I grew up in Austin, Texas, the second oldest of five children. Our grandmother, Allie Mae Sneed, took us to church. We attended New Hope Baptist Church, a little white clapboard church on a once dirt road on the east side of Austin.
I left that little church in my adolescence and stayed away from church into early adulthood. But in my late 20s, I began searching for meaning in my life. I looked again to the church. The church I found was Bethel AME in Boston, Massachusetts. It was a new-church start that met in the living room of the pastors’ home. Those pastors had been residence-hall advisors at Harvard where I had gone to college. And so Bethel became my spiritual home. It was there that I first heard and really received for myself the message of God’s unending and redeeming love. It was this Word of grace and love, preached from that pulpit, that transformed my life and continues to shape me today.
At Bethel, I was involved in urban ministry. We worked with members of Boston-area gangs in a ministry called The 10 Point Coalition. We started a ministry for young girls who were members of gangs or deemed to be at risk. It was called Do the Write Thing and became an opportunity for my love for poetry and writing to provide a vehicle for the girls to share experiences and find identity.
In 1994, Kee and I married and moved to Daytona Beach, Florida. There we joined Stewart Memorial United Methodist Church. We studied the Bible through Disciple classes. We led the early morning worship—me as liturgist and sometimes preacher, Kee on guitar. In 1995, a group of Black United Methodist clergywomen held a conference at Bethune Cookman College. Our church provided hospitality.
It was at that conference that I experienced a powerful call to ministry. I began studying The Christian As Minister, but because of my husband’s job change, we moved again—this time to San Antonio, Texas.
I had not had very much experience with The United Methodist Church, nor did I have a firm denominational affiliation. So, in San Antonio, I joined Greater Corinth Baptist Church, where I engaged in ministries of evangelism, preaching and teaching. I also began to attend seminary.
In 1999, we had our first child and moved again, this time to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I made a decision to finally “hang my hat” with a denomination. I chose The United Methodist Church because of its emphasis on a theology of grace and because of the ways in which it held together social and personal holiness and emphasized Social Principles as an integral part of United Methodist identity. Our family joined Trinity UMC in Grand Rapids, and I entered the candidacy process.
I was ordained in 2009 and have served two congregations as pastor. I also have served as the director of a peace and justice ministry and as a district superintendent. I have served the General Church in a variety of ways, including as a delegate to General and Jurisdictional Conferences in 2012 and 2016. I served as chair of a legislative sub-committee of Church & Society at the 2012 General Conference and as a board member of the Connectional Table (CT) from 2012 through 2017. I currently serve as the Chief Connectional Ministries Officer of the CT.
I have always experienced God’s call as a call to openness and to faithfulness. I have sought to leave myself open to the movement of the Spirit, refusing to close doors. I have sought to be faithful to walk through the doors that God has opened. God has been faithful in turn, equipping me, transforming me and walking with me on the journey.
It is, indeed, the presence of God on my journey and the movement of the Spirit in my life that informs my approach to ministry and my sense of call. God is with me. I am called to be present with God in my devotional life and present with others in ministry. The Spirit of God has changed me. I am called to be a willing vehicle of the Spirit to bring about transformation and change within the structures of the church and the world.
This call to be a transformational presence is also a prophetic call to healing and to hope. God calls, anoints and sends for a reason—to bring about healing for individuals and communities—to bring hope to a world with too little hope. Therefore, I would say of my call these words from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; [God] has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” (Isaiah 61:1-2a).
Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai