NPC staff in focus: Adrienne Trevathan
Meet Adrienne Trevathan, NPC’s new Director of Christian Education, in her own words:
I have always been intrigued by the way we identify ourselves. When I was in youth group, my pastor always used to remind me that we need to know who we are, but whose we are. For me, that was a life-changing idea. As a young teenager in the United Methodist Church, I began to see myself as a child of God.
As a child of God, I am always learning more about who God calls me to be. I was raised in Pennsylvania (outside Philadelphia) and moved to a small town near Memphis, TN when I was 10. My father was in the Navy for 20 years, although we didn’t have to move that frequently. My family is now spread out across the U.S., so “home” for me means many things.
As a child, I was never comfortable with the question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” It was never sufficient for me because I have always had a long list of seemingly unrelated things that I wanted to do. Nobody asked me, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?”
Today, I see myself as a teacher. It is a part of my identity that has been surprising and joyful to discover. In college, I majored in English; I am in love with language. I studied Religion because I wanted a chance to ask questions that I didn’t think the church wanted me to express. I found a faith that was stronger than I realized at the time: God’s grace was there long before I could recognize it, preparing a way for me to be who I truly am.
I was baptized as a teenager because the community of Munford First United Methodist Church gave me space. I was baptized because my youth director looked at me in the eye and told me he had faith in me. I was baptized because God’s grace would not let me go. As a freshman at Lambuth University in Jackson, TN, I was surrounded by people going into the ministry who began to encourage me to think about ministry in a broader sense.
I found myself at Garrett-Evangelical, and graduated with my M. Div. in 2009. Still, something was missing. I needed more time and space. I realized that in order for my theological training to mean anything to me, I had to make it my own, and it had to be practical. I began the M.A. program in Christian Education and just finished coursework in May. There is something about teaching that gives me energy and joy that I don’t experience otherwise.
As the Director of Christian Education at Northminster, the most I can try to do is be faithful to what God is calling me to do. I have loved getting to know the kids at Northminster. I love their questions, their honesty, and their willingness to be who they are. As they grow and figure out their own identity – as they get older and make choices about their vocation – they need the church to be a place that will teach them not only about who they are, but whose they are. For this reason, we are all teachers, and they need all of us to try to live into our baptism and stay involved with them. They need to know that God calls us to many things – many people, many places, perhaps many vocations. And in the midst of that calling, we dream together and work together for the peace of God to be a reality in our world.