Jessica Frederick on Growing with a Congregation

The Rev. Jessica Frederick '23 is a CDSP alum from the Diocese of Western New York and serves as minister for children, youth, and families at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Jamestown. Her interview with Crossings Conversations is the third and final in a series with students who worked full-time in ministry positions while completing the Hybrid Program. She spoke to us about bringing a community organizing mentality to parish ministry, what it means to grow with a congregation, and the gift of reimagining ministry in a setting where leaders and members alike are flourishing.

Transcript

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KO: This is Kyle Oliver from Church Divinity School of the Pacific. I'm here with the Reverend Jessica Frederick, a 2023 graduate of the CDSP Hybrid Program, and the minister for children, youth, and families at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Jamestown, New York. Jessica, thank you for being with us. 

JF: Thanks for having me. 

KO: We're going to have a conversation about this distinctive experience that some of our hybrid students have of studying in the hybrid program while also working in a full-time ministry position. Before we dive in too much to the details of that, I wonder if you might just say a bit about what drew you to the hybrid program in the first place? 

JF: Well, I live in Western New York. I am south of Buffalo, about 80 miles south of Buffalo. Really, it just wasn't an option with my husband's work and my own work to up and relocate. Really the hybrid program was what was feasible for me and my family. CDSP was recommended to me by my bishop. That's what brought me here. 

KO: Yes. Cool. Do I have right that you were, at the time already working at St. Luke's? If I have that right, tell me a little bit about what your role was like then and perhaps a bit about how it's evolved over these years. 

JF: Sure. Yes. I started work at St. Luke's just before enrolling at CDSP in the spring of 2019. The position has grown with me. Being in seminary while practicing ministry, it's been an iron sharpens iron experience, where I'm testing what I'm learning in the classroom and also applying it in parish ministry, and helping to discern what is practical in a parish ministry setting. 

One of the real gifts from that experience is I've been able to get a lot of  my first rookie ministry mistakes out of the way. I will continue to make mistakes, but there have been many times in the process where, I don't know, a presentation at the vestry doesn't go as planned or a youth group lesson goes sideways, or any number of things that can happen in parish ministry has happened. I'm like, "Okay, well, I've done that for the first time now." 

KO: Yes. Did you feel like having seminary there in the backdrop for some of those,  that was a source of support or benefit, when you were making those mistakes? 

JF: Sure. In the context of it was doing my own ministry here at St. Luke's and then layered on top of that feel that experiences, it's double, I don't know, get double credit for it, and to be in a community of learners. It also helped me in discernment of what we were studying to just try ideas. Sometimes whatever we were learning about, like, "Okay, well, here's a concept that we've been reading about in class," and to try it in real-time was really interesting, and really useful too. 

I think it also helped develop a habit of being a lifelong learner. Because I was learning really intensively while I was in seminary and doing ordained ministry. Now that I've wrapped up my study, I find myself thinking like, "Okay, what am I going to be reading? Who's my learning cohort going to be post CDSP?" Because the learning never stops. Now it's become such a habit since I've done both alongside each other for years. It's now an ingrained practice like you need both. 

KO: Yes. Why would you not be reading and learning from other people on whatnot, as you're encountering these challenges and that sort of thing? You mentioned that you had the opportunity to try things out. You mentioned having the opportunity to make mistakes. I'm curious if there's a particular story or anecdote that captures that for you in a way, something that was especially, however you want to take it, effective or ineffective? Just make it a little more concrete for us. 

JF: Sure. What comes to mind is the community organizing class that I've taken as part of my studies has been one of the most formative and useful classes for parish ministry. Thinking about parish ministry, in part, as community organizing has been so formative. Again, it's a practice. It's not something that you study, and you try once, and then you're done. 

The concept of meeting with people one-on-one and learning about what are their interests? What do they care about? What motivates people? It's essential. I took that class in January of 2020 before everything exploded. I had one understanding of it, then it was mind-opening. Here I am entering the fall of 2023, and we're trying to really re-reinvigorate our children and youth ministries because, like many churches, the pandemic changed everything. 

I've spent my summer just doing one-on-ones with parents and youth, and talking to them about, "What do you want to see at St. Luke's this year?" The feedback has just been fascinating. Here I thought three years ago that I really learned and took the lessons of community organizing with me, and I'm still using it, and coming to have a deeper appreciation for the applications and how it's never done. I'm thinking about how I need to continue having these conversations all throughout the year.KO:  In some ways, there's something very artificial about a class where you have this time of learning, and perhaps very applied learning, and that it's done. [chuckles] I hear you saying, I think that like something about having the class in and amidst a context where that practice needed to be ongoing. It's like the lifelong learning point you made of, it's just natural that it continues. Am I hearing that right? 

JF: Yes, absolutely. Another thing that comes to my mind too, this is one of those ancillary lessons that did not show up on a single syllabus but has been the most formative lesson that I've taken from this dual role is learning how to not just manage time, but how to have one too many commitments all the time. Because that's what parish ministry is, and we can strive for sustainability and optimal scheduling. 

That can be the goal in parish ministry, but the reality is that the boiler will break down or someone will die, or there's always one thing too many happening in parish ministry, in my experience, and you can always do more. Trying to juggle seminary and work, taught me how to prioritize what's really important, how to just get things done that just have to happen. Like, "I could spend two hours on this, but I'm not going to because it's not worth my time." That's there and learning to let things go. This is not going to be perfect it's going to be messy. I'm going to make mistakes and that's okay because that's parish ministry. 

KO: Yes, that really resonates. Thank you for that. You mentioned that the job has grown with you, as you've been pursuing these, till very recently, these parallel experiences. I'm curious if you've had challenges, or maybe triumphs navigating the potential challenges of those two things happening at once of being in a context and having your formation and your identity and your role potentially in transition in the midst of that. What's that been like for you? 

JF:  I think the way I begin to answer that question is that it can be part of developing or being part of a congregational culture of growth, and learning, and change. I'm really fortunate. St. Luke's is a really special community, where people do learn and grow and change, these are core values. It's funny, because people will on occasion, have said to me recently, "Wow, you've grown so much." Which feels vulnerable. It's this understanding that we grow together, I think, like a congregation, understands that that's what we do, is we try things and we grow. 

Something that has been really beautiful as part of that is, I've noticed prior to my ordination to the transitional diaconate and now as my ordination to the priesthood approaches, there's this moment where people have started to see me differently, and have started referencing me prior to my ordination to the transitional diaconate, people would refer to me as clergy before I was ordained. 

There's a real clear distinction of boundaries, nobody didn't understand that, but they could see my growth and they could just recognize my calling in me, which is wonderful. It's beautifully affirming. The bishop and the ordination service is certainly part of that transformation but to have that be affirmed and confirmed by the community where I serve has been just a really beautiful gift. 

KO: In another context, that might be conceivable that you'd have an experience of like, "Sheesh, why can't these people see me as their new leader in this new way or not?" It sounds like in this setting there's such a value on growth and I think I'm hearing growing together that was a really organic process. It sounds like. 

JF: Yes. I'll say just as a vignette of the culture at St. Luke's. It was really funny a number of years ago, as part of our Christmas pageant, we decided it would be really fun to try having live animals as part of the pageant, which brought all kinds of joy and life and complexities to our Christmas Pageant. We did it and it was chaotic, and everything you'd expect to have goats and ducks at a Christmas Eve service. 

One of the parents came up to me afterwards, the next year, and then said, "The live animals, are we going to be doing that? Are we doing that again this year?" It's like, "Okay, well, we tried it and you know it was a good learning experience. Are we going to keep going in that direction, or are we going to try something new?" She said it with good grace and good humor. It's that sense of we try things they might work they might not. It might be messy, it might be chaotic. That's just what we do. We laugh about it and we grow and we keep moving. 

KO: That's a beautiful view of leadership, of discipleship. It's helpful in so many ways. 

JF: Yes. I suppose one of the other things that I've learned as I'm talking about this is discernment and finding a congregation that fits, that work for you. That's been really, really helpful. 

KO: Am I hearing you right that the process of coming to learn that St. Luke's is a fit for you, alongside all of these other intensive dimensions of discernment in your life in these years, has been something you want to take with you going forward? Am I putting my finger on it there? 

JF: I think so. Just part of having this parish ministry experience has taught me how good it can be, there's no shortage of struggles in church leadership in the Episcopal Church. There are beautiful places that will appreciate a person's gifts, there are places where you can find something and build something beautiful with the community. I think sometimes there's a temptation post-seminary to just try and find a placement. I've been really lucky or it's been by the grace of God that I am where I am. I feel really fortunate. 

Talking to seminary colleagues, folks are just trying to fill holes and that's all fine. Life's complicated and we're all balancing different commitments. That's what the hybrid program is partially about but for me, it's been really formative to be part of and leading a community. That's a special place. When you've been in a special place you know what it can feel like.KO: When people over the years have asked me about the hybrid program as it's now called, one thing that I've said is many of the students who find their way into this program have something really good in their life where they are right now. Sometimes it is important for them, for the world, probably for the seminary community that, that something good and their life right now can be brought to bear on seminary studies. I went to a residential seminary and we were almost all of us dealing with a sense of uprootedness that first year. I can imagine that the tenor of your experience was quite different. Just the power of like, here's this really good thing. My studies can happen in the midst of that. That sounds amazing [laughs]. 

JF: Well, I guess what occurs to me is that, and what I've been thinking a lot about is both in the CDSPs hybrid program and also in ministry and my ministry's experiences here at St. Luke's is just how big God's imagination is. There is so much room for creativity and imagination. It is the stressor and the most invigorating thing to be part of the church in the 21st century. The good news is the field is wide open. God is calling us to recreate and reimagine what it is to follow the way of Jesus and in a totally new way. CDSP is experimenting with that in seminary. We as leaders in the hybrid program have the opportunity to bring all our lives to bear and all the creativity and imagination that real integrated incarnation human lives lived out in the world, wherever God calls us to bear in our ministry. There's just so much space for our imagination and this is an opportunity to live that. 

KO: You've spoken quite a bit already about community and the power of community in the midst of your studies and mostly you've been talking about your work setting. I wonder if you might say something about the experience of community with your CDSP peers through your studies and what that meant to you in general, and perhaps also what that meant to you as a minister at St. Luke's. 

JF: It's amazing how community is possible, even in this hybrid program. I was surprised to discover that I was really starting to build connections and relationships in the midst of the pandemic over Zoom. At this point, one of my closest friends is a CDSP graduate and it's been such a gift to have another person who is called to ordained ministry and is also in a different context. Then you can vent or share struggles with someone who has a really different perspective than other people who are right there in the middle of all of it. 

That's been enriching and it's also been helpful to hear from seminary students from around the country and indeed around the world like this date of the Episcopal Church and their contacts. To realize how different and how similar some of the challenges and struggles and opportunities are. The culture between the East and the West Coast, for instance, is really different and also there's some similarities too. Being able to get a pulse on the Episcopal church, on the broader culture across the country has been really interesting and really formative 

KO: That pulse being a very I assume, a real and lively thing because the person is there now [laughs]. 

JF: Right. It's interesting that the traditional residency programs at seminaries, which are good, it's interesting to me because that formation experience is much more of a monastic formation experience from my observation. Yet when we go out into parish ministry, many of us who are called to that, it's not a monastic context. The hybrid program really, I feel is formative for folks who are not called to monastic ministry but rather parish ones. 

KO: That makes good sense. I agree. I agree. As we start to come in for a landing here, I wonder, you've shared some thoughts on this already, I think. Any other advice you might have for others who are navigating full-time ministry with their hybrid studies? 

JF: It's okay not to be perfect. You don't have to get A's to learn a lot. Discernment is key and part of that discernment is figuring out how you're going to spend your time and your effort. Sometimes the best use of your time is turning in a C paper. Maybe not all the time but sometimes that's what you have to do and that's okay. We are not called to be perfect. You don't have to get A's at everything, that does not affirm your call. Learning how to give yourself grace, learning how to prioritize is essential. 

KO: Amen to that. KO: Well, Jessica, thank you so much for taking the time to join us for this episode of Crossings Conversations, and blessings on your ministry. 

JF: Thank you. It's been a lot of fun.