Five minutes with Donna Sullivan

The word ministry may bring to mind gifts of preaching, teaching or worship leading, but for this minister in the U.S. Conference of MB Churches most of the ministry comes in the form of Shelby Church accounting software, Microsoft Word and Constant Contact Events. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Donna Sullivan’s ministry as administrative secretary and bookkeeper for the U.S. Conference.

How did you experience your call to ministry?

Tim and I were a young couple with our first baby when we started with the MB family in a small church in Ulysses, Kan. People in the church were praying for us, and we felt the pretty hard tap of God at the national MB youth conference in 1983.

How has your view of that calling changed?

While Tim was at seminary it seemed that pastoral ministry was our calling. I was trained as an administrative secretary and had worked at Tabor College and seminary while Tim studied. When we landed back in Hillsboro to pastor at Parkview MB Church, I thought my calling was to be as a pastor’s wife and then I would have this job on the side.  Over the years I have come to see it as a ministry and feel so blessed to be part of the ministry that encourages our pastors.

What have been some high points for you?

When Chuck Buller was the executive director, we started the National Pastors’ Conference, and my job was expanded to include event planning. I would never in my whole life have dreamed I would be able to do something like that. It was way outside my box. But I love putting events together. There’s a lot of good resourcing and inspiration that happens at these events, and I love seeing people laughing and enjoying being together.

What do you see from your role that you want all of us to know?

From our first Sunday at Ulysses MB, Tim and I have loved the MB church. We love the theology, the focus on discipleship, we love the people. There are so many exciting things God is doing through this small band of people. I hesitate to say the word proud, but I am proud and excited and grateful to be a small part of it all from my little office in the corner of my basement.

Kathy Heinrichs Wiest

Kathy Heinrichs Wiest is a freelance writer who loves the smell of whole wheat bread in the oven, the feel of an orange being plucked from the tree and the view from her front porch in Kingsburg, California. On Sunday mornings you’ll find her in the fourth pew from the front on the left at Kingsburg MB Church, moved by the hymns and praise songs and inspired by the stories of God at work locally and around the world. She and her husband, Steve, own Dovetail Remodeling. They have two grown daughters, one son-in-law and a precious granddaughter.