Statement of Calling and Ministry Philosophy

Simon Walker, a leading voice in Leadership at Oxford University, says, “Thus, the leader lives all the time with the discrepancy between the world that she wants (and wants others) to inhabit and the world she (and others) actually do inhabit.”¹ Psychologists call this condition ‘cognitive dissonance’ where there is a discord between the ideal and the real. One person who resonated with such a discrepancy was Jesus of Nazareth, who walked the earth two thousand years ago in the Near East. Born of Jewish parents, he lived in a Jewish world influenced by Hellenistic culture and ruled by the Roman regime.² The confluence of different traditions in that first century AD fabricated a social structure with distinctive statuses.

On the one hand, the Jewish people were subjugated by the Roman authorities; on the other, they themselves looked down upon the Samaritans as untouchables. Although one may perceive Jesus as a religious leader, he was more than this. He attempted to redress and alleviate social inequalities by bringing indescribable hope to the ostracized, the outcasts, the sick, and even prostitutes. Consequently, he inspired one of the longest-lasting organizations in human civilization, the Christian church, and his immediate disciples took up the mantle of this Judeo-Christian creed. Apart from providing religious services, they shared their belongings, cared for widows and orphans, and nursed the sick.³

Yet the church that Jesus inspired has never fully lived up to him. The same people who suffered under Rome looked down on the Samaritans, and the communities that bear Christ’s name have often repeated that pattern, drawing lines around who belongs and who does not. In The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris recounts her time as a guest among Benedictine monks and finds a community that is unmistakably human, with all its flaws and failings, and yet still a refuge for whoever comes to its door.⁴ The Rule of St. Benedict, which shapes that community, asks that “all guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.”⁵ I first learned both truths when I was sixteen years old. I started a literacy program for married women in my parish in Sonarpur, a suburb of Kolkata, India. These women, members of the Christian Life Community, could not write their own names. We met on the church premises every Saturday afternoon, and I showed up whether it hailed or stormed, even on the days I sat alone in the classroom. I spent my pocket money on their pencils and notebooks. My parish priest told me I had made a mistake and that the women would value the lessons only if they paid a small fee. The program lasted a year, and I lacked the skills to sustain it. But it taught me that the church can be both the place that opens its doors to those the world overlooks and the place that wonders whether they are worth the trouble. Ever since, I have felt called to stand in that gap: to confess the church’s sin honestly while working to make it the refuge it was meant to be.

That conviction shapes how I understand worship and pastoral care. I believe that every person is created in the image of God, and that the church gathers around a table that is not its own. Everyone who comes to it, whatever their background, questions, or wounds, bears that image and is a guest of Christ. My preaching grows from that conviction, and so does the way I try to see and value each person I meet. As Executive Pastor of First Baptist Church of Oak Park, Illinois, I take part in weekly worship planning, preach when our senior pastor is away, and teach adult Sunday school. I started a monthly First Friday fasting prayer gathering and launched Through the Bible Through the Year, because I have seen how a congregation grows deeper when its people pray and read Scripture together. Some of the most sacred moments of my ministry have happened away from the pulpit: visiting members who can no longer leave their homes, and sitting with families as they plan weddings and funerals. In those rooms I have learned that pastoral care is less about having the right words than about being present, listening well, and trusting God to do what I cannot.

I understand leadership in the church as shared work. Before I was a pastor, I spent eight years at HSBC in Kolkata and five years in the donor office at Moody Bible Institute, and those years taught me how organizations run behind the scenes. Today I serve as an ex officio member of our church’s trust board, helping to oversee our budget, endowment, and facilities, and I work with the churches, school, preschool, and seminary that share our building. I am currently working with an external grant writer to secure funding for repairs to our 100-year-old building. I have come to believe that careful stewardship is itself a form of ministry, because it frees a congregation’s time, money, and attention for people. I have also learned that good decisions in a church rarely come from one person. They come from listening to lay leaders, staff, and committees, naming disagreements honestly and with grace, and discerning together where God is leading. My doctoral studies in Organizational Leadership at Concordia University Chicago have given me language for what I first learned in practice: a leader’s task is to help others lead.

That shared leadership is most visible when a congregation turns toward its neighbors. At First Baptist Church of Oak Park, I built a partnership with Exodus World Service so that our members could welcome refugee families resettling in Chicagoland, delivering household items and assembling furniture in their new homes. Our congregation prepares dinners every month for Housing Forward, a homeless services organization, and in June 2026 we organized a community-wide diaper drive for the families it serves. We have walked together in the CROP Hunger Walk and served at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Closer to home, I worked with Village of Oak Park officials to secure Sunday-morning parking beside our church so that our older members would not have to walk far to reach worship. These efforts are small, but each one asks the same question: who is not yet at the table, and how can we make room? In my experience, justice and hospitality are not programs a church adds to its life; they are the shape its worship takes when it leaves the sanctuary.

I am the first in my family to attend a full-time traditional college; my parents did not have the chance to finish high school. I do not take for granted the teachers, mentors, and congregations who opened doors for me, and I hope to spend my ministry opening doors for others. I see pastoral ministry as both a calling and a mission, and I am preparing for ordination through the American Baptist Churches USA, with a meeting with my regional ordination team scheduled for early spring 2027. Wherever God calls me next, I hope to serve a congregation that worships thoughtfully, shares its leadership generously, welcomes people of every age and background, and works for justice in its community. Like the leader Walker describes, I live with the discrepancy between the world we want to inhabit and the world we actually do. I do not expect any church to close that gap completely. But I would count it a gift to help a congregation narrow it a little more each year, as a people honest enough about their own shortcomings to keep their doors open to every guest and to welcome each one as Christ.