Linda Grounds is the new pastor at Stewartville United Methodist Church
 

From Stewartville Star
Mark Peterson
Editor

Seated on a sofa inside her new office at Stewartville United Methodist Church, Linda Grounds thought back about her days as a child in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Recently named to replace Rev. Jef Olson as the church's new pastor, Grounds has traveled many miles and lived through many changes and challenges since those early years in Los Alamos.

Taking a break from some paperwork on a beautiful summer morning last week, Grounds said she's happy to be in Stewartville and is grateful for the warm welcome she has received from the members of her new congregation.

"I was excited when I learned I was coming here, because I know Jef Olson and respect him very much," she said. "The people here have been very, very gracious. They understand the system and the way things work (when Methodist pastors transfer from one church to another), and they have been very affirming of me."

Although she's new to Stewartville, Grounds isn't new to moving from one place to another. During a 45-minute interview, she spoke of an adventurous life that has included moves from the Southwest to the East Coast and finally to the Midwest. She began by talking about her childhood in Los Alamos.

Situated 7,500 feet above sea level in the New Mexico mountains, the city is well-known as the place where scientists began the Manhattan Project, an effort to make the first atomic bomb.

"It was a secret city during World War II," Grounds said. "People who were born there jokingly refer to themselves as 'nuclear babies.' "

As a girl, however, Grounds' focus wasn't on the history of her hometown. She loved Los Alamos because it was a place of wide open spaces.

"I liked it," she said. "I liked riding horses. I spent most of my teen-age years riding horses."

Ironically, although she would grow up to become a minister, Grounds rarely saw the inside of a church as a child.

"I did not grow up churched," she said. "For different reasons, my mother and father had become disconnected from the church. They were God-fearing people, and they would pray in times of emergency, but I didn't grow up going to church."

After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz. While she was there, her two younger siblings, a brother and a sister, attended a series of meetings hosted by a Scottish evangelist.

"They became Bible-thumping, born-again Christians," she said. "They were part of the Jesus People movement. When I went home on Christmas break, I got an earful."

The family's discussions about Christianity became so intense, in fact, that when Grounds came home from college the following summer, her parents made a rule that the children could no longer talk about matters of faith.

After finishing one year at Northern Arizona, Grounds transferred to the University of Missouri at Columbia. She brought along a cardboard-covered King James Bible her younger sister had given her. During her first few weeks at Missouri, she began reading the Bible.

"For a couple of months it made no sense to me," she said. "Then in October, I had a mystical experience beyond what I could explain. I felt the presence of the Lord so strongly. The Bible spoke to me, and I admitted that I needed forgiveness. From that time on, I wanted to do full-time ministry."

She transferred to the University of New Mexico for her third year of college, then attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for her fourth year, graduating from ORU with a degree in communications in 1976. She had attended four different colleges in four years.

"There were a lot of changes," she said. "It's easier for me to understand when young people today make changes because of all the changes I made when I was that age."

Armed with a degree in communications, she took a job as a reporter and photographer for a small newspaper in Espanola, N.M. After two years there, she moved back to Tulsa, then attended the School of the Missions in Houston, Texas and took a mission trip to Mexico.

"I thought I might feel called to those kind of missions, but I didn't," she said.

She was married in 1984, and two years later moved to New Jersey so her husband could pursue a doctorate degree at Princeton.

"At that time we started going to the United Methodist Church and became youth pastors there," she said. "That's the first time I saw a woman pastor. That was the turning point. I started praying for that, and my husband was supportive."

She attended Princeton Theological Seminary for about 1 1/2 years. Her life was turned upside down, however, after her husband, who had earned his doctorate at Princeton, left her, then took a job at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

Believing that it was important for her children to remain close to their father, she moved to Minnesota to attend Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul in 1991. She also took a position as a student pastor at the Mounds View United Methodist Church.

In spring 1992, she received a call to become the pastor of two small-town, rural churches in Randolph and Stanton, located about 45 miles south of the Twin Cities. Although the congregations were initially very nervous about having a woman pastor, she very much enjoyed serving those two churches.

"I guess the honeymoon never ended," she said. "As pastors we talk about a honeymoon period, but I don't think it ever ended with those two churches. I treasure my time with them. They took me under their wing and they received me, and together we were able to do some extraordinary things."

After eight years at Randolph and Stanton, she answered a call to become pastor of the United Methodist churches in La Crescent and Dakota. She was excited about the challenge of a bigger church at La Crescent, and enjoyed the congregation's many programs, activities and Bible studies. She worked for growth at Dakota, which was a very small church when she first arrived there. In fact, she recalled that only three parishioners showed up for worship one Sunday morning and she improvised by leading a small-group Bible study. The church has grown considerably since those early days.

"Now they have 37 to 40 on Sundays, with 15 kids and someone on staff for Sunday school," Grounds said. "That's a turnaround story. Dakota is a sweet church."

She has fond memories of the LaCrescent church's efforts to help the victims of the flooding in Rushford last year. The church also helped 25 families that were left homeless after an apartment building closed a few months ago.

"We were able to feed them and offer a clothing closet," she said. "It was an amazing experience to go through with that church. We worked in the community and helped people who really needed help."

Grounds and her husband Don Jones, a United Methodist pastor in Lake City, have been married for five years. They have four children from previous marriages: Brooke and Renee, both 22; Alan, 19; and Christa, 18. Grounds hopes that one day, she and her husband will find a situation that will allow them to live under the same roof.

"The goal that we would be able to work from the Stewartville parsonage, if all goes according to plan," she said.

After eight years in La Crescent and Dakota, she's looking forward to her new pastorate in Stewartville.

"I'm not really wanting to change anything," she said. "I'm trying to pray and listen to God to find out what it is he would like to do during this season of leadership. I'm in the process of learning about the people and learning what the next step is. I don't have a prepared agenda for change."