Willow

Hi, I'm Willow. I am the lead minister, convenor, organizer, and spiritual director at Infinitus. In the spring of 2019, amidst serious burnout, I conceived a vision that led to the formation of Infinitus Ministries to create a space for community building, spiritual formation, and advocacy for what is now a sizable underserved minority group (estimated to be somewhere around 2 to 3 percent of the U.S. population) -- neurodivergent adults.

Since then, I spent the pandemic and post-pandemic years studying at Christian Leaders Institute (Spring Lake, Michigan), a non-denominational Bible college, to gain ministry skills and knowledge. I have since earned a two-year Diploma of Ministry (69 credits, December 2024), and hold a Chaplaincy Certificate (41 credits, October 2023) and a Commissioned Pastoral Certificate (43 credits, December 2024). I am currently working towards a three-year Diploma in Divinity, which largely mirrors traditional seminary programs. Previously, I also studied feminist theology at now-closed Ocean Seminary College (Monmouth Beach, New Jersey), a multi-religious and interfaith institution, and religion and Christian ministry at Warner Pacific University (Portland, Oregon).

While my aspirations for ministries began quite early as a newly-baptized teenage Christian, the first serious attempt at it was 20 years ago. In 2005, I formed what was then termed a "missional" community at a non-profit community center in Portland, Oregon, in part inspired by the Catholic Worker Movement and in part by the emergent church movement. It was sadly short-lived. In 2011, I organized a local autonomous chapter of the Protest Chaplain movement at an Occupy encampment, where I coordinated over 20 worship services, small groups, and religious events representing a variety of spiritual traditions during the 40 days of the "Occupation" of city parks, in partnership with several local churches, ministers, and seminarians.

Raised in a non-religious family, my childhood curiosity for world religions and spiritual practices led me eventually to an Independent Fundamental Baptist church as a teen (where I was baptized), and later to a Pentecostal church. As adult, I became disillusioned with the American Evangelical Christianity and continued on my spiritual quest that took me through many places, including a couple of years exploring Judaism (and ultimately decided against converting, that would be a long story), stints in feminist Pagan communities (including living in a witches' temple for a few months), a couple of years in the Independent Sacramental Movement, and a few flavors of progressive Mainline Protestantism. After having burned out from all this, I had largely abandoned Christianity by 2008, although I maintained connections to various churches through volunteer work in their non-religious, charitable ministry capacities, such as tutoring adult GED students and helping with a food pantry. While I no longer considered myself Christian, much of my life revolved around one church community or another these years. Perhaps ironically, however, I began making peace with my Christian faith when I came across a Netflix biopic on the late Bishop Carlton D. Pearson in 2019 and learned more about his life story. Despite all that I had gone through, perhaps one cannot get the Baptist and Pentecostal (or, as Carlton Pearson called himself in his later years, a "Metacostal") out of me. I consider myself a "reconstructed" post-Evangelical Christian, who takes a somewhat more metaphysical approach to faith, with the cultural temperament of a low-church, anti-authoritarian stream of Protestant Christianity (mainly inherited from my Independent Fundamental Baptist formation and my young adult years in the Charismatic/Pentecostal churches, and from later interactions with the Quakers and the Catholic Workers Movement).

I come with the lived experiences from the intersections of marginalization, oppression, and injustice -- both as my own direct personal experiences, as well as by living close to and working with those who are at the extreme margins of society. These experiences deeply inform what I do here at Infinitus.

Aside from being an instigator here at Infinitus, I am also an exhibited visual artist with years of experience, a former community organizer, a former digital marketing and brand management professional, and always a professional cat spoiler.

Pertinent education (completed):

• Diploma of Ministry (Dp. Min.), Christian Leaders Institute, 2024

• Commissioned Pastoral Certificate, Christian Leaders Institute, 2024

• Chaplaincy Certificate, Christian Leaders Institute, 2023

Ordination: 

Although I received my presbyterial/priestly ordination on March 25, 2005, by then-Archbishop Michael Wrenn of Celtic Anabaptist Ministries, and later that was reaffirmed by the Reformed Catholic Church of America (with a sub conditione ordination) in 2007, which also means that I was ordained into the historic apostolic succession according to their doctrines, my current theological positions no longer align with their views of ordination, so-called holy orders, or their sacramental theology and episcopal polity. My original Christian formation as a new believer was deeply rooted in the independent fundamental Baptist theology, so my rather short-lived time in the sacramental churches felt very foreign and awkward -- honestly, it was a very uncomfortable marriage of convenience that I thought at the time was out of necessity (in retrospect, it wasn't). To those in the sacramental traditions, the ordination of a priest is a sacrament that leaves an indelible spiritual mark on them, but this is not a doctrine that is shared among Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists, and others. Based on the historic Baptist theological distinctives, as well as the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion and separation of church and state, the ordination is of minor importance. In any case, only a local church can elect and ordain a pastor (the New Testament refers to this office also as elder, presbyter, overseer, or bishop) by the will of its members, and that would only occur after we have a committed core of membership in our community. 

• My thoughts on ordained ministries

• More about how Baptists generally believe about ordination (written by a Southern Baptist pastor)