Bright Spot Leader 4: Pastor Carmen Cook

I was born in Illinois but my family moved to South Florida when I was two. My father became a pastor of a Free Will Baptist church in South Florida and I spent my childhood there, only leaving when I went to college. I was raised in a very missions-oriented home and church. South Florida was the jumping off and returning point for most, if not all, of the Free Will Baptist missionaries in those days. Our home became a sanctuary for them. During my childhood years my family also worked with Cuban churches, immigrants, and those in poverty. As a result, I have many years of experience in cross-cultural evangelism.

In my life before full-time ministry I was a Business Solutions Professional for Michigan Works! and have experience speaking at the Governor’s Conference and to different organizations and various groups across the state of Michigan. I was also a High School History and English teacher in Southern Georgia. I have traveled to Panama, the Philippines, Uganda, and Kenya holding revival services, training leaders and pastors, and providing Bible education. I am also involved in teaching lay servant classes for the Michigan Conference. I taught numerous leadership courses on-line to companies through the pandemic. And during the pandemic I began to preach on the radio each week.

I am currently serving as a United Methodist minister and have been for the past 11 years. I am currently the Senior Pastor at Auburn United Methodist, arriving here in July of 2022. Here is what I am passionate about – preaching and teaching the Word of God, bringing souls to Christ, equipping the saints to walk their faith journey, and doing this faith journey together. While there is more to add to the list, these take first place and direct all the rest. I preach the Word of God and I promise to love you just as you are.

My mother is Native American and we belong to the Chickasaw Nation. After doing a DNA test we confirmed what I long suspected – we also have African ancestry and a few other things. I was once asked: how does who I am affect me? I honestly don’t know. I just am who I am – proud of who I am and where I come from but still a person like anyone else. I am impacted by my ancestry, true, but I am not defined by it. I am defined by who I am in Christ. That is the identity that I claim.

I am married, creeping up on 21 years (where has the time gone?!). We do not have children, but we do have a four-legged child named Caesar who goes with me almost everywhere as he is my protector and friend. I enjoy playing the piano, hunting, fishing, a good book, the theater, and finding rocks. While serving in Kenya I was honored to be given the name Wairimu, which means “Daughter of the King”.

I am just a normal person who likes to cook and hates to do the dishes and who has answered the call to serve the Lord in pastoral ministry. I know there are many who think that a woman shouldn’t be a pastor, but I can’t find that in the Bible (I really looked hard while trying to get out of this!). And the truth of it is – God called me, so what was I going to do? The result is, as I have journeyed the road of being a pastor I have discovered the great joy of serving the Lord in this way. I am humbled that He would say to me, “Carmen, do you love me? Then, feed my sheep.”

Life Verses

Proverbs 3:5,6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;  In all your

ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”

Ephesians 5:1,2 “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us

and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”