My home church is Impact Temple Church in Temple, Texas. We invite you to witness and celebrate with us my ordination to the work of gospel ministry and chaplaincy the Sunday after Easter. You can check back here to this post as I’ll update it later when the recording is ready to be shared for those who weren’t able to make it. I want to remember and to share this significant milestone in my ministry journey.

I hope to also share more about my faith journey here, in case you’re just catching up or don’t yet know me. May something in my story inspire you forward as this journey has not been easy and I do not take it lightly. It has spanned several years and places and transitions. I have been shaped by many different life experiences with God, many different spiritual teachers and mentors who taught me about God, and several encouraging (and limiting) voices along the way. I grew in faith, service, and expanded understanding and practices surrounding how to really love my neighbor along with wondering what does God really require of me as Sejana?

May this part of my story help to encourage you to continue to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit in your life, even if others all around you express different views, and you find yourself in the wilderness and feel alone. I believed that God would show me the way and I have found the Lord to be quite faithful.

From ‘layman’ to ‘clergy’

My family and I arrived in Fall 2020 from South Korea near the ending of COVID restrictions in Texas. I brought with me the intentions of going to seminary – in person – so I attended a school I didn’t really know much about, Truett Seminary of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, starting in January 2021. I did not realize then, but I do fully know now, that God called our family HERE (when my military spouse was actually slated to go somewhere else) so that I could attend this school. Truett is fully affirming of women in ministry. In fact, their theme is that “At Baylor’s Truett Seminary, God-called men and women are equipped for gospel ministry in and alongside Christ’s Church by the power of the Holy Spirit…“

I didn’t really know what this would mean for me when I first started seminary. I had no expectations or ideas to go outside the limitations placed on me by God to operate in a supportive role as a female from my conservative faith upbringing and mentoring. In seminary I realized there are different valid perspectives. And what what I was taught by my previous church leadership and mentors were understandings that they sincerely believed and passed on to us. They only knew what they knew. So in class, slightly horrified, I began to think about what I in turn passed onto others (such as my complementarian views and limitations on women). However well-intentioned my beliefs were back then, I realized that they were not complete. They have changed. I have several different views today and I have grown to accept that this is okay. I believe that it is good to develop and grow. It is good to see more clearly. It is good to acknowledge and believe that the Holy Spirit will indeed help us find the way, the truth, and the life and when that happens it may mean we end up in new places. That is why I speak with more humility about matters of faith and I leave room for the holy mystery of God. I still appreciate (and sometimes lament) from where I have come from. My spiritual upbringing did shape me into who I am today. However, it has taken me some time to sort through. I recognize that I am not done yet. I may never be done seeking the Lord.

So step by step, I found myself here at ordination. Looking back, there were SO MANY road markers along the way and people who cheered me on (and they probably didn’t even know it). It meant so much to me to have Chaplain Woody (VBS, podcast), continue to encourage me to come back in the Army to become an Army Chaplain even after I scoffed at the idea because as my mentor reminded me, I could not do that because I would be required to preach and I’d be preaching over men, which was not biblical. Chaplain Woody and his wife won me (and my husband) over through their acts of love and continued conversations about what they saw in me, what I was already doing, and how the Soldiers could be served through me. And then in seminary, Dr. Bodenhamer said to me when I attended a informative zoom call about pulpit supply late in my first semester at seminary, he said -in front of other people- that he had full confidence in my preaching ability even though I had not yet taken the preaching class! Maybe it wasn’t about the class.

I can go on and on about the unexpected and appreciated affirmations I received along the way even as I also received a few discouraging warning messages from beloved leaders and friends. I was reminded that I would be held accountable to God for my actions from my former pastor. He and others were referring to my questionable actions of stepping outside the boundaries God had set for me as a woman. So I did not move forward lightly. Following the promptings of the Holy Spirit for myself WAS faithful (although I never voiced that at that time) and I felt also that I would be accountable if I did not (following the prompting of God in my life). So in this new path, I felt both isolated and alone, as I was losing my community as I stepped into seminary.

A big part of me grew quietly and hidden as I began seminary, experienced spiritual formation and spiritual direction, studied and preached and experienced CPE (explained later). Over time, I began to reveal to the public, bit by bit, what I was up to and how I was able to encourage others in their faith and grow. These were things I was already doing if you engaged with me in person in those places though.

Through Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at the hospital, I realized as I walked into room after room of various emotional and traumatic situations with patients and families, I could see how even with complete strangers, they would respond to the Spirit within me and felt supported, comforted, and helped. I knew that God was with me. I was affirmed as a minister through chaplaincy. Before and after CPE, I preached in actual churches. My first sermon was on Mother’s Day 2021 in a small Baptist Church over an hour away. My whole family was in attendance, but I told no one else.

But it was probably only 6 months ago, at a regional (TXBWIM) women in ministry event, as I sat at a table with women that I did not know who shared about their ministry journeys, it hit me just how far I’ve come, the community I now had, and all the things I had been able to do with God – even in Central Texas and even as a mixed race female in ministry. God made a way when I had no idea that it would be possible and would not allow myself to imagine it could be so.

Over time, I have been invited to preach 55 sermons so far, in 11 different churches from the Baptist, Presbyterian, Non-Denominational, Lutheran, and Methodist faith traditions since that first sermon back in 2021. Every opportunity has been a prayerful labor of love for the people, many of whom I did not know, and is documented here. Each preparation, each conversation with the people, each lunch afterwards to hear more of their story as a Pastor preacher in their presence (usually in the absence of leadership), I sat with them, listened to them, and prayed for them as they opened up about their church and their life. This helped shaped me as a Pastor. In addition, I have continued to grow as a board-certified chaplain and am currently learning even more in my dual role of hospital chaplain supervisor and future Certified Educator Candidate for ACPE.

Impact Temple Church

Most importantly, what I have found in time, was a true church HOME. A place for me that I thought I would never find (just ask my husband who heard so much groaning about it over several years). The idea of a church home is a place where I am fully welcomed and even celebrated. A place where I am given opportunity to develop my gifts (one way was through a specific role which we created for me, background story after my first invitation to preach at Impact), growing alongside others in community who receive from me but also give to me in various ways. We are totally different people united by our desire to know and follow God and to be in community together. It is not one-sided and it is not one way. This journey has been mutual and we have adjusted and changed over time. Impact Temple Church, you are a blessing to me. I am honored to be ordained by you.

I believe this ordination is the next faithful step forward in ministry with God, in community with my home church and others before we fully move away from Texas and I continue my new roles in-person out of state. Please pray for me, my family, and my home church.

You are invited to celebrate with me, this ‘new thing’ that God’s been doing and affirming in my life. (Isaiah 43:19)

Click the picture to watch a linked recording of the service!

Blessings,

Sejana

Shaping of a Leader in Ministry through Community

Here’s several meaningful photos of life at Impact and life in community with other people, groups, and organizations that helped to shape me as a person and refine the call towards chaplaincy and pastoring (in the church and beyond in traditional and non-traditional ways) during my time here in Texas. Thank you for journeying with me!

(Not every situation or impact has been pictured here.) Thank you for your care for me. I am grateful.

What’s next?

We move mid-May. (Only 4.5 weeks after ordination!) I shared a little (Buc-ee’s pic) here and (one month in) here and (I said yes) here mini-announcements, but you might have missed it. I’ll share more later. You may be able to plan for a time to connect with me virtually here https://calendly.com/sejanashines.