I grew up in Ohio, the youngest of five children. My family attended the only Catholic Church in my small town. I can remember always feeling I wasn’t “good enough” to receive God’s love. I thought it was reserved for those who were more deserving. So by the time I graduated High School, I left the Church, and my wilderness journey began. Like the prodigal son, in my case daughter. (Luke 15) I unknowingly rejected God’s gift of grace and tried to fill my life with my career, alcohol, drugs, and relationships, all which left my life empty. I thank God that for his prevenient grace, and that He was actively pursuing me! Throughout the years I would attend Church, and God continued to stir a desire in me to know Him at a deeper level. So after …show more content…
I expressed my deep desire to share God’s love with others, only to be told “I couldn’t preach or teach a man in a Baptist Church,” but I could teach the youth. Over the years, I not only taught youth, but I became a VBS director, taught drama, dance, and led local missions in our Church. In the beginning, my son was the only youth in the church. My pastor taught me a lesson in faithfulness; that even if I only had one youth, I should plan a lesson as if I had ten. I learned to be faithful with little, and God began to bless me with much. The youth group grew beyond what I could ever ask or …show more content…
It helped me to build character, self-discipline, team work, and to develop a pastoral gift set. It taught me how to handle conflict and confront problems. Most of all it deepened my relationship with God, increased my passion to serve as a pastor. I will finish my bachelor’s degree in May of 2017. I plan on applying to Asbury Theological Seminary next August to start working on my Masters of Divinity. My desire would be to become a full-time licensed local pastor while I work on my completing my education. My first encounter with the Methodist faith would happen when I started taking interpretive movement classes at Belleview Methodist Church. Eventually, I ended up joining their praise team, which opened the door to me going on my first mission trip. It was no surprise that God would lead me back to the Methodist church. I was overwhelmed with confirmation, when I discovered that Methodists see men and women as equally created in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and allow men and women to serve equally. That call I have always felt on my life, could now be fully