Skills which were enhanced by my ministry experience include the perspective of faith and spiritual life, the importance of human persons, listening carefully, tact and graceful suggestions, writing, public speaking, teaching, community building, workshop leadership and training, and the importance of collaborative leadership styles.
Ministry of some kind is a thread through much of my life. I was ordained in the Nebraska Conference (now Great Plains) and served two parishes and an extension ministry while there. In seminary, I served as youth and young adult minister at First Baptist Church of Los Angeles and helped with the youth ministry at Claremont UMC.
Jefferson County Larger Parish was my first appointment after seminary. Centered around Fairbury, Nebraska, in Southeast Nebraska's Jefferson County, it was a five-church parish with a central larger church, First United Methodist in Fairbury, with the others being smaller: Endicott Community UMC, Diller, Helvey, and Reynolds. We lived in the Endicott parsonage, a delightful brick house a block from the church, also of brick (of course: Endicott was a large producer of bricks from the clay hills south of town). I led events which helped people learn about world hunger, confirmands learn about the United Methodist Church, and Sunday School teachers become better teachers. I served at the conference level on the Committee on Human Identity and Relationships (providing sexuality education for all ages--brochure), and at the district level in Christian education activities.
I served part-time with the PEACe Parish, a cooperative parish of four smaller churches: Palmyra, Eagle, Aldersgate (Lincoln), and Cheney, coordinating Christian education activities.
During the development of Ministry in Human Sexuality, Inc., I served an interim ministry at Ebenezer United Church of Christ, which included preaching of course, pastoral care, and preparing youth for confirmation in the UCC.
Ministry in Human Sexuality, Inc. was a 501c3 non-profit agency which provided pastoral counseling with a sexuality and relationship emphasis, education on sexuality matters, and advocacy for more inclusion of those who experienced disability, or who were gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in church and community. I wrote a number of articles for the singles newspaper, and worked with two other agencies on sexuality and disability workshops presented in several communities around Lincoln. I learned about advisory and governing boards, fundraising, policy setting, supervision and certification. One of the most meaningful experiences besides the clients and their stories was the supervision of my work with them with some very good supervisors. I worked towards certification as a pastoral counselor and participated in several psychology classes at the University of Nebraska.
After MHS, my life and career swung to the technological with work in the environmental monitoring field.
The position of Information Administrator at the offices of the Rocky Mountain Conference (now Mountain Sky) of The United Methodist Church provided the opportunity to bring my ministry commitments and experiences together with the technological expertise I had developed over the years. I provided communication via email and web for the 3-state conference, under the direction of the Director of Communications. My work was one of community-building via electronic means, and when I retired from there I was very happy to hear that many people experienced that through my work. It was truly an honor to serve the people of the Conference, just as it was an honor to work with those involved with M.H.S. and the churches of the parishes I served.