect God, who is wonderfully reflective of all. Everything that we are, God is.

I write, teach, preach and lead groups from a foundation of embodied spirituality, expansive theology, and wonder. I live in a multigenerational household and read YA novels.