Courtney's Bio

I grew up in North Dallas and always felt out of step with the culture. Thankfully, I had a couple of experiences that kept me sane: one was an artsy private school I attended as a small child and the other was my home congregation-- White Rock United Methodist Church— a healthy, mid-sized congregation over by the lake. After high school I hoped to leave town but got a scholarship at SMU I couldn’t pass up and so I stayed—but studied abroad my junior year at the London School of Economics (a year which killed my Texan accent). After college I moved to Indiana and worked for two years at a grassroots feminist organization called the Rise—a transitional housing program for single moms leaving abusive relationships. As an AmeriCorps volunteer I lived in poverty for the first time in my life (8K for the year)—collected food stamps, learned to cook, and discovered free cycling. I also had the privilege of working with wise and seasoned activists who cared for extremely vulnerable children and women not by treating them as clients or program participants but by drawing them into the very heart of a shared community space.

I left the Rise to move to Nicaragua to work in sustainable agriculture. In the Peace Corps I learned Spanish, organized two community banks, and had the opportunity to reconnect to the rural roots of my own family (both my parents come from poor Texan farming families). I lived in a small adobe house on the side of a volcano and during this time of simple living I reconnected to my call to ordained ministry and decided to honor God’s invitation to serve and to pursue a Masters of Divinity when I returned.

Richard Amory, my husband, was a fellow Peace Corps volunteer. We were best friends and project co-conspirators for the first year or more in country before we realized we were in love with each other. Richie’s Nica family hosted our wedding at the end of our service and many of our friends and family from the U.S. were able to join us.

Upon our return I started a dual masters program at Harvard (Master of Divinity/Master of Public Policy). As a student I also worked-- consulting with two faith-based non-profits (www.hondurashope.org and www.crispaz.org) and completing a year and a half ministry internship with college students at Boston University. During this time Richie and I welcomed Coleman, our first child, and I also became trained as a doula. (www.creativebirth.org is the doula collaborative I created with two friends in Boston).

Two of the most live-giving communities I was a part of in Boston were Hope Church (www.hopeboston.org) a progressive UCC/DOC new church start and the Boston Faith and Justice Network (www.bostonfaithjustice.org). Both of these communities are part of the unfolding conversation about being church in new ways and helped mold and shape me—especially through my participation in the Lazarus at the Gate small group curriculum and conversations about economic discipleship. (See http://features.csmonitor.com/economyrebuild/2009/02/01/a-spiritual-approach-to-money/ -the photo on this link show my peeps in Boston, members of the group I co-lead). I did my thesis at the Kennedy School on Lazarus and other grassroots social justice curricula.

So we moved to Oak Cliff this summer and two weeks later had sweet Perl, who is now seven months old. Oak Cliff is a lot like our neighborhood in Boston, Jamaica Plain, in that it is gay friendly and full of artists, Spanish-speakers, and young hipsters. My mentor in the UMC ordination process, Barbara Marcum, opened up this neighborhood for us suggesting that we might find a home south of the river. And she was right. We love our home, lost sheep lodge, and the community garden and Montessori co-op we host here.

I have been blessed with many powerful mentors in ministry: people whose stories and perspectives inform my own. Gary, the UMC pastor of my childhood and family friend, is a beer-drinking, pickup-driving, East Texas cowboy. Gary is a ‘screen porch theologian’ (like our own Dr. Fred) and has a radically inclusive understanding of the Gospel, and a feminist agenda. He has a track record of mentoring women in ministry and opening doors for them at a time when others would like to keep them shut. Kathleen Baskin-Ball, who died this fall of cancer, was another dear mentor for me. At the time I came to know her as a teenager she lived and worked in West Dallas with a congregation called Nueva Esperanza —where she taught herself Spanish, and ministered poor Latino and black families. She lead a youth mission trip with Walt Marcum, my youth pastor at White Rock, where Black and Hispanic kids from Nueva Esperanza and white kids from my church together went on a mission trip to the Navajo Indian Reservation. The experience changed my life and showed me what church is capable of doing and who we are capable of being.

And this fall through another mentor at my current home church, Highland Park UMC, I participated in a clergy women’s group where I met Laura Fregin, and she introduced me to Church in the Cliff. CITC has already been such a gift to me. I love our edgy, artsy vibe and our inter generational conversation between the younger crowd and those with more years on this earth and the wisdom we find together.And I am so thrilled that the UMC North Texas Conference has appointed me to serve here as a local church pastor in an extension ministry to this ecumenical/emergent church. I love sitting at intersections and I think this is an important one as emergent and existing churches figure out how to learn from one another.

So this is my story in broad strokes. I look forward to hearing more of your stories this week and beyond and continuing the conversation about our future together.

Peace to you all,

Courtney