A Portage Life in the Spotlight: Debbie Rousselle

A Portage Life in the Spotlight: Debbie Rousselle

For some of us, Sunday morning meant waking up early to attend Sunday school, and sit in the creaky pews to listen to a pastor deliver a sermon. But, I bet as you sit and listen to your pastor preach about *insert religion here* the last thing on your mind is, ‘wow, I wonder why so and so chose to become a pastor.’ It’s overlooked, your pastor is there because that’s the routine. Faithfully they greet you every Sunday, and conduct their sermon. It isn’t often one stops to think about why someone ended up where they are, but for connections pastor Debbie Rousselle, the calling of God led her to Portage First United Methodist Church.

“I was called by God to do so [becoming a pastor],” Rousselle said.

Religion hadn’t always been a part of Rousselle’s life. She began attending church at a young age, and from there, her interest in religion peaked.

“I didn’t really attend church until I was probably in the third or fourth grade. It wasn’t until we moved to Indiana, that was in ’78, because my daughter was born in ’80, and that’s when I knew I wanted her to grow up in a church and to know God,” Rousselle said. “We ended up in a little Methodist church in Wheeler, Indiana and after attending there I felt the call to go into ministry and here I am.”

While Rousselle knew she wanted to pursue ministry, there was a lot more she needed to do before she was officially considered a minister.

“There’s quite a bit, first of all I had to discern whether this was a true calling [or not] from God so I had met with the pastor who was here at that time. We worked through a workbook sort of thing, and that took about a year,” Rousselle said. “And then I was assigned a mentor, and that mentor also worked me through a workbook of some sort. Then, once I decided yes, this is definitely what I feel I’m to be doing then I had to go to a course called License to Preach school- that was the very start it was a two-week course. And then after that, you needed to take what they call ‘course of study.’ There are 20 course which need to be taken…they’re only offered several times a year and I just finished in October. It took me nine years, but I finished all 20 courses.”

While Rousselle just finished her course of study classes this past October, she has been able to preach since 2006.

“I’ve been able to serve all this time while going to the courses, but you cannot be appointed unless you are taking the courses,” Rousselle said.

While religion, and spreading the word of her faith is a huge part of becoming a pastor, Rousselle believes that the biggest, and most rewarding part of being a pastor is putting her religion to use.

“I think it’s being able to help facilitate small changes that can lead to bigger changes. One of my primary areas is the missions of the church, and the outreach. What do we do with the faith that we have inside of us? We don’t just keep it to ourselves, we don’t go say I’m going to tell you about Jesus Christ and your saved and then move on to the next person, we need to help people grow in that faith and put that faith into action. What I do is going to mean more to you than what I say to you,” Rousselle said.

While society often portrays Christmas as a time of presents, Christmas trees and family, we overlook that some may need a welcoming place to go. Rousselle’s church provides services for those who need a place to rejoice for the holidays.

“Well on December the 21st we are going to be having a service called the Longest Night. It’s for people that are hurting at Christmas time where maybe there’s been a death in the family, maybe a divorce, maybe your boyfriend of five years said ‘I don’t love you anymore’ that kind of thing,” Rousselle said. “It’s a national thing; a time where it’s a very quiet service, it’s a service of music, prayers, scriptures [and] a short little devotional and it’s so you can celebrate the meaning of Christmas without hearing decks the halls with boughs of holly and have a jolly holly Christmas you don’t have to put that pretend face on and that’s [at] 7 o’clock on Monday the 21st the whole community is invited. I think there’s a lot of people that hurt this time of year.”