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Ava Oleson – Women’s Pastor

Tell us about your ministry at Life Center Church.

OLESON: I love being the women’s pastor at Life Center! Although I perform shared pastoral responsibilities, my primary role is to organize, cast vision and provide pastoral leadership to the women at Life Center. I am responsible for all special women’s events, support groups, classes, several weekly Bible Studies, counseling and discipleship, and the marketing of all we do in this ministry.

Tell us about your journey into ministry and the call of God on your life. What led you to where you are today?

OLESON: I grew up in a family of ten in a small town in Manitoba, Canada. There was very little Christian presence there, and my dad struggled with alcohol all of his life until it eventually killed him. My mother was overwhelmed with the task of raising so many children. I got lost in the mix and had little direction or purpose. In middle school a teacher began talking to me about Jesus. I couldn’t believe that God wanted to have a personal relationship with me! Gratitude and a dramatic understanding of the power of God to change lives overcame me. I was like a lifeless doll that had magically sprung to life! I was consumed with a passion to tell the whole world.

I knew God had called me to full-time ministry. Once I graduated from high school, I decided I needed a good education if I were to serve God effectively. I moved to Northern Ontario, Canada where I worked in an iron ore mine—the only female there—until I had enough to pay for my tuition at Southern California College (now Vanguard University). I got in my little 1976 Mercury Bobcat with two small suitcases and my 10-speed bike, and drove 3,000 miles all alone at the age of 20, from Toronto to Orange County, California. I was absolutely scared to death!

Southern California College changed my life. I believe so strongly in education that I have completed a master’s degree from Fuller Seminary’s School of Psychology, and am working on my doctorate. My education gave me confidence and a growing passion to make learning a lifelong journey.

I know that all women have unlimited potential to see their dreams fulfilled if they are willing to do the work. I love to take a woman, give her leadership opportunities and see her blossom and discover a new part of herself she didn’t even know existed. That is our job as leaders—to take people on a journey they’ve never been before.

Once my life was vacant, uncreative, purposeless, painful, and full of hurt and abandonment. After discovering the power and love of Christ and His vision for me, my life became full of imagination, filled with expectancy for the future, purpose-driven and extraordinary. I am compelled to spend the rest of my life discovering and inventing new, fresh, relevant and maybe even non-traditional ways to bring this message to other women. And I believe the local church is the primary venue through which this message is proclaimed. I want so many more women to choose the wonderful profession of being a woman in ministry. There are so many options these days!

How has your ministry reached or touched people?

OLESON: After graduating from Fuller Seminary’s School of Psychology, I was a marriage and family therapist. I had daily opportunities to interrupt the distorted thinking in people’s lives and to coach them through behavioral change. I particularly worked with women with depression and anxiety disorders. Every woman I worked with was healed of her anxiety attacks. No one was more surprised than me when I saw God work through an ordinary vessel like myself who believed in an extraordinary God.

Just four years ago at Life Center in Tacoma, I gathered 10 of the most seasoned, visionary women of our congregation and told them I had a burden to build a bridge to the lost women of our community. I downloaded data off various reputable websites to understand what the average American woman is like. I asked, “What are we doing to reach this kind of woman? Are we relevant at Life Center? What can we do to build a bridge?” After one year of research, meeting, and praying, we created a Ladies Night Out called, “Take Charge of Your Life,” a festival of fun, beauty and inspiration! It was an evening packed with workshops, vendors to shop from, espresso bar, café, a complete makeover winner, complimentary hair styles, makeup and skin analysis, manicures, a game of “Let’s Make A Deal” with tons of high-end giveaways, and a powerful Christian comedy/musical production. Almost everything was donated, so we spent our money on every possible form of marketing. It is our largest women’s event. Washington State is the darkest, least churched state in the U.S. To have so many women, of whom many are not church women, is a miracle. We designed this event to reach women on the fringe and that is exactly what we are doing!

Tell us about your greatest struggle and greatest reward in the ministry.

OLESON: My greatest struggle is failure and fear of it. The best book I have ever read on this subject is Failing Forward by John Maxwell. He taught me that everyone who is successful may fail often before they achieve their goals. He teaches us to fail forward so we can gain an educated experience from each failure.

My greatest reward is to see another life grow and change because of my influence. Nothing to me is more worth living for than that! Truly, the greatest reward is to see someone come one step closer to knowing Jesus because of my presence in that life.

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