What I do...

The follow is a brief list of "tools" I would be delighted to discuss with any church member or staff and bring to the church for its use.

-          Come and Be Fed - A weekend spirituality event that provides opportunities for Christians to experience God's presence in a number of new ways, individually, and as a group.

-          Crossing the Meadow - A Presbyterian process of decision-making for an individual, based on the concept of "God has a plan."

-          The Pocket Road Map - A Christian model for group planning or problem solving that ends with a specific action plan and who will do what by when.

-          Becoming a Healthier Congregation - A weekend retreat or series of consulting meetings with church members to learn and begin applying Family Systems, based on Pete Steinke's model.

-          Building Bridges in Times of Conflict - A consulting process to help churches and pastors get the issues of a deep conflict on the table and work through paths of resolution. (From study with Pete Steinke.)

-          You Have an MBPT, So Use It! - Using the Myers-Briggs Personality Type survey to help church members come to understand more specifically the gifts God has given them and how that impacts their relationships with others.  Especially helpful for groups that work together, like Sessions and committees.

-          Your Personality Type and Prayer - A weekend retreat that helps members discover their personality type and then experiment with prayer practices that help them connect with God's presence more quickly and fully.  Learning "your" prayer language.

-          Youth Group Challenges 101 - A workshop or series of consultations on how to develop a youth group that provides teens with a safe place to grow their faith and their relationship with the church.

-          When Sunday School Isn't Working Any More - A weekend retreat or series of consultations to help sessions and/or education committees look reconsider new ways to help members grow in their understanding of the Bible and relationship with God and the church.

-          How to Solve Half of the Problems of Your Church - Half the problems of any church revolve around miscommunication or lack of communication.  A series of consultations helps church leaders look at communication systems in your church, what's working, what isn't and what's missing.

Who I am

I am a child of the covenant.  "Jesus Loves Me" is the first song I learned and I can't remember a time when I didn't know that Jesus was God's son, from a child-like perspective.  While many people experience a specific moment of conversion - of being born again - my life holds a series of turning points when I moved into a closer and deeper relationship with God.

The most profound was my mother's seven-year battle with cancer and her death when I had just turned sixteen.  In my childlike faith, I believed that if I just prayed long enough and hard enough, God would cure her, and for six years I did just that.  Then came the fall I was fifteen and the doctors told us she only had a month or two to live.  I somehow shifted my prayers to asking God to take her quickly so she would no longer suffer any pain.  Instead my mother held on for more than six months and did not let go until the day after Easter.

I've spent years coming to understand her choice and what it can tell me about a relationship with God.  For about five years I literally turned my back on God and the church, having nothing to do with either.  But having your own children changes your perspective on life, and ours helped me realize how much I needed God in my life.  My husband John is my childhood sweetheart and shared that part of my life with me.  He felt the same tug to find a church home for our new family.  That search for a new relationship with God led us to Faith Presbyterian Church in Dunedin.  Rev. Fred Webb and his wife Susan were the first of many, many people who have helped me find deeper and deeper dimensions of possibilities for my relationship with God.  Those steps eventually led to my becoming an elder in the PCUSA followed by a Master's of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. Relationships along the way, developed both inside and outside of the church, helped me realize our faith is like a plant.  In Florida if you plant a basil or tomato plant in the spring, it will most likely live through the summer, providing you some basil leaves and a few tomatoes.  But... if you select an area that gets full sunlight, prepare the ground with some rich soil, water and fertilize often, stake up the tomato plants and pick the white flowers off the basil... what a full crop you'll get!