about the reverend t.j.

 

I am just a girl...

Growing up in the 90's I loved me some Gwen Stefani and her song, I'm just a girl by No Doubt. I'm not really sure what fame has turned her into these days but her song (and the music video) inspired a young me to embrace my femininity while also challenging what people believed I was capable of as a girl. Who would have thought a song from my youth, dripping with sarcasm about gender stereotypes and limitations of women, could be a kind of anthem to my career? For any nay-sayers to my call-- go back and reread your Holy Book with a little less bias because The Bible illustrates how God uses unlikely people all the time to lead. I am a pretty unlikely person to be a pastor and it is not just because I am a girl. I have a lot of other things I could name that actually disqualify me, at least in my own mind. Yet, God is a girl dad despite how men have tried to erase that reality. Look at the first ones to witness and proclaim the good news of the risen Christ--it was women. So here I am, a pastor, a girl, a regular person. 

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I have tattoos (none of which I regret, I'll decorate my temple how I want), a sharp tongue which I'm working on (there are things I've said which I do regret, I'm a work in progress), doubts I don't always say out loud, and a long list of things I'm still trying to figure out. I'm a divorced mother of two teen daughters so I know heartache and a thing or two about parenthood. I struggled along the way with my physical and mental health as I did all I could to build up my girls and my career. I enjoy boxing for fitness but also as a release. It has brought balance to my life as I learned I was not just a spiritual being but also an embodied being. I like to tell people I hit a heavy bag so I don't feel inclined to hit people. While there is some truth to this, I like to hit the bag so I don't beat myself up too. It has become a really important part of my life.

 

I'm in a much different season of life than I was in the before times (aka pre-pandemic) especially having found a partner that I love deeply. Over the years he has transformed my heart and home. I praise God for bringing that kind of love into not just my life, but that of my children as well. It has made me a better person and pastor. I don't think the vision for this work would have come without that change in my home. 

 

Now my home is loud with people, animals (2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 bunnies), and art after years of survival mode as a young working mother doing it alone for far too long. As a kid I considered art school but worried about the cost of turning a passion into labor. Yet the passion I had for art never strayed from my work. I have woven it into my life and career over the years with paintings and murals in my home, teaching painting classes in the church, and bringing creativity into worship and ministry. 

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Now that I have an established career I genuinely love and healing from a God far more faithful than myself, I feel drawn to bring my whole self--paint-stained hands, all of the bumps and bruises of life, all of it--into my work with more intention to help others in the way of divine love. I have a flock I am responsible for, and I'm not looking to leave them for a church plant yet I also feel drawn to reach beyond them with my spiritual gifts. Over a few seasons of personal trials, the vision for this ministry took shape and evolved--and it is my sincerest hope that it will help others the way I needed help at various points in my own walk of life. 

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about the painted word studio

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We are what we create...

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“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” — John 1:1

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Creation itself was the first act of belief. God spoke what God believed into being, and it was good. God believed that love is only love if we are free to choose it. Consider any healthy relationship—it is a love chosen and worked at, correct? Same goes for our relationship with God. Therefore God loosened the grip on creation so we could not just choose to love God back, but to also co-create with the Divine.

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What if that were the center of our faith? Not the fall, not shame, but the wonder of being made in God’s image? What if we remembered that creation is God at play, and that we are invited to play along?

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With this venture, the Word is our beginning too. Read, spoken, and painted, The Painted Word Studio LLC is how one devoted pastor decided to live into that first divine act: turning belief into creation. You were created to create—to co-labor with God, not to consume a spoon-fed faith built on fear and shame. You were meant to live an embodied, creative faith that moves with the rhythms of creation itself.

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This studio has been on my heart since I was first drawn away from my chosen career path in speech-language pathology and into becoming God’s chosen. I never could have predicted that detour from SLP to ministry, but now I see how it all prepared me—to speak differently, to listen deeply, and to give voice to a faith that creates, questions, and endures.

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I actually attempted to bypass pulpit ministry altogether in the beginning of my journey. I proposed a business model of church that supported the ministry with a coffee shop. I had it all mapped out! But when push came to shove, the denomination didn't want to take the financial risk to do something different, and I didn't have the resources to do my own thing at the time.

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Now, I am just grateful that God never let that seed of entrepreneurial ministry be uprooted. The Lord provides, and here I am today, breaking ground for a new way of ministry rooted in ancient practices renewed for this age.

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Each offering I develop through this studio comes straight from the heart as an act of ministry, designed to help individuals and communities reconnect to the living Word through reflection, creativity, and a lived faith. So create and experiment with me as we create a world and a faith we can truly believe in!

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The Painted Word Studio LLC — where creation begins with Word and ministry is reborn through creativity.