Candidate 19 Profile

Section A. Background Information

10. Year of Ordination

Anticipated ordination date: 2021

11. Denomination of Ordination

Reformed Church in America

12. If not RCA, what classes or supervising body from the ordaining denomination recognizes your ordination?

13. Present denomination

Reformed Church in America

14. Present classis or judicatory

Zeeland Classis

15. If you are not now a member of the Reformed Church in America, can you, in good conscience, agree with the doctrine, discipline and government of the RCA?

16. Do you support the mission and division of the Reformed Church in America?

17. Citizen of what country? If not USA, do you have permit to live and work in the USA?

USA

18. Previous Experience

19. Formal Education

20. Continuing Education

21. Languages (list any languages, other than English, in which you can preach or converse fluently)

Section B. Reflection

1. Describe your strengths, the best of who you are, and what you bring in service to the church.

I am an accompanist. Yes, I am literally a piano player whose favorite role is accompanying choirs, soloists, weddings, and church services. But being an accompanist is also how I understand what I have to offer the world and the church. I see my gifts of preaching, pastoral care, worship leading, and administration through this lens and I long to come alongside a congregation in this way, enabling others as together we do the work of ministry in whatever way we are called. I also bring intellectual, spiritual, and emotional curiosity and courage to the table; I find the world to be a fascinating place, full of opportunity for growth, challenge, and delight.

2. Name two or three mentors who have significantly contributed to your ministry, and explain why these people are important to you.

While not a direct contributor to my ministry, I still consider my high school Bible teacher, Mary Lagerwey, as one of my mentors. When I think of all the love and support I received from her in high school and in so many ways since then, all I feel is one big “Yes.” Yes to who God made me to be, yes to the risks I’ve taken, yes in the midst of the pain I have processed, yes to the things that excite me, and yes to the things that scare me. She has modeled for me what I can offer myself as I listen to who I am and what God is calling me to do.

I first met Ron Rienstra as a freshman in college and served under him as he taught and mentored me in a group of other student worship leaders. Our paths continued to cross over the years, at Western Seminary in 2008 when I was a teaching assistant for a worship class he taught and then again as I came to WTS as a student myself. Ron has always walked alongside me, willing to hand over any of his own responsibilities in service of my growth. I never had to do things “his way,” and he continues to encourage me now as a colleague and friend to step more courageously into my own gifts and methods.

3. What caused you to enter ministry, and what are the core values that define your vision for ministry?

I did not grow up in a church setting where people like me could hold positions of leadership. But in our house we went to church twice on Sunday, read the Bible and prayed at every meal, and took practicing our faith very seriously. In this environment, my musical gifts were welcome at church, but not my intellectual or theological prowess and promise. So I served on the high school chapel committee, lead peer Bible studies, did a religion and theology minor in college, and received a Master’s Degree in worship all with only a handful of inquiries about my potential future as a minister. I didn’t want to work in a church, even with all of my training, and it wasn’t until after eight years of working in Christian academic publishing that the Spirit moved in me to call me back to seminary to pursue a Masters of Divinity.

This story leads me to walk into ministry with values such as integrity, faithfulness, and community. Integrity because I want to foster communities and people who say what they mean and mean what they say; faithfulness not only because that is my experience of God but also because faithfulness to Scripture is my core preaching value; and community because I have no desire to lead alone and because I long for the church to be a place where everyone truly belongs.

4. Explain the strategies or ideas that most excite you for helping a church to become and remain missional.

My vision for a missional church includes local involvement, that the church is a good neighbor wherever it might be located. It includes empowering congregants to see themselves as ‘missionaries’ in their schools, places of work, and homes, rooted in the fruit of the Spirit. It also includes the practice of true partnership in the community, being willing to learn as much as teach and follow as often as lead.

5. Name three of your most passionate hopes for the Church at large, and why they are significant to you.

Fueled by the values listed above—integrity, faithfulness, and community—I long for the church to be a place of radical honesty, inclusion, and love. These are important to me because I believe God delights in a church and its members who are honest about who they are, who seek to build a bigger table, and who know of their own belovedness and live that out in the world.

6. Give an example of how you would theologically address an issue facing your contemporary world. Please be thorough enough to help the reader to understand your thought processes and your life commitments.

I believe the church is uniquely placed to respond in a big way to the growing global climate crisis. In Genesis, God charges humans to “serve and protect” the earth, the Psalms are full of glorious hymns to the majesty of creation, and Revelation reminds us that the natural world has a place in time everlasting. As individuals and communities, we can make choices that not only make a difference here and now but also signal to others that what we do and how we live matters to God and to future generations.

7. What theologians, pastors, authors or other leaders have had the greatest influence upon your life and thought? (List up to 4 and explain.)

Three theologians and authors I regularly read or re-read are 1) Barbara Brown Taylor, in particular her book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, from which I learned that it is okay if my experience of God and the Christian life is more like the waxing and waning of the moon than the constant shining of the sun, and that if God is God even of the dark, what is there to be afraid of there? 2) Brene Brown, in particular her books The Gifts of Imperfection and Dare to Lead, from which I learned that not only is it okay to be my actual imperfect self in the world, but also that coming to terms with and loving that about myself is the very position of strength from which to lead; and 3) Eugene Peterson, especially Working the Angles and his memoir, The Pastor. Both of these paint a realistic yet grounded picture of the pastoral life, one in which I can see myself.

8. How do you hope someone influenced by your ministry would describe what s/he considers to be most important?

I would hope that someone who is influenced by my ministry would experience preaching that calls them back into the text, worship leading that helps them really hear and internalize what is being said, and through my pastoral care that they would experience belovedness and acceptance.

9. Name at least one challenge for a pastor who accepts a Call to lead a church whose culture is other than his/her own.

A pastor called into ministry in a culture other than their own has the opportunity to practice what I believe is an important aspect of pastoral leadership: coming alongside rather than leading from out front. It is a situation in which the leader is not the expert, the people are. It then becomes the job of the pastor to lead by listening, by reflecting back, staying curious, asking questions, and empowering leaders from within the congregation.

10. Describe your vision and hopes for the Church over the next 5-10 years.

Quite a number of years ago now I read Lesslie Newbigin’s Foolishness to the Greeks. In it, among other things, he looks back on the American church with all of his expertise and passion for mission, challenging us to consider what kind of message of good news we would bring to ourselves. I long for congregations and groups of churches to have the kind of curiosity and agility it would take for such a task. We do not have it all right, nor do we all need to be the same, but I do believe that our receiving of the gospel in our midst is not a one-and-done kind of deal and that there is a lot of joy and delight to be found on the other side of further transformation and growth.

11. If there is anything else you would like to add about yourself that you think would help a search team to better understand and consider you as their next pastor, please elaborate here.