Editor’s note: People of Faith is an occasional question-and-answer series highlighting area leaders of various faiths.
The photo shows a group of people posed in the middle of the large, frozen Bear Lake in Colorado, seemingly as calmly as one might do in their front yard.
In the shot, the Rev. Elizabeth Kirkpatrick stands with her two daughters and others. As a veteran clergywoman, she knows the boldness and power of stepping out to love others and to help them in a myriad of ways as Jesus might lead.
And most recently, she has been reminded of the importance of stepping out toward a new path and adventure. A month ago, she left Strathmoor Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where she served 11 very happy and satisfied years. But amid that seemingly ideal background an hour south of Columbus she sensed God calling her to take a few new steps.
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So now she serves as pastor of Fairlawn Presbyterian Church in Columbus, which averages 50 weekly worshipers.
“Each initial step I took on that (frozen) lake, I thought to myself, ‘This is crazy,’” Kirkpatrick said.
She sat on a recent morning in her church office filled with decorative crosses, her paintings (silk and otherwise), and a collection of children’s books and children’s toys. She is, after all, just down the hall from the church preschool that just celebrated the half-century mark locally, and she hardly can get enough of the grinning little ones each time they pass her door.
“Did you like the fire truck?” she asked several pint-sized youngsters, referring to a Columbus Fire Department vehicle visit outside for a kind of show-and-tell.
The 48-year-old Houston native has arrived in a blaze of activity, diving headlong into local activities, ranging from a walk-a-thon fundraiser for Smith Elementary School, which partners with Fairlawn, to the Ethnic Expo parade, to local Mexican restaurants to serving meals at the Love Chapel food pantry.
The minister since 1995 agreed to answer a few questions on her perspective on ministry.
You’ve already fallen in love with all of the area’s international and ethnic flavor?
Columbus is a wonderful little city that believes it’s big. My neighbors are all diverse. My daughter and I were at the Shadow Creek Farms (subdivision) pool a few weeks ago, and I think we were the only chiefly English-speaking people there, which is really neat. We heard things like Spanish, what I think was Japanese, and what I think might have been Hindi. What an amazing, rich opportunity my youngest girl (11-year-old Caroline) will have while growing up here in this neighborhood.
You are beginning a special study at Fairlawn on “What Is Compassion?” using Henri Nouwen’s book “Compassion” on Nov. 4? Why?
We live in a society that often seems to have forgotten what compassion is. And one of the calls for the church today is finding out how we model compassion in a world that seems to have forgotten it.
Most Christians will tell you that they certainly are compassionate people. We’re going to tie this in with a church-wide mission project creating hygiene kits for disaster victims of hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis, with the help of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.
You see Fairlawn as small but full of impact. What does that mean?
It’s a small, little church. But it engages in its mission with the (Bartholomew County) Ecumenical Assembly and the food pantry, with Smith Elementary School, with its own preschool right here, and we’re always asking how we find ways to reach out on a more global scale.
You have shared the story of how your husband left you in 2007 when you were pregnant with your second child. And the church became your support?
The power of the church community and knowing that people were praying for me — and some of them were strangers who didn’t even know me — helped me to get through the worst time in my life.
What’s one of your favorite parts of your work?
That the church gets to be alongside people during their highest highs and their lowest lows.
People obviously notice your big, rich speaking voice that really carries.
Oh, I’ve got the preacher’s voice. At the church in Louisville, the mic sometimes didn’t work. But they still kept it next to me. And people just thought Elizabeth was always miked. But, oh, no she wasn’t. So the big voice works.
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Age: 48.
Born: Fort Worth, Texas.
Family: Daughters, Katherine Brucken, 18, a freshman at Texas Christian University; Caroline Brucken, 11, a sixth-grader at Richards Elementary School.
Lived in: Cities ranging from Boston to Atlanta to Chicago to Houston to tiny areas such as Eminence, Kentucky.
Pastored: Four congregations over 23 years.
Education: A bachelor of arts degree in sociology from the College of Wooster and a doctor of ministry degree from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Past volunteer work: Activities have ranged from tutoring at an elementary school to being a Girl Scout leader to serving as a Habitat For Humanity volunteer.
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