About Me and My Hopes for this Substack
Who am I, and what am I trying to do here?
I realize many who read my posts won’t have any personal connection to me or know what prompted me to start this Substack. So I wanted to take the opportunity this week to share more about me and my hopes for this Substack.
When it comes to my theological and ministry background, here are the basics: I grew up in a non-religious home and started attending a non-denominational youth group (and eventually the Sunday morning service as well) with friends in my teen years. I then studied at a Pentecostal university, and through my own personal studies came out of that university embracing Reformed theology (I know, quite the opposite of what you’d expect there). I have served in youth ministry roles in churches that were part of the PCA and the EPC, in roles all the way from intern to director of the youth department. The churches and their youth ministries varied greatly in size and needs (churches of 350-3,500 members, youth ministry staffs of 2-10, etc.).
Currently, I reside in Florida,1 where I worship at an ACNA church, and serve in parachurch roles that support ministry leaders. Most of my closest ministry connections have been in Reformed and Presbyterian circles, but my networks are broader than that.2
As for this Substack, it was birthed primarily out of years of having questions that I couldn’t find answers to. As a female in youth ministry, I felt like I was running into certain challenges that most people I knew in youth ministry weren’t facing… because the many of the women I knew in youth ministry were leaving the field, and all the guys I knew didn’t seem to face the same problems. It was a confusing landscape as a female.
I looked around and wondered what would happen if we could just get all the women in youth ministry together to discuss these sorts of things. Though I haven’t been able to facilitate larger discussions and gatherings like this, I have gotten to connect with a lot of women in youth ministry in recent years. And as a result, I’ve been able to draw conclusions about what those discussions could look like if we did all gather, because there are themes that keep popping up repeatedly in the feedback I am hearing.
So, in this Substack, my hope is to be a resource that helps women in youth ministry be better equipped to thrive in their positions — and to understand the unique shapes that will take for them as females. I’m hoping to help women in youth ministry name and understand the challenges they face and to identify the ways to move through these challenges.
I’m hoping that there will also be others (whether it’s pastors, male youth workers, people who supervise women in youth ministry, etc.) reading who will be equipped to better support women in youth ministry.
I’m hoping also that as I interact with women in youth ministry, I may be able to help more women in youth ministry connect with each other.
Some of my posts, of course, aren’t focused narrowly on the topic of women in youth ministry. I also post on topics related to youth ministry and discipleship, and when appropriate add a female perspective to the issue. But even with these posts, the heartbeat of this Substack is to support and empower women in youth ministry and to help others do the same.
Yes, a part of the state where Hurricane Milton just passed through in the early morning hours. All is well now (for me, anyway).
This Substack won’t engage the issue of Biblical positions on women’s roles in ministry. You’ll notice that my background has exposed me to more than one viewpoint on this. A lot of the people I am closest with serve in churches that embrace complementarianism, but I aim to serve people in both contexts. I’m trying hard to present information and arguments in ways that do not depend on either complementarian or egalitarian theology, and I use sources and feedback from both sides of the spectrum.