Passion Plus Gifting Equals Calling

Shelley Pearson • June 9, 2022

She grew up the daughter of a traveling evangelist.

During the school year, she lived in Princeton, Minnesota, while her dad and uncle traveled the country sharing the Gospel at various churches and tent meetings. Each summer, from the day school got out until the day before it started back up in the fall, they would join her dad in his work. Just like with most people, there were good parts (traveling to all 50 states and meeting new people) and hard parts (not seeing her dad as much as she would have liked).

As adults, Joy, her three siblings, and four cousins have all served in some form of ministry vocationally. After many years and numerous opportunities, Joy has found her sweet spot of serving college students in the Twin Cities metro area as an FCA area representative. She is a well-loved mentor and solid presence in the lives of college athletes, and many of them fondly see her as another mom in their lives.

The Early Years

After high school graduation, Joy attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and then Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois, (now known as Trinity International University) to pursue a degree in teaching. After teaching for a couple of years, several schools closed in the area, and she lost her job. She entered the corporate world and then served for several years at a large church in the suburbs of Chicago. Just like her childhood, there were good parts and hard parts. She experienced significant loss and hurt toward the end of her time at the church and found herself angry with God and wandering in the desert for three years.

“But,” she said, “God would not let go of my heart. He kept wooing me back to Himself and showed me that what happened there wasn’t what He represented.”

In 1994, Joy moved back to Minnesota and took a job at Bethel University where she worked in the Alumni and Parent Relations office. After five years in that position, she felt pulled elsewhere. One day, a coworker, Barb Martin, told her about an event planning position with Minnesota FCA (thank you, Barb!).

The FCA Journey

Joy started with FCA in 2001. Often, as she sat in staff meetings, she was aware that she was surrounded primarily by male staff. She thought about the female athletes at the seven colleges around the Twin Cities and wondered whether they were being served as well as they could be. God began drawing her in a new direction, and she started leading small groups of female athletes as a volunteer while she continued planning events for FCA.

By that time, Barb’s husband, Glenn, was the Minnesota FCA state director and began to challenge Joy. She remembered, “He told me I should go full-time in ministry. But being raised as an evangelist’s daughter living on freewill donations, I told him I wasn’t comfortable raising full-time support.” Later, when Tom Ness came on as state director, they began to see that numerous large fundraising events were becoming a thing of the past. Joy said, “I saw the writing on the wall, and I thought, ‘God, if you’re going to push me out the door this way, okay.’” It seemed time to move on, but as God does, He kept pressing and Joy caught His heart for college students. As she finally stepped out in faith, God has blessed her abundantly in her obedience.

Bearing Fruit in Obedience

There are many highlights for Joy, especially in what God is doing right now. She said, “We are following Christ’s example of how He did discipleship with His disciples – pouring into Peter, James, and John and then the twelve. I have predictable patterns with my two primary schools: The University of St. Thomas and Concordia University. For example, every Wednesday and Thursday I go to Concordia and St. Thomas and sit in the cafeteria. I tell the girls where I will be and slot them in. I pour into them, hear their stories, and do a lot of listening. I try to impart what God has taught me in my life experiences.”

One specific highlight happened during the annual Night of Champions celebration. Joy identified some of the women in the audience from St. Thomas whose shoulders current female athletes are standing on:

Emma (2014) had been the only believer on her volleyball team. She stood firm and did not waiver but consistently loved Jesus. By the end of that year, nearly all the girls were in a discipleship group.
Next to her sat Hailey (2016), a former student who now teaches and leads a discipleship group on campus.
Finally, there were two current students, softball players Nicole and Grace. Nicole started with five girls in her group and now has half the softball team in her discipleship group.

Passion + Gifting = Calling

Joy sums it up in this: “I always go back to the equation that when you find out what your passion is plus your gifting equals your calling. If you look at the trajectory of my entire life, I went in and out of ministry. But now that I’m in full-time ministry, I cannot tell you how immensely blessed I feel to be a part of this ministry. I have finally found my sweet spot. A lot of people might feel like they’re supposed to find their sweet spot right out of college, but God is the Divine Orchestrator, and when things don’t seem clear to us, we must trust that He’s working it all out in His perfect timing. It’s amazing to see all the parts woven together - leaving Illinois, finding my spot at Bethel, meeting Barb, the intersections of my life with a wide variety of people. When I step back, I see how beautifully all things have worked together for the good and God’s glory” (Romans 8:28).

Those words. That heart. What an amazing testimony to God’s grace through the years. We are so grateful to have Joy on the Minnesota FCA team and look forward to seeing continued fruit as the result of her obedience.

Do you feel called to sports ministry? Learn more about opportunities in your area on our Join the Team page.