My Journey to Ordination and Pastor!

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Ten years ago, I was ordained. And it was a process,

let me tell you!

It started when I was 12, and my pastor came over to tell my parents I was a good candidate to go into ministry. My childhood parish was small. The women’s group led Bible study, volunteers wrote and organized Vacation Bible School, and we hosted two mid-week meals and homework help for the neighbors. Because we were

doing that work, Pastor Stadler could organize candlelight vigils for the communities that had

recently experienced gun violence.

It was the 1990s.

My parents had both gone to college, which meant I had a lot of support for how to navigate the application process, including financial aid. I was very privileged to attend a private Lutheran college, though it was the first place I lived where white people were in the numerical majority, which was odd after growing up in a more diverse public school (which I loved). College was academically rigorous and theologically diverse, and I was still seen as female at the time, but my professors and campus pastors encouraged me, brought me onto chapel staff, wrote recommendations -- even the ones from traditions that don’t ordain women.

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Seminary, in Chicago, was when I first came out. It was as much a surprise to me as to anyone, and my first thought was that I would have to leave the church. But I found friends and colleagues in seminary who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and we cheered each other on.

Paperwork within the institution, however, was not so clear and comforting. I was sent to two different parts of the country and rejected on account of my sexuality (which is illegal in most other businesses), told there were no calls for women in my home synod (also illegal anywhere but the church), and so I moved in with a friend in Massachusetts where I worked at Target and started supply preaching. I waited for two and a half years after I finished seminary to even receive paperwork for an interview. It was tough, getting my hopes up, waiting for a call, imagining where I might end up, being let down again. I wasn’t the only one who waited like that, and others have waited even longer for the Institutional church to catch up. 

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But the process brought me here, and I both am and am not the same person who sat on that porch almost 30 years ago, hearing from my pastor that I might be called to this. 

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It’s been an exercise in learning Grace, to be sure, and I am so glad and grateful that it has brought me here -- to SaintAndrew Lutheran Church! Thank you for welcoming me into your community to be part of this journey together!

I wonder -- Where might God be taking us in the next decade?

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Grace and Peace,

Pastor Andrew