New Challenges for a Church

With Sunday services online, this minister’s congregation is finding ways to stay connected.

- EMMA PATCH

PROFILE

WHO: Joanne Swenson, age 64

WHAT: Senior minister, Church in the Forest

WHERE: Pebble Beach, Calif.

How did you end up at Church in the Forest? I was working on an independent ministry in Stamford, Conn. Out of the blue, I got a phone call from someone who had been a parishioner of mine when I was a minister in Boston. He said that a church in California had been looking for their next pastor for almost two years, and he felt like I might be the person. I hardly knew one thing about Pebble Beach, but I really missed being at the pulpit. So I began to talk to this church, and it has been just a wonderful place.

Where does the name Church in the Forest come from? We are in a historic forest, called the Del Monte Forest, which is part of Pebble Beach. Church in the Forest is a nondenominational Christian community, honoring the diversity of the Christian tradition, striving to worship and live by its sacred treasures.