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Former English Teacher Julie Best Finds New Passion in a Pastoral Role

Julie Best first encountered Fuller Seminary when she was 11 years old, when a Ph.D. student interviewed her and several other children at her church as part of his doctoral research. Over the next 20 years, Fuller continued to play a significant role in her professional and spiritual formation.

She recalls how the book The Making of A Leader, by Fuller professor Bobby Clinton, helped her through her difficult first job out of college, when she found herself “drowning in essays and lesson plans, frustration and tears” as a junior high teacher. Later, as a graduate student at Wheaton College, she recalls how Fuller alumnus Doug McConnell (now Fuller’s Dean of the School of World Mission), offered her spiritual direction, pastoral care, and encouraged her to pursue further study. And she remembers how often former Fuller professor C. Peter Wagner and his many books influenced her life.

Before coming to Fuller, Best taught English in Debrecen, Hungary, and witnessed first hand the historic changes that transformed the former communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe from 1990 to 1992. She also taught English at the European Nazarene Bible College in Busingen, Germany, before returning to the United States where she taught at Toll Middle School in Glendale, Calif.

Finally, however, Best decided that she is much more passionate teaching about the Lord than about English grammar and enrolled at Fuller Seminary in 1997, where she specialized in cross-cultural studies. She also continued teaching English, literacy, and job skills to immigrants and foreign students in a variety of cross-cultural settings, an experience she often found restricting and frustrating in regards to her interaction with students.

“I had students who were uninsured with sick children, victims of domestic violence, homeless, and destitute,” Best recalls. “Being at Fuller, and wanting to integrate pastoral care with instruction in my classroom, was frustrating to me. I believe a ‘pastoral’ hat is more fitting for me to wear in these situations, as I am concerned with the total person of those in my classes, more than just their academic well being.”

As a result, Best began to sense God calling her to the pastorate. “I have recognized my calling to preach and teach, for some time, but only rather recently as a pastor,” she says. “I really didn’t consider being a pastor as an occupation, largely because I didn’t expect to find a job. Currently, less than 3 percent of the pastors in the Nazarene church are women.”

Best graduated on June 14 with M.Div. and is now working on the ministerial staff at Pasadena First Church of the Nazarene as pastor of spiritual formation, where she will work with the prayer ministry as well as small groups. She will also continue preaching and teaching as opportunity comes.

“I am committed to teach, preach, and work at renewing the church at large, Best says. “This mandate for me includes a call to reconciliation and unity, standing in the gap where there has been a breach in relationships between ethnic groups and church denominations. I believe that God’s heart is broken over the division that exists in his body. I believe that to really love the Father; we must love our brothers and sisters as well. This love must overcome any racial or sectarian issues that divide us.”

To read about more participants in Fuller's 2003 commencement, see:

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Sara Williams Graduates From Fuller to Serve Young Adults

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María Hamilton Makes Big Plans for Hispanic Outreach

After 30 years, James Nelson Fulfills Dream of Entering the Ministry

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School of World Mission
Graduate Mary Ann Hawkins Called to Minister to Ethnic Minorities and Women

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