Student Spotlight

Student Spotlight: Rev. Betsy Williams

"For you were called to freedom.... Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Galatians 5:13

Rev. Betsy Lynn Williams, a 2023 Master of Divinity alumna and current Doctor of Ministry student, is helping others experience freedom in Christ across two communities. While she lives and works in Spokane, Wash., Rev. Williams also pastors a church nearly 300 miles away in Great Falls, Mont. In these dual roles, she feels she is living into her calling.

“A powerful gift that God has given me is a servant’s heart and to love the people,” she says.

During the pandemic, God called Rev. Williams to build a community to restore the hearts of his people. This led her to Union Bethel in Great Falls, Mont., where she serves as an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She also facilitated restoration to the church building itself by the acquisition of two significant grants. “Faithfulness kept rolling in our back door,” says Williams. In Spokane, Wash., Rev. Williams works with the nonprofit Take Up the Cause to enrich the community with equitable housing, providing resources to guide tenants to a better future and encouraging them with a word from God.

“I am training people to become responsible renters and generational wealth-makers for their families, where for generations they have not known anything else except poverty,” states Williams. As she helps others work toward economic freedom, Rev. Williams is witnessing her doctoral project have a direct impact on her community.

“United is spirit-filled and challenges individuals like me to demonstrate the fruit of the spirit and develop compassion in serving others,” she explains. “Where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom!”