“Prevention education is nonviolence work.” As the Reverend Maddie Johnson (G-ETS ’19) reflects on writing her upcoming thesis for Garrett Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry in Leadership for Social Transformation, she names a crucial tension between calling the church to task for its insufficient commitment to sexual boundaries trainings and laboring within the denomination to mend this breach. “Working in the Great Plains Conference, I’ve seen how inadequate our resources are,” she says plainly. “I hope to use my role on the Great Plains Justice and Mercy team to really focus on clergy sexual ethics.” Her DMin courses have helped her clarify this calling, and she’s now excited to design a curriculum that will create healthier United Methodist congregations and workplaces.

 

For Rev. Johnson, the DMin program is a homecoming to where she earned her Master of Divinity. “Once I stepped foot into Garrett, I feel like I never left in sentiment or relationship. I’m just so grateful for my experiences here,” she shares. “I’ve always appreciated the seminary’s focus on community praxis, and when I saw Dr. Kate Ott join the faculty, I knew that the academic resources would be there to investigate how I can create a sexual ethics training that is both LGBTQ+-inclusive and survivor-centric.” Providing information about sexual boundaries shouldn’t be treated as just a box to check, Rev. Johnson notes. It’s an opportunity to intervene before harm occurs. “I genuinely believe that prevention education can ultimately curb violence,” she confesses. “Not that it will eradicate this problem, so we also must create space for people to talk about the harm that has and will continue to occur.”

 

For Rev. Johnson, this issue isn’t only academic—it’s deeply personal. “I care about clergy sexual ethics, in part, because I experienced the harm from how my conference responded to the complaint I filed,” she says softly. “I still have to see and share space with my abuser at Conference events. So, I told them I would continue to work for the conference remotely, but I’m going to return to the place where I have community, where I can be whole and integrated. For me, staying required leaving.” And still, while other people might have made the understandable decision to leave her conference or even ordained ministry, Rev. Johnson is committed to working so others don’thave to live through the same inadequate systems. “I believe in the institutional space, and I’m so grateful to find many avenues to care for the denomination at large,” she says. “I believe that to be part of the body of Christ, to be ordained into this order, is to live accountable to one another. I’m exploring what that looks like.”

 

One of the aspects that Rev. Johnson has appreciated most about the DMin program is the opportunity to learn beside other people who are committed to social transformation. “I love my cohort. You have people across denominations; in the church and out of the church; some in traditional ministry, others not,” she begins. “It’s amazing to see the lenses they bring! And since there are only seven of us, it’s an intimate group where you really get to know one another’s projects.” An added benefit to small class sizes is the individualized attention it enables. “In Dr. Angela Cowser’s course on nonviolence, she did one-on-one meetings with each of us before the class, so she could cater the curriculum to our projects,” Rev. Johnson explains. “Then, we were all assigned individual reading throughout the semester connected to our work.”

 

Sometimes, that individualized approach meant exchanging an entire class for something more germane to her studies. “Preaching wasn’t pertinent to what I’m trying to do, so I actually swapped Liberative Proclamation for an independent study with Dr. Ott,” she says. “I was able to read foundational theological texts focused on sexual ethics and was so glad I had that possibility. You’re a person first at Garrett, and I appreciate that very much.”

 

Throughout her experience in both degree programs, Rev. Johnson says she loves the way that Garrett creates space for its community: Room to heal, and room to expand her academic horizons to fuel the work to which she’scalled. “When you have close relationships to everyone in the administration and the faculty, it creates a robust academic experience but also a holistic environment that invests in you,” she concludes. “Especially when you’re tackling difficult topics like trauma-informed leadership or decolonial pedagogy, you need that integrated approach.”

 

Interested to learn more about how a DMin in Leadership for Social Transformation can help you pursue your vocational goals? Click here to learn more about the program and apply today!

Many seminary students would feel lucky to land their dream job right after graduation. MDiv student Carly Redding is thrilled to have been offered hers before her third year of seminary, and grateful for the contextual education placement that prepared her to take it.

 

Carly arrived at Garrett after working with the campus ministry during her time at Southwestern College in Winfield, KS, and was interested to learn more. As part of the field placement process, Carly met with Dr. Lisl Paul, director of contextual education, who recommended University Christian Ministry (UCM), a Methodist and PC USA ministry at Northwestern. The next step was aninterview with Executive Director Rev. Julie Windsor Mitchell. Both immediately felt it was a good fit, and Carly committed to the internship nearly a year in advance.

 

“I spent a lot of the first couple of weeks just observing the general vibe of the group, getting to know the students, and seeing what Julie did,” she said. “Then toward the end of October I started to get more involved in worship and preaching. They did worship on Sunday evenings and it was fairly informal. We’re all sitting on couches in a circle, but Julie or I would give a reflection on the scripture and students would pick songs. Over time I really grew into that role well and got to connect with the students in a lot of different ways.”

 

Carly’s time with the UCM also included a variety of experiences that she hadn’t expected. Some, like having to remove a dead animal from the ministry house’s yard or mopping the living room floor in preparation for yoga, were fairly mundane. Others — like baking cookies with students in the aftermath of the presidential election, working with students involved with the dining hall workers union strike, or helping out with the urban garden — were particularly meaningful. Many moments were a bit of both.

 

“Oftentimes we would hand out things in front of the house,” she said. “On the first day of school we did ice cream. On Halloween we did candy. Moments like that, truly like street evangelism, just being present and saying, ‘Hey do you want a piece of candy?’ or ‘Happy Halloween,’ standing there in your costume, were like rejection therapy.”

 

But moments like that were just the training she needed. Before her internship was over, Carly applied to be the full-time campus minister at her alma mater, Southwestern College, was hired and scheduled to begin that summer. She would be the only campus minister at a school far smaller than Northwestern, and her new skills would be needed. Upon arriving, she quickly began “Caf Convos with Pastor Carly,” making herself available to connect with students over lunch in the cafeteria. When students didn’t come to her, she went to them and simply asked if it would be okay to sit with them that day.

 

“Eventually I had a group of freshman girls from the volleyball team that would frequently sit with me,” she said. “I got to go to their games and oftentimes a lot of them were playing. It was really cool because I was able to cheer them on and then also talk about how well they’d played. Even though it might not have been the outcome they wanted, I was able to encourage them in different ways. A lot of that I gained from just those moments of handing out ice cream and handing out candy.”

 

Other lessons from her time with UCM have stuck with Carly, too. She has learned to involve students in decision making processes, guiding them as they think through ethical issues and make their own judgments. She has also learned to stay flexible enough to be prepared for anything and responsive to whatever happens, which is particularly helpful when — for example — the speaker for chapel cancels suddenly. Most of all, she is convinced of the significance of a ministry of presence, something that was exemplified by her supervisor at UCM, now a colleague who continues to offer her support.

 

“I’m really glad I was there because now I have a forever colleague and mentor in Julie,” Carly said. “She’s someone who I really admire and know that when I’m having a hard week or have a problem that I don’t know where to go with, I can call her and ask her professional opinion. I’m glad to have that relationship with Julie, because sometimes it’s nice to have somebody who knows nothing about the institution to give you some advice.”

 

For those considering doing contextual education in campus ministry, Carly would absolutely encourage them to do so. “Whether you want to work in the church or not, I would totally recommend doing campus ministry if you get the opportunity,” she said. “You see everything: birth, death, vocation, pastoral care, picket lines, food insecurity, and leadership management. You get the full breadth of church ministry. If you get an opportunity to do campus ministry, take it.”

 

I first came to Garrett in 2017 as an international student, to learn about theology and think about my role in the ministry of the church. It was also a time when I began deeply questioningmy cultural identity—my Korean-born, New Zealand raised, English-speaking self that naturally passed as a Korean American—a confusing matter, on top of all the theological questions.

 

While I spent much time re-defining who I was, and what I belonged to, Garrett helped me unlearn and relearn about myself and my faith. My time in the M.DIV program (2017-2022) was liberating as I was able to explore myself beyond belongingness—it gave me a new language to describe my identity, my faith, and my theology, in addition to an expanded perspective onthe world. Garrett became a new home, and my comfort zone.

 

In unfortunate times, I had to return to Seoul during the COVID-19 pandemic, right in the middle of the 2020 spring semester. Although I was returning home, “home” required re-locating, re-adjusting and re-learning the context. Perhaps I returned a different self then when I left, but still, motherland seemed foreign. The newly updated-self spent a long time trying to translate this new language into the mother tongue—constantly seeking validation that what I learned in the U.S can be comprehended in Korea as well.

 

Amid it all, I continued with life. I served as a part-time pastor, an English tutor, and an online international student—now all in Korea. In close proximity, I experienced the diverse social landscape of children within the Korean Church. Especially during the pandemic, I saw how the church and congregations flexibly shifted, pushing through the unprepared and unfamiliar time. Experiencing Korea at a microscopic level expanded my perspective and understanding of my motherland to a very different level. Motherland did not need my translation, in fact, it required me to re-learn to speak in her way. I needed to see and understand home from a different perspective, through a different lens, with a different method, using different analogies. Being contextual, not from the outside, but from the inside, at the center.

 

Now, as a place of ministry, I am continuing my journey and efforts to keep my perspective from the inside. As part of the educational ministries for children, youth, and young adults in the local churches in Seoul, I am much better at reading the landscapes, the lives of the people, with a better understanding of the Korean Church. In deeper yearning to be educated to help the younger generation of Korea—in other words, future leaders of the Korean Church—I wanted to return to Garrett, this time staying in Korea.

 

Gratefully, with the option of studying overseas, I am currently an online international Master of Arts in Theology and Ministry student, with a concentration in educational leadership. Learning online helps me to stay in stronger connection to my context; while continuing studies in the new languages I have attained. Grateful to Garrett’s new and developingtechnological environment, my learning spaces are expanded not just to the U.S, but with students from all over the world. Not only do I get to stay close to the roots of my education, I am given the opportunity to experiment, apply and adapt these lessons to our lives, in our contexts, and ministries. I am also supported with faculty and staff attentive to the diversity of culture, faith, and time differences, helping students not just to learn, but also to think about each other’s contexts. The intentional learning community Garrett has built is an inspiration, and kindles hope for the ministries that we imagine together.

 

For me, Garrett is a place that redefines who I am through critical education and theological journey. It continues to help me stay a striving learner, a practical theologian, and a passionate minister today. Feeling closer and at home more than ever, I am excited to continue dreaming how we can raise generations of Christian leaders in Korea, who will empower my people, our Church, and the world.

 

The opportunity to begin theological education remotely in India, while preparing for future in-person study, has been both a gift and a meaningful step in my vocational journey.

 

My call to study theology emerged through my involvement in church ministry and teaching the Bible to young people. Over time, I sensed a deeper desire to understand Scripture more carefully and to engage theology in a way that would strengthen both my faith and my ministry. Garrett’s academic reputation—its commitment to thoughtful theological reflection, and its openness to global perspectives—attracted me here to pursue this calling.

 

However, like many students around the world, I faced practical realities that made immediate relocation difficult. Financial considerations, family responsibilities, and logistical challenges meant that moving abroad for study would take time to arrange. Without the possibility of remote study, I would have needed to postpone my theological education entirely. Instead, Garrett’s remote learning structure made it possible for me to begin my studies without delay, allowing me to start engaging with coursework, professors, and fellow students while remaining in India.

 

Studying remotely has also given me a unique advantage: I am able to remain deeply connected to my local church and community while I learn. Rather than separating academic theology from ministry, my studies constantly interact with the realities of everyday life. When I read theological texts, discuss doctrine, or reflect on the church’s mission in the world, I do so while actively participating in the life of my congregation. This allows theological ideas to be tested, refined, and lived out in real contexts.

 

Teaching and discussing Scripture with young people in my community has been especially meaningful during this time. As I learn new perspectives and engage different theological traditions through my coursework, I share those insights with others in my church. At the same time, the questions and experiences of the people I serve often shape how I approach my studies. This two-way relationship between learning and ministry has made remote study not only practical but spiritually enriching.

 

Another benefit of studying remotely is the opportunity to participate in a truly global learning environment. Though I am physically located in India, the classroom extends far beyond geographical boundaries. I interact with students and faculty who come from different cultural, theological, and ecclesial backgrounds. These conversations expand my understanding of the church as a global community and remind me that theology is always shaped by diverse voices and experiences.

 

Of course, studying remotely also requires discipline and perseverance. Managing time zones, maintaining focus in a digital learning environment, and balancing academic work with ministry responsibilities can be challenging. Yet these challenges have also helped me develop habits of commitment and resilience that will serve me well in future studies and ministry.

 

Looking ahead, I hope to eventually continue my education in person at Garrett. Being able to study on campus would allow for deeper relationships with faculty and classmates and greater immersion in the seminary community. However, beginning my education remotely has already provided a strong foundation for that next step. It has let me start this journey now rather than waiting for the perfect circumstances.

 

In many ways, remote study reflects the reality of the global church today. Faith communities are connected across cultures, languages, and nations; theological education must adapt to this interconnected world. Garrett’s commitment to supporting students in different parts of the world demonstrates a vision of theological education that is both accessible and globally engaged.

 

For me, studying remotely has not been merely a temporary arrangement. It has been a meaningful way to begin my theological formation while remaining rooted in the community that first nurtured my calling. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn, grow, and serve simultaneously, and I look forward to continuing this journey with Garrett in the years ahead.

 

May God richly bless the leadership, teaching faculty, and staff of Garrett for making it possible for students to pursue their dreams of theological education, even from the farthest corners of the world. Their dedication and support have opened doors for many students to learn, grow, and serve faithfully in their calling.

 

Zachary Nyquest grew up in Calumet, Iowa, population 99. Dr. Ebenezer Concepción grew up in Union City, New Jersey, just a stone’s throw away from New York City. Neither students’ childhood religious tradition could hold the fullness of the men they would become. Both fell away from church for years, as they learned to embrace their sexualities and live into the abundance God intends for their lives. Now, both are pursuing their Master of Divinity degree, so they can create spaces of thriving—nurturing a more loving world than the one they inherited. While there are broad commonalities between their journeys, it’s the differences between their stories that reveal the breadth of Garrett Seminary’s community—space for all people to explore the particularities of their faiths and callings.

 

Concepción’s childhood was powerfully shaped by Latiné Pentecostalism, rooted in a Puerto Rican community where the boundaries between church and family were thin. “I often say I was born and raised in the gospel,” he says with a smile. “From a very young age, I grew up singing in the church. I was the leader of the children’s group, and a youth pastor when I was in college.” But those college years were also a period of personal transformation. “At that time, I was awakening to my sexuality as a queer person,” Concepción remembers. “Pentecostalism, for the most part, leans more conservative. Being gay was not okay. It wasn’t until I started to take classes on Latiné queer literature—topics of gender, sexuality, and power—that I began to understand how I could connect my queerness to my cultural heritage.”

 

The conservatism of Nyquest’s home church was of the white evangelical persuasion, but it held similarly scant space for his burgeoning identity. Moreover, its theology could not help him parse that stirring longing. “Growing up, theology was easy: I just had to listen to the pastor and that was my theology,” Nyquest recalls. “But all of a sudden, I had these big theological questions that defied simple answers. My entire theological foundation crumbled and I was too scared to rebuild it, in case it crumbled again.” In that fearful moment, joining the National Guard provided stability he so badly needed. “I joined when I was 17, a junior in high school,” he says. “When my life was going crazy, the National Guard was the one thing that was consistent—and that consistency helped me get out of that dark place.”

 

After graduating from college, Concepción accepted a public policy fellowship in Washington D.C. and began a path that would lead him away from the Pentecostalism of his youth, and through a doctoral program at The University of Chicago. After completing a post-doc, he accepted a Leading Edge Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, which brought him back to Chicago for a job with YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. “I lead their prevention work against gender-based and community violence,” he explains, “but I’m still reconciling with my faith as well, trying to find how I can follow Jesus without all these things that have been imposed onto him.” Nyquest similarly found that even when he rejected his childhood Christianity, he couldn’t shake the feeling of divine interconnectedness. “I ran away from church as fast as I could,” he laughs. “But the harder I pushed back against God, the more I believed in Him and His love.”

 

Eventually, that spiritual discernment led Nyquest through a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation that offered affirming theologies that helped him integrate his queerness and his faith. But it was the military that continued to shape his sense of call: In the middle of a particularly intense drill weekend, he had an awakening that illuminated the road ahead. “During a religious service while the chaplain was talking with us, I was praying and suddenly knew: I could be in that chaplain’s position, helping those who struggle,” he confesses. “The stress and physical exhaustion lifted from my body. I knew my calling was to be the person who I needed when I first joined.”

 

When he describes what led him to study at Garrett, Concepción’s words reverberate that desire to create the space for people who follow in his footsteps. “I want to create a curriculum for LGBTQ+ people of color, particularly Latiné folks, so they can better understand the history of Christianity and religious violence and how it intersects with race, ethnicity, queerness, and transness,” he explains. “The YWCA doesn’t only do prevention work, we also offer counseling for survivors. I want to give better tools to survivors of religious or spiritual violence and engage more deeply with faith communities.” In some ways, this is a natural extension of the work the YWCA is already doing. “I want to be more structured and intentional about it, though,” Concepción adds. “Garrett will not only give me the theological foundation I need. Its practical components and encouragement to intersectionality will also set me up for what I want to do.”

 

At Garrett, their experiences join those of their classmates. The seminary’s wide diversity offers both the resonance that feeds belonging and a difference that spurs growth. “There’s such a wide range of faiths and ethnic heritage, we’re exposed to so many different thoughts, opinions, and ideas,” Nyquest excitedly reports. “Some people who grew up in the United Methodist Church are very strong in that faith. Then you have someone like me who completely forgot faith but came back, but we’re all sharing ideas and beliefs, and growing together.” While he attends a United Church of Christ congregation now, pieces of Concepción’s Pentecostal heritage still inform how he experiences the learning community. “God is real. The Spirit, however we name it, does great things—it brings renewal, happiness, and joy,” he concludes. “God is just becoming more expansive, welcoming, even rebellious. Every new perspective adds nuance, strengthening faith so we can approach it through a different lens.”

 

It all began as an experiment in saying “yes” to God. Becca Baughman had just graduated from college and enrolled as a United Methodist global missions fellow in Tampa. Before she left home, she promised herself that—for the next year—she would place any fears and doubts aside and follow God wherever the Spirit led. Three years later, she’sserving as a licensed solo pastor in rural Indiana, pursuing her MDiv at Garrett Seminary, seeking ordination as an Elder. None of this is what she intended when she left for Florida, but somewhere along the way that “yes” transformed from an experiment into a habit—and God had different plans.

 

Almost immediately, her carefully laid-out vision began to go awry. The night before she left, she discovered that the fellow who was supposed to serve beside her in Tampa had to leave the program. “She was supposed to serve at the church full-time, and I was going to serve at a community home and shelter. I was like, ‘Okay, but what does that I mean for where I’m supposed to meet you? Where am I living?’” Baughman recalls with a chuckle. “They told me not to worry—they would figure things out while I drove, and I would have a place to stay when I got there.” When she arrived, she learned that her time would be split between the two locations—a program she had planned to be entirely devoted to social services would now include growing the church’s family and community ministries. “I was like, ‘Dang it! I told God I would walk through doors, so I said ‘yes,’” Baughman says. “I learned so much about putting my faith into action across extremely different environments—one a local church, one with unhoused people and families, and all the trauma that goes with that.”

 

And still, the surprises just kept coming. The Sunday after Christmas, a guest preacher fell through and the pastor came calling. “She said, ‘You never have to do it again, but would you be willing to preach that Sunday?’” Baughman reports, again with a laugh. The sermon went better than she could have imagined and, before long, Baughman was led repeatedly into the pulpit. In one memorable instance, her supervisor at the shelter asked her to lead their weekly worship in her absence. “When my supervisor came back from vacation, her supervisor told her ‘This girl has a gift for preaching, we need to make sure she goes into ministry,’” Baughman smiles. “So, I started my journey to become an ordained Deacon in the United Methodist Church.”

 

Home in Indiana after her program, however, that firm intention began to shift. While working at a UMC summer camp, she met Garrett alum and district superintendent Marti Lundy, who quickly affirmed the same call to parish ministry that others had sensed in Tampa. “She told me, ‘I have a small church in DeMotte, Indiana that could really use a part-time pastor like you. It’s a really great congregation, and they want a pastor who can bring young people into their church,’” Baughman says. “The more I thought and prayed, the answer started to become ‘yes.’”

 

Now, she’s already one semester into her program, juggling the demands of seminary and parish life, and—to her surprise but evidently no one else’s—she’s thriving. “I started working, getting into the groove, and I thought, ‘Oh no. I really like this. I think I’m called to be in the local church,” she laughs, last to the joke. “I don’t know how to describe it except my heart is here.”

 

Fortunately, she’s found Garrett Seminary to be an exceptional place to study while also serving in ministry. “I’m far from alone in being both a student and a pastor. That’s helped so much, because there’s a whole community to whom I can reach out and say, ‘Classes are a lot. Pastoring is a lot. Finals are coming, but I also have to be ready for Advent,’” she reports. “And a lot of professors are either currently in parish ministry or have been in parish ministry. They’re always so intentional about how we can take the knowledge we’re receiving and bring bite-sized pieces of it into the congregation. It’s giving me a toolkit to do ministry and do it well.”

 

The academic format also facilitates a balance between church and coursework. Asynchronous classes help her fit academia into her ministry schedule, and week-long intensives in Evanston offer doorways into deeper spiritual formation. “Even though I don’t live on campus, I have access to all the resources that I need. And not just physical resources but spiritual resources as well. I’m not left alone on an island to figure out how to pastor and student at the same time,” she grins. “Garrett is also really good at making sure that events are not just on campus but also hosted online. In our Welcome Week, for example, there was a library tour for people who were on campus, but there was also an online tour guiding us to library resources that are available to us while we’re far away.”

 

Ultimately, Baughman has found a sacred reciprocity: All those “yesses” she offered to God are returning her way in spades. “In Northwest Indiana, if I say that I go to Garrett, it’s highly likely someone will say ‘Oh, I’m an alumni!’” she shares. “It’s really helped me connect with other people in my conference as a young pastor.” Requirements like field education become simpler, too: She’s already serving in the field. “My field education mentor Brittany Stephan (G-ETS ’18) is also an alum,” Baughman notes. “I’m so glad to partner with someone who’s in her 30s, closer to my own age, who can walk beside me.” The biggest affirmation, however, comes from the work itself. “I just love discipleship and helping people grow,” she concludes with clear contentment. “Even if it’s just one person, I love being able to watch them take the next step in their faith.”

 

 

“I am literally praying every day in the parking lot before I walk in because I don’t know what I’m going to walk into,” says Rev. William Mack III, describing his chaplaincy experience. “I’m wired for that. I love that. My wife says I’m wired for chaos. Chaplaincy is this pastoring in the margins, and you never know what you’ll get on any given day.”

 

In his time at Garrett Seminary’s Master of Arts in Pastoral Care and Counseling program, Mack has come to understand his abilities to thrive in chaos and to engage creatively as giftsfor chaplaincy. Over the course of the program, he has completed three units of Clinical Pastoral Education at two different sites. Most recently, he has been working with students in kindergarten through eighth grade at Oakdale Christian Academy, preparing them for a dinner theatre production of The Wiz and using that work to engage them in conversations about identity, community and self-expression. Before that, he worked with a group facilitating peace circles at Stateville Correctional Center, inviting the men there into conversations about peace, reconciliation, and “how, from the inside, they can contribute to the outside.” Mack was able not only to employ his own spiritual direction skills but also taught an introduction to spiritual direction and formation class, at the men’s request. When the state closed the facility in spring of 2025, the heaviness of saying goodbye was both a significant part of his chaplaincy education and a testament to the work he was doing.

 

“I’ve worked with a lot of men over the last couple years of this degree program,” he said, “holding space for men to be vulnerable and transparent in a moment when the world tellsthem they have to be strong. In those moments, I can just sense God at work there. To hold this brother’s tears, to hear him confess ‘I’m scared’ or ‘I don’t know,’ that’s been a real gift. They have their own pastors, but in that moment, they just needed somebody to be the ear. That’s probably the biggest impact that I’ve had, to hear these brothers dream out loud.”

 

The other facet of Mack’s chaplaincy education—his coursework at Garrett—has also been a space where students are encouraged to bring their full selves into the classroom. He remembers Dr. Brian Bantum’s class, Art as Theological Practice, as a helpful opportunity “to lean into both the creative and the theological.” In exploring that intersection, using art as spiritual practice and expression, he also came to recognize that he was carrying significant grief and learned skills to process it. That’s the kind of formative experience he has come to expect in the classroom.

 

“There has not been a class that I’ve taken yet—even in my Bible classes—where we didn’t get the opportunity to look through the lenses of our own context and the context of the people that we serve, which has really been a gift,” he said. “It’s been academically rigorous, but it’s also been an opportunity for me to bring space into it. I’ve leaned into the fact of what it means for me to be an African American male practitioner from the South quite a bit. With some of my queer brothers and sisters, they’ve been able to look through those lenses as well. To be able to bring all of that into the class and then take that back out into our praxis has been a gift. It really has been.”

 

Experiencing such a fullness of human emotion and diversity of stories has also impacted Mack’s image of God as well as his theological language. He grew up in a tradition with an understanding of God as “big and holy and judgmental,” and not to be questioned. Then, as a pastor, he encountered people dealing with challenges that required a far more expansive understanding of God’s presence in the fullness of human experience. Mack chose Garrett in part because of the diversity of the community, and his experiences here—walking alongside others as a chaplain, swapping stories and support with fellow students—have deepened his appreciation of how God meets people where they are: not with judgment but with love.

 

“That’s what I’m hoping that people could know,” he said. “Who they are is enough to reflect God’s love into a world that needs a lot of love, that needs a lot of light. In a world that will tell you that you’re not enough or that you’ve got to be more male or you’ve got to be more female or you’ve got to be whatever, I want you to know that you are enough just as God created you. And if you can abide in that and live in that and serve out of that, then that alone is a gift to somebody else. That’s what I’m always trying to share with my kids and extend through my ministry.”

 

This image of God is not new to Mack, who was raised by his grandmother and, during his time at Garrett, has come to recognize her as his first pastor. She was a model for chaplaincy as she regularly visited the nearby correctional facility to throw birthday parties for the women there and to lead Bible studies. Eventually, she built an apartment in her basement where the women could get back on their feet for a few months after release.

 

“She was definitely planting seeds in my heart that this is what it looks like to just love and care for people that other people would say don’t deserve it,” Mack said. “I didn’t realize until recently how many of those seeds are coming to fruition now. What I’ve learned over the last couple of years at Garrett has given language to what I experienced in and through her.”

 

“Having children changed the way I view the world. What are the things I’m going to fight for? What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?” PhD programs are sometimes portrayed as an opportunity to learn and develop knowledge for its own sake, but Crystal Kang is clear: The scholarship to which she feels called is grounded in what can breathe joy and liberation into a suffering world. She’s thrilled by inquiry and eager to pursue an academic career, but existential stakes form the bedrock for that journey. “I’d love to be a professor, to write, research and teach,” she says. “But the next generation is my reason for waking up, for living into deeper forms of solidarity.”

 

The child of Korean immigrants, Crystal grew up in California attending Southern Baptist and Pentecostal churches. As she got older, however, she found herself drawn away from more conservative religious spaces. “Around 2014, after the killing of Trayvon Martin and rising protests, I started unpacking a lot of things about myself, about what I believe about the divine and the world,” Crystal remembers. “I started digging into ‘Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do on Earth?’ Those questions led me to Chicago, and to work in Asian American justice spaces.”

 

While those questions drew her away from the religious belonging of her childhood, they also deepened roots to her Korean heritage. As she begins her studies working with Dr. Anne Joh, she’smoved by a pneumatology that can bridge Christian identity and Korean conceptions of sin and freedom. “In Korean, there’s a thing called han, a word for generational trauma and grief that’s left unresolved,” she explains. “There’s been some theological work connecting han and structural sin—a way of understanding the many times Korean culture was almost erased by foreign powers.” Crystal is currently exploring how jeong—the unspoken care we hold for other humans—might we interpreted as a way to alleviate han. “Dr. Joh has a Christology about how Jesus demonstrated jeong for humanity,” Crystal notes. “Inspired by that scholarship, I hope my work can explore how communities might respond to traumatic grief and suffering through shinbaram and its celebratory, liberating joy..”

Already, she’s found that Garrett Seminary is a fertile place to explore these questions. “I applied to Garrett because I knew I would have a lot of freedom to form my own study,” Crystal confesses. “No question is off limits.” But it’s not only the academic liberty that stimulates her curiosity—it’s also classmates who bring their cultural particularities into conversation with her own. “I was in a theological anthropology class, and I remember looking around and realizing that more than half of my classmates were international students,” she says. “We talked a lot about how race informs and shapes the unjust systems we have in this country. Then I remember one East Asian student saying, ‘Where I come from is very racially homogenous, so we don’t talk as much about race, but xenophobia shapes systems in similar ways.’” Other students shared how caste was a more salient factor in their homelands—still others pointed to yet different forces that structure human hierarchies. “It was so helpful to hear what oppression looks like in their contexts,” Crystal says, “how the same harmful logic can live through different frameworks.”

 

Crystal believes this wealth of perspectives does more than just improve personal understanding—it’s a potent resource for social change. “People have this idea that religion is irrelevant, but religion and church intersect every sphere of society,” she observes. “Not to say we have all the answers, but I really admire the ways in which Garrett tries to cultivate thinkers, scholars, and ministers who respond to a suffering world.”

 

If I am going to invite you into my reflections of Black theology across the diaspora, then I am going to have to set the scene. You are entering the world of a young girl. A young girl, who was born in Britain to Ghanaian immigrant parents and grew up in the predominantly whiteneighborhoods of Suffolk County, 82 miles north of London. A young girl, who, by the age of 18, had been a member of 5 churches of different denominations—with her family and by herself. A girl, who, at the age of 7, felt a nagging to travel the world and tell people about Jesus,whilst advocating for her neighbors’ rights and welfare.

 

This young girl is me, now a young woman in her early 20s. My experiences of Black theology in the US and in the UK are particular to me. I cannot speak on behalf of all Black British people, but my story is collective and individual at the same time. Growing up in the Pentecostal-charismatic wings of the Baptist, Anglican, and nondenominational churches, my parents found it easy to translate their theologies of holiness, excellence, and grace from Ghana to the UK. Living into the abundant life of Christ looked like pouring into and excelling within the gifts that Christ has given us. It meant having a high standard of hospitality for guests, bringing home good report cards, having a rigorous spiritual life of prayer and meditating on the Word of God.

 

The parables in the Big Girl Bible (the nickname I gave the adult Bible, not the children’s Bible) were not just words to gloss over, they were stories that my parents and the Sunday School aunties and uncles would get me to imagine. Helping me tap into the emotions and faith of the biblical saints who experienced the horrors of humanity, only to be delivered and transformed by the loving grace of God. Faith was vibrant and real. The Bible was real; of course I was going to school with Daniel, a culturally and theologically marginalized gifted person who is in an education system created by the empire. There was no argument that Veronica, the woman with the issue of blood, understood what I was going through, finding Jesus as my only hope for healing when the medical system disappointed me time and time again because they were unable to identify symptoms on Black skin or in a female body.

 

Sonic theologies filled my home, where my parents taught my brother and me to be Psalmists, meditating on the melodies and lyrics of the diaspora day and night. Like many Christian-raised Black British kids, our liturgical lexicon included hymnody from Europe and the Black Church tradition, West African doxologies, Praise and Worship, and West African Gospel Christian Contemporary Music. Even if we were the only Black family in our church, the songs of our home created a portal to imagine Acts 2 in its full glory. At home, the music videos of Mary Mary and Daughters of Glorious Jesus reminded me that I was made in the image of God and that I was a vessel for the Gospel.

 

When it was testimony time at the Nigerian Pentecostal church of my childhood, stories of successful visa applications, college admissions, job acceptances, smooth childbirth, and more would overflow from the pulpit, each testimony ending with an eruption of joy ringing through the congregation. For this young girl, the theology was clear. God heard us, the African and Caribbean immigrants, their children, and grandchildren. God heard our cries and cared for our survival. God didn’t want us to survive; God wanted us to thrive.

 

And yet, as this theology of care and abundant life was blossoming within this young, creative girl, certain spiritual corners were troubling her. If she was made fearfully and wonderfully made, then why did my white siblings in Christ struggle to pronounce my name correctly, when they could pronounce names like Tchaikovsky? If the body of Christ was global, then why is there a pattern of Black Majority Church congregations in the UK knowing Christian Contemporary Music and European hymns in as much depth as Gospel Highlife, Nigerian Gospel, and US Gospel, whilst our British non-Black siblings in Christ would only know a handful of songs in comparison?

 

I wrestled with these questions in college as the call to ministry grew louder in my ear. It was through my academic advisor and undergrad dissertation supervisor, Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones, that I was introduced to womanist theologians and preachers, including Rev. Dr. Renita Weems, Rev. Dr. Elaine Flake, Rev. Dr. Teresa L. Fry Brown, Rev. Dr. Khalia J Williams, Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes and Garrett alum Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes. In the assignments we worked together, she created the space for me to uncover the theological richness baked into the joyous sounds of my girlhood, which have guided me in life. It was through auditing theology classes that I was given the chance to read Black theologians Rev. Dr. James Cone and Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings alongside African theologians Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Dr. Nimi Wariboko, building a theology which contained multitudes of Blackness as the Imago Dei.

 

After this, going to a seminary in the US didn’t feel unusual. After all, the theologies of Black Majority Churches in the UK were influenced by weaving the global body of Christ and the African diaspora. The traumatic legacies of the enslavement of Africans and the colonization of African geographies cannot be deemed the same. Yet, as beautifully depicted in Yaa Gyasi’snovel Homegoing, these legacies are interconnected by how people seek life in death-dealing systems. It is one thing to have read the womanist and Black liberation texts in a classroom. It’s another to experience them alive in the Black Church. From Black women’s March Gladnesspreaching circuit in Evanston, the spirit-filled liturgies resounding across Chicago’s South Sideduring Holy Week, and the shouts of joy from the Northwestern Community Ensemble, every moment Black theologies are enfleshed is a transformative reminder that God’s will for abundant life is very much alive amongst the African diasporas. Each life is distinct, fearfully and wonderfully made, containing insights that can be translated, not replicated, into other contexts of Black Christianity across the world. As I continue to sit in the myriad theologies of the Black Church, I remember that young girl, the one who felt a nagging to travel the world and tell people about Jesus, whilst advocating for other people’s rights and welfare. I remember her love for singing and history. I remember her desire to delve deeper in her love for God and her love for people. I remember her questions about how her Blackness and faith fit into the body of Christ. Now, I think her questions are finally beginning to be answered.

 

 

Rev. Dr. Nikki Gilliam didn’t need a field education placement for her MDiv. She needed an MDiv that would fit into the pastoring she was already doing.

 

Gilliam entered ordained ministry with the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church after years of wrestling with a sense of call. Her husband had first named the possibility when, as the Sunday School Superintendent at their church, she’d written Bible personality bulletin inserts so engaging that church members started sending them to family and friends. But it wasn’t until over a decade later, after denial had given way to uncertain consideration, that she reached some clarity.

 

One particular Sunday, a guest preacher came to church and felt led to pray for people at the end of the service. “’I was like, ‘Okay, Lord, if this is really what you want, if you are really calling me to this, it’s going to come out of her mouth,’” Gilliam said. “I hadn’t talked to my pastor about what I was wrestling with. I waited in line, and as she prayed over people, people were falling out. I could just feel it as I got closer. Then it was my turn, and every word that came out of her mouth was confirmation. Within a day or two, I called my pastor and said, ‘I think I’m being called to the ministry,’ and he said, ‘What took you so long?’”

 

Over the next years, Gilliam moved through the CME ordination process, spending a year as a locally licensed preacher, learning from her own pastor, before entering the itinerancy track and being ordained first as a deacon and then as an elder. By that time, the presiding bishop was Dr. Charley Hames, Jr., who appointed Gilliam to her first church, mentored her through her first year, and encouraged her to consider pursuing an MDiv at Garrett Seminary, his own alma matter. When it came time for formal field education work shortly after Gilliam was appointed pastor of her current church, Amos Memorial CME Church in Los Angeles, CA, it only made sense to ask Bishop Hames to serve as her official mentor once again. When the two met to discuss Gilliam’s goals for the semester, he offered a helpful reminder that the class didn’t need to create extra work but could instead be an opportunity to focus on goals that she already had for her ministry.

 

“I want to be more intentional about the way I spend my energy, and include time for rest, time for reflection, and more intentional time for devotion,” she said. “With all of the things that happen at a church site, it can be easy to get caught up in everything I have to do. Not only am I a pastor, but I also have a full-time job in education—I work for the Los Angeles Unified School District—so I don’t have a whole lot of extra time.”

 

Gilliam’s other goals include working with the leaders in her congregation, training them to be proactive in their roles and to develop a sense of vision in a way that strengthens the ministry of the church and so that labor doesn’t fall solely on the pastor. Among these members, she is also organizing a pastor’s care team who can hold her accountable to her intention for rest and for shared leadership. Some of them are already doing so. One Sunday in November, after a particularly difficult couple of weeks involving a leaking roof and flooded kitchen, a woman came forward during worship for prayer, not for herself but for her pastor. Others then came forward, surrounding Gilliam, and the pastor’s care team leader led the congregation in prayer.

 

“It was incredibly humbling,” Gilliam said. “It’s been my experience that pastors don’t really let people in. There’s been a wall between clergy and lay. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pastor who has admitted that it’s been a week and they’re struggling. At one point, I felt like I was opening myself up to criticism or causing people to question their own faith. But I think because they could see that I’m human too—and I have said so many times that we are on this journey together—it provides a sense of comfort. It was humbling that someone saw me and thought enough to make that public declaration, but it was also comforting to know that maybe it is a good thing that I have been this transparent with my faith walk so that others can be transparent too.”

 

Continuing to journey with her congregation, specifically taking the time to “listen to the hearts of the people,” is another of Gilliam’s goals. One unique quality of her congregation is that so many of its members are related to each other, and yet they’ve also been open and welcoming to their pastor and to visitors. That combination of closeness and hospitality imbues the life of the church and makes pastoral visits feel like visiting relatives. Gilliam recalls one woman who seemed to have given up when she visited but was talking, laughing, and eating a full plate of food by the time the pastor left.

 

“You know you’re going to provide some kind of pastoral care for them,” Gilliam said, “and then you end up feeling more uplifted than before you visited. I enjoy that.”

 

For Gilliam, the Garrett field education class is an opportunity to work toward all these goals, offering benchmarks for growth, opportunities for reflection, and support in ministry. That support characterizes her experience at Garrett as a whole, where she feels faculty and staff see students in their humanity and actively seek ways to support them. Rather than suggesting that her plate is too full, they’ve simply asked—in word and action—how they can help her navigate all she has to do and support her in the fullness of her ministry.