Introducing Rachel Gough and Michelle Huskamp, Co-Lead Pastors at Monroe Covenant Church

Rachel Gough

What is your personal and ministry background?

I grew up in the church in a Christian family, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I truly met God for the first time. My parents were going through a divorce, and I, too, was leaving an abusive marriage. It was a tumultuous time to say the least. Because my parents had always said they would never get divorced, and because I thought I had done everything “right” and had still ended up a failure, my faith in God was completely shaken. I took a deliberate break from all things religious. When I turned around and came back home—literally and metaphorically—I found, not an angry deity ready to strike me with lightning for my apostasy, but an open-armed Father throwing a party for his prodigal daughter. My practical needs were met immediately by friends and family—a place to live, a car, a job. For the first time I experienced God as intimate, as one pursuing me and showing me, without a doubt, that I was beloved. It changed my life, and I hope to walk alongside others who are learning that they are part of God’s story. 

My path to church ministry took a circuitous route. As a woman, becoming a pastor was not something I had ever considered. I didn’t grow up seeing women pastors. It was subtly but firmly forbidden in the non-denominational church I attended as a youth. A few years ago, my mom started attending seminary to take classes for her continuing education certification, and she started telling me all the things she was learning about the Bible, the church, and God’s heart for women. My family and I had recently moved to the small town of Monroe from Seattle having been challenged by our former pastor to be counter cultural in how we stayed put in one place and built community. However, it took more than three years to find a church in the area that affirmed women in ministry, which had become a nonnegotiable criterion for all of us. We visited many churches, and we even tried hosting a house church with some similarly churchless friends. Finally, through three different points of connection, we found Monroe Covenant Church, and we’ve been astounded by this small church with a big heart that feels like family. 

At the time, I, too, was enrolled in seminary with the intention of becoming a chaplain, but when Pastor Mac Taylor invited me to speak to the women from the gospel mission after a Tuesday night dinner, and then to preach on a Sunday morning, God began shifting my heart toward the idea of pastoring. Not just pastoring anywhere, but pastoring these people in this place. Saying yes to the call of my beloved church family has been one of the greatest joys of my life, and I look forward to many meaningful years of ministry to and with them. I am also thrilled that I get to share the responsibility and vision of ministry with my co-pastor Michelle Huskamp. In God’s upside-down kingdom, of course two women can pastor a church!

What are you passionate about in ministry right now?

The thing I am most passionate about in ministry is our call to witness to the world of God’s goodness and love by the way we care for each other internally and the way we turn outward to work for the flourishing of all people in our communities. This includes a radical commitment to fellowship with brothers and sisters with whom we may disagree. It includes leveraging our money, time, and resources to make sure everyone has enough. And it involves caring more about people and the dignity of their stories than about having the right answers. I also love digging deeply into scripture, wrestling with it, and coming to it with eyes ready to see something fresh that’s truly good news for my people.

How can we pray for you?

I would love prayer for Michelle and myself as we have begun our calls here in the midst of COVID-19 and the reckoning of racial injustice. I would love prayer for unity and action in our church as we navigate these issues. I would love prayer for my family as my husband and kids adjust to Mom/Rachel working for the first time. And I would love prayer for equitable housing options in our increasingly expensive town.

Five Things You Didn’t Know about Rachel:

What is your favorite thing to do?

I read whenever I can. I love reading almost anything, but when it’s just for fun I devour early 20th century British mystery novels.

Where is the best place you’ve traveled to and why?

I got to spend a week in Italy last year, Venice and Rome. It was the best—incredible buildings and history, friendly people, and amazing food. I would go back every year if I could.

Which one would you want most – flying cars, robot housekeepers, or moon cities?

Definitely moon cities. I’ve daydreamed about being the first chaplain to a space colony, or at least writing about it. 

What would you do (for a career) if you weren’t doing this?

If I weren’t a pastor (and I may still do this alongside pastoring) I would write mystery stories, perhaps with a feisty clergywoman as the heroine.

Tell us something that might surprise us about you.  

I spent some time working as an extra in Hollywood in my mid-20s. You might catch a glimpse of me on an episode of ‘Chuck’ or ‘Criminal Minds.’

Michelle Huskamp

What is your personal and ministry background?

I grew up in the church as the daughter of a pastor, so I have been around ministry and involved in ministry for my whole life. I was basically the youth group mascot as a little girl, attending summer camps and going on mission trips with the teenagers from toddlerhood. As a teenager I taught Sunday school and was a junior counselor at summer camps for elementary schoolers. While I loved the church and loved serving, I hadn’t considered ministry as a vocation until college. I was home during Christmas break one year and the senior pastor at our church pulled me aside at a Christmas party to talk about how college was going and such. During our conversation, he suggested that I consider seminary after college and that God might be calling me to vocational ministry. From that point on, I approached serving in the church more intentionally and really began praying about seminary and full-time ministry.

Immediately after college, my husband (Andrew) and I moved to Bellevue, WA so Andrew could work with Youth for Christ. We ran a City Life club, started an afterschool drop-in center at our church, and most surprisingly, within a year after moving there, ended up as the volunteer youth pastors at our church. We pastored the youth group for the next six years while I attended Fuller Seminary Northwest in pursuit of my MDiv.

When we found out we were pregnant with twins a year and a half after our first son was born, we knew that we weren’t going to be able to continue doing it all – we both had full-time jobs while also pastoring the youth group. We stepped down from our volunteer roles, through a miraculous set of circumstances ended up being able to buy a house in Monroe, and spent the next year and half learning how to be served and cared for by the church after our many years of serving the church ourselves.

Through all of those years, I continued taking classes at Fuller and finally finished my coursework for the MDiv in 2019. During this past year, I did my apprenticeship at a Covenant church plant and then at Monroe Covenant Church to finish out the last requirement for graduation. I was called by Monroe Covenant Church as Co-Pastor when the then-current pastors retired in May.

What are you passionate about in ministry right now?

I am passionate about seeing the church be a family, with room for everyone to serve, love, and grow together – from the littlest babies to the grandest of grandparents. I want to see authentic relationships between the generations, for children and teenagers to truly be adopted into the full life of the church, and for all of us to learn from each other and support each other as we journey through life with God together.

How can we pray for you?

I would love prayer for my family as we continue to navigate life in this era of COVID – balancing working from home with the needs of our three children (Malachi – 5, Lydia and Dara – 3), making decisions about schooling for our kids (Malachi would be starting kindergarten this fall, but that is up in the air now), continuing to figure out how the rest of the family fits into my role as pastor at the church. I would also love prayer for me specifically as I take on this new role as co-pastor and lead Monroe Covenant Church with Rachel – pray for our partnership as we work together, that our friendship would grow deep; pray for the relationships I am building with the congregation; pray for creativity for Rachel and I as we continue to figure out how to lead our church in ‘being the church’ when everything looks so different in this era of COVID; pray for us as we lead our church in learning more about the history of racism in our country and the anti-racist work that we our pursuing

Five Things You Didn’t Know about Michelle:

What is the one thing you cannot resist?

          I cannot resist books. Brick and mortar bookstores are dangerous (and wonderful) places for me. I always find more books than I can read and have such a hard time picking and choosing which ones to actually buy. Andrew feels similarly about books, so our library is quite extensive and we are always adding to it.

Where is your favorite place to be?

          I don’t have a specific favorite physical location to be, but my favorite place to be is anywhere I can be with my family and/or close friends and enjoy time of connection with one another. This may be in my living room or backyard, eating a meal or playing games together. This may be in a campground or on a hike, enjoying nature and conversation in the beauty of the outdoors. This may be in a coffee shop (in a pre- or post-COVID world) sharing life or discussing theology/politics/parenting/books/etc.

What is your favorite thing to do?

I love to read, bake, play intense board games, and have deep conversations / discussions with people.

What does true leadership mean to you?

          True leadership is about bringing people together. It is about walking with people on their journeys with God and creating spaces for authentic connection and relationships within the church. It is about supporting people as they do new things with God and helping all of us to reimagine creative ways to be the church and bring the kingdom of God ever more fully present in the world.

What is the best book you have ever read?

          I don’t know how I could ever narrow it down to one book. I love anything Madeleine L’Engle or C.S. Lewis wrote, both fiction and non-fiction. Rachel Held Evans always makes me think and Jen Hatmaker makes me laugh (and cry). I have thoroughly enjoyed Justo Gonzalez’s two part “The Story of Christianity” and learning more fully the scope of church history and how much the current church has been shaped by the events and thinkers of the past centuries. I love the Harry Potter series and I am of the luckiest generation that got to grow up with the books as they came out, reading each one at right around the same age that Harry was in each book. I could go on… but I won’t.