Mark 2: Strengthening Inter and Intra Personal Relationships
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Frederick Buechner
I didn't grow up in the church. In fact, I was resistant to the "church". I was raised in eastern New Mexico and west Texas where fundamentalism not only ruled the church but dominated our culture as well. I didn't get involved in religion until my mid-twenties when I became involved with a community development ministry in Albuquerque, NM. The ministry focused on the moral obligation of "love your neighbor" and offered more of what I thought "church" should look like than the fundamentalist churches of my youth.
I loved following the Way of Christ and living a life of discipleship (or at least attempting to) but I still didn't fit in/belong with the conservative Christians who sponsored the ministry. I felt like an outsider, not good enough, not educated enough, not from the right class, and certainly not the right gender to be in leadership.
I felt called to leadership in ministry and decided to leave my community after years of discernment. I discovered strong female Christian leaders like Sarah Bessey, Rachel Held Evans, and Nadia Bolz. These women introduced me to a whole/holy new world of Christianity and helped me to recognize the God-given leadership within myself.
I followed my calling and entered the Master of Theological Studies program at St. Norbert College. Through these experiences, I found my healthy sense of self, provided by God. However, I had yet to find my community. Just one semester into the MTS program, I discovered First Congregational UCC in Albuquerque. This beloved community took me in, offered a place of belonging, and allowed me to bring my whole self to the table. It was within this community of love, with the grounding of who I am in God, that I began to flourish.
This experience of self-discovery and community belonging led to my Master's Thesis project- "Encountering Her: Reclaiming, Revisioning, Reforming. Intersectional Theology in Praxis". "Encountering Her" was a series of four retreats at First Congregational UCC that explored and reflected upon the experience and impact of imagery of God as Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC).
Please click on the links below to view the full paper "Encountering Her: Reclaiming, Revisioning, Reforming. Intersectional Theology in Praxis and the worship service which I led and preached at on July 25, 2021.
