Barbara Stevens

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Eastrose Fellowship Unitarian Universalist
1133 NE 181st Avenue, Gresham, Oregon -- 181st Avenue between Glisan and Halsey

WE ARE A WELCOMING CONGREGATION

Community Minister, Rev. Barbara Stevens

Barbara Stevens became a Community Minister for Eastrose Fellowship May 25, 2008. She is a chaplain with Providence Health System, on their chemical dependency inpatient unit and has a private practice as a pastoral counselor.

After a fifteen-year journey toward ministry, starting in 1992 Barbara felt a call to preaching. At the time, she and her family were living in Austin, Texas, so although she was raised Unitarian Universalist, she attended Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, finding it to be an excellent introduction to Christianity.

Hoping for a more theologically inclusive education, Barbara eventually ended up at Marylhurst University, where she earned both a Master of Arts in Applied Theology and a Master of Divinity degree.

While raising two boys, Colin and Devin, and working her way through school, she kept herself involved in Unitarian Universalist congregational life by doing pulpit supply, performing weddings and funerals, and becoming a lay leader at a church in Manchester, NH. For eight years she worked as a Director of Religious Education at Michael Servetus Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, leaving her job so she could take a full-time chaplain residency at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Portland, specializing in mental health chaplaincy. She also did a part time parish internship at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis and a part time chaplain internship at the Oregon State Hospital, working with the criminally mentally ill. For three years, she was the consulting minister at Vashon Unitarian Fellowship in Washington.

Before her call to ministry, Barbara worked as a massage therapist and nurse’s aide. Her bachelor’s degree is in English, with a concentration in creative writing, and she studied theatre, jazz piano, and music composition in graduate school. Barbara and her family live in Portland with Barbara’s mother, a dog, and two cats.