There is not just one path to enter pastoral ministry and everyone’s ministry journey looks a little different. Rev. DeAnn Eidem is living out her call to ministry, balancing being a mom and serving a congregation.

Eidem describes the moment that she felt her call to pastoral ministry.

“I was ending my second year of seminary and I was feeling a little burned out from school. I made a decision to leave seminary,” she says. “That evening I went for a walk by the lake. God reached down and suffused me with warmth. My faith was rekindled. It was like a Holy Spirit fire. The next day, I was sitting in church, Rev. Mark Holland was serving communion up front,  I had this thought pop in my head that I should be doing that. As I was driving back to school, I felt a voice speaking to my heart, saying, ‘I want you to be a pastor.’”

Rev. Eidem balances her love of being a mom and serving as a pastor to a congregation knowing that sometimes the church has to give more time to her family and that her family has to lend her time to the congregation.