A pastor’s path to GC

Jen Shenk, the campus pastor, started her journey at Goshen College in April of 2023 because the interim pastor earlier than receiving the everlasting place throughout the next fall semester. When she will not be busy along with her pastoral duties, she enjoys images, exercising and spending time along with her 9 year-old cockapoo, Max.

To start her day, Shenk makes herself a cup of tea earlier than heading into her workplace to journal or learn beneath her “happy light.” This protected time within the morning is a part of her routine to floor herself amongst the busy duties of the day forward. It’s a “form of practicing Sabbath for me every day,” she mentioned. 

As a younger woman, Shenk lived in a small city referred to as Brushy Prairie situated in LaGrange County, Indiana. She grew up on her dad and mom farm, doing 4-H along with her pigs, in addition to serving to to care for just a few cattle and lots of turkeys. Shenk’s mom was a instructor and her father was the supervisor of a grain mill which left Shenk and her two brothers tending to the farm regularly. Shenk remembers her childhood as being one among “a lot of work and creative playtime” in addition to adventuring along with her companion, Buffy the Cat.

Shenk has been attending church companies since her childhood. As she grew older and have become extra energetic within the church by instructing in Sunday faculty, Shenk was inspired by many on the church to think about going into ministry or changing into a pastor. Her reply to this remained “vehemently no, never,” into her maturity as a result of she had not seen many ladies take part within the subject. Shenk believed that with the intention to be a pastor, it required being on “this other level of  holiness or spirituality,” that she felt was not for her. “I just didn’t feel like I had the personality type to be a serious spiritual guide for people,” Shenk mentioned.

Shenk transferred to GC in 1992 as a sophomore commuter scholar to pursue her diploma in elementary training with a music minor. Following commencement, Shenk taught fifth grade for roughly seven years. She then took a step again from instructing to spend time along with her three sons: Caleb, Aaron and Jacob. When elevating her youngsters by a trustworthy lens, Shenk felt humbled “to step back and respect each of their own faith journeys as unique and precious and valid, even if they don’t choose the same kind of faith that I have for me,” she mentioned. While Shenk’s Mennonite beliefs are an enormous a part of her identification, she felt elevating her sons has been “a gift [to me] in seeing that faith looks different for everybody.”

To assist her youngsters’s training, Shenk began her personal images enterprise. Her enterprise was profitable and gratifying for her, whereas giving her the time to turn into extra concerned in her native congregation. While images was enjoyable for Shenk, it was not gratifying for her on the identical stage because the church. She elevated her involvement with worship by creating dramas, scriptures and music and by main the worship fee. Shenk recalled assembly with the non secular director on the time and telling her, “I’m making all this money with photography, which we need the money for schooling for the kids, but where I really find life and energy and joy is in this work for the church. I wish I could just do that work and get paid for it.” 

Following that dialog, Shenk met with a clearness committee, which she described as a “Quaker practice [in which] you choose people that you respect their spirituality and you gather and they ask you questions.” The committee helped to offer her with readability on what her subsequent steps had been going to be, and Shenk “got here away with a really clear sense of, ‘I just needed to keep saying “yes” to the next thing on this spiritual path,’” she mentioned. 

Shortly after, a brand new place turned accessible at her church which checked off all the bins that she was aspiring to do. Shenk utilized for the place and was accepted, however there was one a part of the method that didn’t align with the place she had dreamed of: she could be a pastor. When makes an attempt by Shenk to vary the job title to “Minister of Worship” or “Minister of Young Adults” had been declined, Shenk got here to the conclusion that perhaps she was a pastor.

After 4 years of Shenk “being with people, walking with them in their highs and lows, listening to them in a very deep way,  reflecting back to them God’s love and leading people in worship,”  a pastor place turned accessible at GC. After making use of for GC, Shenk took the chance to stroll the campus and pray. Shenk requested God if GC was a part of the divine plan for her and “felt a very deep sense of being drawn here,” she mentioned. Shenk later acquired the information that her software was too late and that the place had been stuffed. However, an interim pastor place opened the following 12 months and Gilberto Perez Jr., vice chairman for scholar life and Hispanic serving initiatives and dean of scholars, contacted her to ask if she was . Shenk then started working as interim pastor at GC, earlier than starting the full-time place within the fall of 2023.