5 minute read
Friendship, Faith, and Finding Your Calling
By Randy Swanson '80
It was 1974 and incoming freshmen were excited about unpacking suitcases and settling into their dorm rooms. Jennifer Green had just lost her anticipated roommate. Although finding a friend to room with would have been easy, she decided to stretch herself and room with someone new. As God’s providence would have it, Jennifer’s sister Stephane ‘74 had married Kent Shellenberger ’75 whose sister, Susie, was also enrolling that fall. Both were aware of their siblings’ roommate quandaries and introduced the two.
“I didn’t even know her, and I said, ‘Sure…why not?’ It was potluck.” Jennifer deadpanned. They first met at the wedding rehearsal and bonded over pink cookies and “hit it off immediately,” Jennifer noted. “We’ve been best friends ever since,” Susie added.
In June of 1974 at the Nazarene World Youth Conference in Fiesch, Switzerland, Susie experienced a profound awakening when Nazarene General Superintendent Dr. Edward Lawlor challenged the hundreds of teen-aged attendees to not “go home with just memories of a beautiful country, go home mastered with God’s vision for your life.” That gripped Susie’s heart, and her prayer was, “Lord, I want to know what your vision is for me.”
This experience affirmed God’s calling to Susie to communicate His truth through speaking and writing. But this was the mid-70s, and there weren’t a lot of Christian female speakers in the spotlight. There were a few, however, and when Susie heard the legendary Ann Kiemel, she knew she had found her role model.
After graduation, the pastor of Conway (AR) Church of the Nazarene took a chance on this dynamic young woman, and Susie’s ministry career was launched. That was followed by youth positions in Colorado, Texas, and her home church, Bethany First Nazarene. She was later hired by Focus on the Family to create a magazine for teen girls, and Brio was born. Susie spent the next twenty years writing and editing for the magazine and leading readers on yearly missions’ trips. However, when Focus restructured and ended Brio, Susie spent the ensuing years traveling, speaking and writing books.
“God led me to do something I didn’t know how to do in every phase of my life,” Susie says. “Jesus’ response was always, ‘It’s OK that you don’t know how to do this because I do, and I’ll teach you.’”
Meanwhile in Texas
Jennifer, who grew up in small churches in Texas, says she always wanted to be in full time Christian service, “but I had no idea what that looked like,” she recalls. “I never imagined it would be as a pastor. I loved being at church,” she continues. “Anytime the doors were open, we were there.”
She thought she’d be a pastor’s wife; however, in 1979, Jennifer married Dick Bergland, a football coach like her dad, and a life of lay ministry was launched. She lived out her ministry calling in various roles serving in missions, youth, drama ministry, Sunday school, and as a Bible study teacher. Jennifer was “a faithful layman, and was very happy doing that.”
It made me completely fall in love with God’s Word, unlike any other time.
In 2003, Jennifer started a very serious Bible study, and it changed her life profoundly. “It made me completely fall in love with God’s Word, unlike any other time.” This educator of 44 years realized she was being called in another direction. Jennifer earned a master’s in biblical studies, to be a better Bible teacher.
About that time, Jennifer’s pastor and mentor, Joe Ibanez—as well as Susie—urged her to pursue ordination. “I laughed,” Jennifer says, “then like Sarah from the Old Testament, I questioned, ‘Aren’t I too old?’ ” Pastor Ibanez, however, dissuaded her of that notion. At that point, Jennifer thought she’d simply serve on staff at her local church.
Transitions
Things were changing for Susie as well. After years of itinerant evangelism, Susie was called to the senior pastor position at Lake View Park Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City, just a few miles from where she grew up and first experienced the call to ministry.
Susie laughs when recounting what the Lake View Park leaders were looking for when she interviewed. They wanted a young male married with children and experienced in pastoral ministry. In what could be called divine intervention, the church board set aside their preconceived notions, voted to extend the call to Susie, and the church body followed suit.
“I’m in my third year, and I’m having the time of my life,” she proclaims.
At Susie’s encouragement, Jennifer was put into the mix of church openings in the OKC area, and shortly after her ordination, accepted the call to Metroplex Nazarene in far northwest Oklahoma City. Now, these two college roommates, and forever friends, are loving and being loved by two dynamic and growing congregations, who followed God’s leading, just as their pastors did.
“What God did was qualify the call,” Susie says. “He didn’t choose two qualified people but wove the threads of our life experiences together to qualify these two that He has called.” “We’re just walking in obedience,” Jennifer concludes.
