BROOKINGS – “I really do not come from the background of being a pastor at all.”
That’s one piece of the message the Rev. Nina Westfall, new pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Brookings, is bringing to her congregation. She has been on the job for about a month and will be installed in October.
She grew up in Grace Essex, England. Her father was a chief psychologist, and her background is also in psychology. He wanted her to pursue a doctorate in psychology and join him in his practice. She has a master’s degree in psychology and has worked as a counselor. She has three brothers but is the only one of the four siblings to go into ministry.
Westfall recalled that when she told her father she was going to the seminary, he said, “Oh, you’ll come back to your senses.” She did not.
A first hint of her call to ministry came while she was attending Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma, earning a Master of Science degree in counseling psychology in 1995, and going to church.
“While I was doing that and going to church, the people were trying to get hold of me in a different way,” she said. “But I was trying to please Dad. I didn’t know what I was doing; I was just pleasing him. Somehow the elders of the church knew something else, so they sent me to the seminary.
“That is the way that has been my journey. I think I was maybe running away from it (the seminary) a little bit, you know.”
A variety of ministries
Continuing her pursuit of the ministry, Westfall completed two years of clinical pastoral education at a Presbyterian hospital in Oklahoma in 1997.
“That’s when they really break you down and then build you up again,” she explained. “It was pretty evident then that I needed to be in the seminary.”
Next, in 2001, came a Master of Divinity degree at Austin (Texas) Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Finally, she was ordained a Presbyterian minister in July 2005.
The pastor has served in a variety of ministries. In Oklahoma City, she was a chaplain at the Presbyterian hospital, children’s hospital, VA hospital and Norman Regional Hospital.
Following that came pastoral ministry at First Presbyterian churches in Austin, Texas; Daytona, Florida; and Burley, Idaho. She also served as minister of education at a Methodist church in Boise, Idaho.
After that position, she took a break from ministry when her husband died. She had been his caregiver. She then went in to missionary service: “I didn’t want to go into the church straightaway. I wanted to heal from the trauma.”
That led to missionary work in Mexico and Nepal. One of her duties in those places was teaching English as a second language. She later became credentialed for teaching English and went back to Nepal and stayed for about seven months as a teacher.
Returning from Nepal to Boise, Westfall felt that she was ready to serve as a pastor and approached the Boise Presbytery. Its members agreed that she was. Additionally, she wanted to find a congregation that wanted her.
“I don’t want to be the only one who thinks I am called,” she said. “I want people to tell me I am called. That’s what my life always has been.”
“You can put your PIF (personal information file) online,” Westfall added, explaining how a call to ministry can work. “Then the churches look at it. I like that procedure as well. For me, it is like ‘OK, God where do you want me to go? Show me the church.’
“You can say where you want to go, where you don’t want to go. There are all those things there, which are your priorities. I left it absolutely open: Not one place did I put that I would like to go or wouldn’t like to go. I said, ‘God, show me.’”
Other congregations contacted the pastor, but when Brookings called, she was ready.
“When I came here, I felt a strong that ‘this-is-the-place,’” she said. “And they felt it, too. It is a calling and so I followed it. And I’m here.
“This is where I’m supposed to be: with the hardship of not knowing anybody at all, a single person. It’s all going to be OK. I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
For now, Westfall is settling in, putting up paintings in her office to help her feel at home, before she officially assumes the pastoral care for her congregation of about 200 members.
“I chose to take a little more time,” the pastor said. “I want to get used to the people before I do the big things.”
Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.
