Jade Rockwell

I am a Pacific Northwest native now making my home in the midwestern United States.

I was raised non-religious, so my ministry began in unconventional settings. I was trained as a labor and delivery doula, and taught childbirth classes and attended births of babies born to incarcerated mothers. I worked in street outreach with youth at risk of sexual exploitation. I worked in shelter for families surviving domestic violence, and lived and worked in a Catholic Worker community.

These experiments were how I slowly came to know Jesus and walk with Him, making a lot of mistakes along the way.

My style of pastoral ministry, my calling, and my strongest gifts are most comparable to my experience as a community organizer. As a pastor I want to support people to connect, engage, mobilize, equip, and be empowered to affect change within themselves and together in the world.

I believe we are being called to new creation--God’s kingdom will be born of the radical transformation of ourselves and world into alignment with the will of God. Church is the practice space where we get to experiment with what healthy community looks like, even as we also continue living in a troubled, traumatized and traumatizing world. That is true love.

Previously, I served 3 years as a pastor to children and families at a Friends church, developing a bilingual and special needs-inclusive children’s ministry. During this time I also completed the Way of the Spirit contemplative study program, discerning the future of my pastoral ministry call. In 2020, I completed my degree in Spanish language at Portland State University, which I also consider a part of my call. Presently, I am finishing my Masters of Divinity at Earlham School of Religion with an emphasis in pastoral ministry.

I also have four children who now range in age from 6 months to 22 years, so mothering has been a part of my life and ministry and continues to be.

Recent forms my ministry has taken include helping develop a child safeguarding policy for Sierra-Cascades, co-clerking the Faith and Practice committee, fostering ongoing relationships between Cuban and American Friends, serving as a listener with the Life and Power Quaker Discernment on Abuse project, and serving as Education Director at West Richmond Friends Meeting in Richmond, Indiana where I now make my home.

In the future I hope to be called to a co-pastorate with my spouse, Tom Rockwell. I feel called to an open-hearted Quaker community that is grounded in Jesus and prepared to take on the risks and accept the costs of doing missional work in the world.