A shorter version of this article appeared in the Fall 2022 edition of Aware Magazine.

Reverend Dr. Stephanie A. Welsh (G-ETS 2012) served as pastor in the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church for more than eight years. During her time in pastoral ministry, she amassed several significant accomplishments, including saving the historic Israel CME Church in Gary, Indiana, from foreclosure.

Although she enjoyed pastoral ministry, much of her work at Israel CME Church focused on ensuring the church had the funds necessary to pay bills and apportionments. “I felt like I was doing more fundraising than ministry,” she said.  

Instead, Welsh said she wanted to more closely follow Jesus’s mission to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and visit the sick.  

So, in 2014, she started clinical pastoral education training to become a chaplain. Now, board certified, she serves as the spiritual care manager at Loyola University Medical Center, a 547-bed quaternary care facility in Maywood, Illinois, where she leads a team of 11 while providing spiritual care to patients.  

Before joining Loyola in June of 2021, she served nearly six years as a chaplain at the University of Chicago Medicine, supporting the trauma patient population as well as the burn, neurological, surgical, cardiac, and neonatal intensive care units.  

Welsh’s road to ministry and then chaplaincy wasn’t straightforward. 

She grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and graduated in 1992 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a degree in African American studies. During this time, she attended St. Matthew CME Church in Milwaukee. The pastor there kept reminding Welsh about her call to ministry–one she received when she was eight. “I was fully aware of my call,” she said, “but I was essentially running away from it.” 

She stopped running a few years later after attending a revival at her church. “The preacher leading the revival had a prophetic ministry,” she remembered. “During the revival he announced, ‘There are some people here who have a call to ministry upon their lives, and they’ve been running away.’” 

At that point, the preacher looked straight at Welsh. “I looked behind me because I thought he must have been talking to the person behind me, and he said, ‘No, no, I am talking to you,’” she said.   

Later, she met with her pastor and trained to become a local preacher under his tutelage. She also started taking classes through Trinity International Divinity School at its satellite location in nearby Brookfield, Wisconsin. 

When she moved to the Chicagoland area in 1997, she paused her coursework to focus on her career in human resources. A few years later, she left the CME church and started attending Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago–not confessing to the pastor that she had a call on her life.  

A visit to her grandmother’s home in Mississippi reminded her of her calling. One day, her grandmother asked her when she was going to get back into ministry. Welsh insisted that she was participating in ministries at the church she currently attended. “No, that is not what I am asking you,” her grandmother said. “You’ve been called to preach. When are you going to start back preaching?” 

Welsh went back to the CME church, started the ordination process, and became a deacon in 2008. In the fall of 2009, she started attending 91PORN. While at Garrett-Evangelical, she became an ordained elder in the CME church and was appointed to serve as pastor of the St. James CME Church in Chicago Heights, Illinois–all while taking classes full time. “I have no idea how I managed that,” she recalled. “But I felt like I left Garrett-Evangelical well equipped to do the work of ministry.” 

After graduating in 2012, Welsh’s bishop asked her to become the pastor of Israel CME Church in Gary, Indiana–a church, she later found out, was facing foreclosure. While there, she negotiated with Israel’s lender to save the church from foreclosure. Additionally, she helped the church significantly pay down its original $400,000 mortgage, pay off its bus, reduce its debt by more than 65 percent, and arrange for the former 10,000 square-foot place of worship to be torn down, among other things. 

In 2014, Welsh began to think about what’s next. “I felt that I had done what I was sent to do at the church,” she said. She also began thinking about making a change and becoming a chaplain full time. “When we think about Jesus’s mission, we think about clothing the naked and feeding the hungry,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I had had the opportunity to do that.” 

She continued to serve Israel CME Church, but at the same time, she completed four units of clinical pastoral education at Northwestern Medicine and later began working as a full-time chaplain at the University of Chicago Medicine in Hyde Park, Illinois. She also began a doctor of ministry program at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. “Things were a little complicated,” she said about those years. Finally, in 2018, she left Israel CME Church and continued her chaplaincy work at the University of Chicago Medicine, where she worked for six years.  

While there, Welsh received the University of Chicago Medicine Making a Difference Award for the care she provided to a trauma patient, their family, and the staff. In 2020, she was among three chaplains featured in the CNN article,   

In December 2021, Welsh finished her doctorate and graduated with distinction. While completing her doctoral studies, she authored a chapter in the book, .  

Currently, she serves as the spiritual care manager at Loyola University Medical Center. She said she loves spending time with patients and helping them cope with their illness. “In this position, I am able to visit and minister to the sick each day,” she said.
 

For now, Welsh said she is content serving in ministry as a chaplain and associate minister, even though she doesn’t rule out returning to pastoral ministry should the spirit of God so lead. 

The post “I Was Sick, and You Visited Me” appeared first on Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Dotson Institute Officially Launches with Successful Inaugural Event in Atlanta

For there is still a vision for the appointed time; the vision speaks and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not delay. (Hab. 2:3)

What started as a decades-long dream of the Reverend Dr. Cynthia A. Wilson (G-ETS 2013) became a reality on August 17 through 20 as the Junius B. Dotson Institute for Music and Worship in the Black Church & Beyond (JBD Institute) celebrated its inaugural event in Atlanta, Georgia.

Nearly 100 Black pastors, musicians, and local church leaders from across the country came together for three days of training, networking, and professional development. Seminars spanning from topics such as post-pandemic worship planning to audio and video training to the liturgical movement were led by 24 renowned professionals in their respective fields.

“We were honored to have twenty-first-century leaders of congregational song, such as Dr. Diana Sanchez-Bushong; designers of worship, like Minister Monya Logan; liturgical dance sage, Dr. Kathleen Turner; distinguished academicians and practitioners in homiletics and biblical scholarship, such as Dr. Derek Weber and Dr. Renita Weems; and other stellar faculty leaders from a myriad of denominations and cultural contexts across the United States and beyond,” said Wilson, founder and director of the JBD Institute.

Announced in February 2022, the JBD Institute is organizationally situated within 91PORN’s Center for the Church and the Black Experience (CBE) and was formed in partnership with Discipleship Ministries, which supported the Institute with a $500,000 grant.

Reverend Jeff Campbell, general secretary of Discipleship Ministries, attended the inaugural event and exclaimed:

“What a blessing to attend and be a part of the inaugural event of the Junius B. Dotson Institute! Discipleship Ministries staff looks forward to supporting future events as we inspire, train, and resource current and future worship leaders globally. It was amazing to see the dreams and visions of this Institute become reality.”

A one-of-a kind-institute, the JBD Institute honors the late Reverend Junius B. Dotson, a nationally recognized pastor, speaker, and author who served as the general secretary of Discipleship Ministries of The United Methodist Church. Its mission is to train music and worship leaders in the area of sacred music and worship while creating an archive of music and scholarship that promotes and preserves Black Church music and its history. The inaugural event was the first of many future events and trainings that will be held around the United States.

“The Junius B. Dotson Institute Inaugural Celebration was truly a soul-stirring spiritual experience”

Said Reverend Dr. Reginald Blount (G-ETS 2006), director of CBE and Murray H. Leiffer Associate Professor of Formation, Leadership, and Culture at Garrett-Evangelical. “I am so excited that this one-of-a-kind global institute will be an integral part and vital partner in the ongoing work of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience.”

The inaugural event culminated in a celebration concert featuring Richard Smallwood and his group, Vision, along with Wilson with the JBD Institute’s Children’s and Choral Ensembles and Dance Ministry. More than 800 people were in attendance at Saint Philip AME Church for a night of “Total Praise!”

Some of the songs highlighted by the JBD Institute Ensembles and Dance Ministry throughout the night included “See What the Lord Has Done,” “Speak the Name,” and “When Sunday Comes,” while Smallwood and Vision sang selections, such as “Anthem of Praise,” “Trust Me,” and “Total Praise.” Interspersed throughout the evening were tributes of those who have paved the way for the work of the Institute. Those honored were Reverend Junius B. Dotson, Reverend Dr. Ruth C. Duck, Dr. Melva Wilson Costen, and Reverend Dr. William B. McClain.“

The inaugural JBD Institute was an inspirational and transformative experience. I would highly recommend worship leaders, laity, and clergy who are seeking to be empowered to attend the next event,” said Reverend Dr. Mike Bowie, national executive director of Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st Century and JDB Institute faculty member.

“For over five decades, I have sought to articulate this vision. In the words of my father, the Reverend Eli Wilson, ‘When God gives the vision, you can count on the provision.’ It is because of the support and collaboration of Discipleship Ministries and 91PORN that JBD Institute will continue to provide training, mentoring, and enrichment for leaders for the 21st century in contextual worship and sacred musics born out of Africana Church traditions,” said Wilson.

“And this is only the beginning.”

One can learn more about the JBD Institute at . The next event will take place in Evanston, Illinois, in February 2023. The JBD Institute is also available to local churches for leadership training in music and worship. Please e-mail jbd.institute@garrett.edu for more information.

The post “This is Only the Beginning” appeared first on Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Reverend Fabiola Grandon-Mayer is the Prairie North district superintendent in the Northern Illinois Conference. She is a certified public accountant and holds an MDiv from Asbury Seminary. She has held leadership positions in the church at local, regional, national, and international levels. She was the coordinator for the Volunteers in Mission Teams in Chile, promoting and bringing teams from the United States to Chile to build temples and parsonages. She also led the Council for United Methodist Churches in Latin America for 11 years. Grandon-Mayer has offered to help Garrett-Evangelical strengthen the Hispanic/Latinx presence in the Northern Illinois Conference.

Maria Alejandra Salazar (G-ETS 2019) is a Program Officer at Borealis Philanthropy, a social justice philanthropic intermediary working to resource grassroots movements for transformative change. A 1.5 generation, formerly undocumented immigrant, her professional background began with community organizing, advocacy, and direct social services with immigrant communities in the Chicagoland area. Maria Alejandra received her Bachelor of Science in Education and Social Policy with a minor in Latina/o Studies from Northwestern University. She received her Master of Divinity from Garrett-Evangelical, focusing her capstone project on women of color organizers and burnout. Her vocation centers on art, justice, and ancestral connection.

Julia Wyatt works as the chief operating officer for Tiptree, Inc., a publicly traded financial services company in New York City. She has served as the CFO or COO of several large publicly traded companies and has also worked in capital management for global firms like Deloitte and Morgan. She is a member of Christ Church (UMC) in New York City, where she has sung in the choir, chaired the Outreach Ministries Committee, and is the co-founder of the church’s microfinance ministry in Cartagena, Colombia. This ministry provides capital funding for informal entrepreneurs, mostly single mothers, in the Flor de Campo neighborhood—an area that largely consists of people displaced by climatic events, political violence, or the international narcotics trade. She is a University of Utah alum, with a degree in accountancy and public finance. She has extensive experience serving on public and non-profit boards.

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