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Dr. Adriana Nieto talks to Rev. Dr. Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi about her co-edited volume on vocational discovery in ministry

InterVarsity New England. Photo: ©Kyle VanEtten - No Shortcuts Photography

 
 

Chicana/o studies scholar Dr. Adriana Nieto talks to Rev. Dr. Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi, Director of the Office of Professional Formation at Iliff School of Theology, about the volume Explore: Vocational Discovery in Ministry (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), which Rev. Dr. Lizardy-Hajbi co-edited with Matthew Floding. The book is ideal for ministerial leadership students in search of paths to follow.

“It’s really a book offering options for individuals thinking through, ‘what is my vocation in relation to my identities, my experiences and what I feel are my strengths and my gifts and my passions,’” says Rev. Dr. Lizardy-Hajbi, who is also term assistant professor of leadership and formation at Iliff. The volume includes personal stories from 45 contributors of all backgrounds and professions, serving as a discernment tool that she hopes “expands the imaginations of students rather than create limits'' when it comes to ministerial work by faith leaders, such as pastors, varieties of chaplaincy, clinical pastoral educators, academics, and nonprofit leaders.

“[Ministry] is a sacred task no matter what one’s beliefs or meaning-making frameworks are,” says Rev. Dr. Lizardy-Hajbi. “It is something that should be considered with care, that is holy, and that is done, I think, in mystery, often because we don’t know…where someone is going to end up in a call."

 
 
 

"The book is accessible, gritty, and honest. It raises good conversation on the multiplicity of vocation and represents the complexity of life, vocation, and constructed meaning that we, in religious and ministerial circles, have known and navigated for some time. Vocation, in this context, is a complicated conversation and we have the beneficial wisdom of this diverse group of authors to articulate this complexity for us in this truth-telling and thought-provoking project.”


—Mark Chung Hearn, PhD
Associate Professor and Director of Contextual Education at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, CA

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Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi

Rev. Dr. Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi is Assistant Professor of Leadership and Formation and Director of the Office of Professional Formation at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado; she also co-directs the Doctor of Ministry in Prophetic Leadership and coordinates the Certificate in Latinx Studies for the Iliff and the University of Denver Joint PhD in the Study of Religion. Rev. Dr. Lizardy-Hajbi is an Ordained Minister in the United Church of Christ and has served in a variety of ministry roles, including as a hospital chaplain, youth leader, multicultural student affairs director, and denominational researcher. Her research interests include organizational leadership, liberative theological and decolonial approaches to ministry, congregational studies, young adult spirituality, and intersectional pedagogical practices. She is co-editor of Explore: Vocational Discovery in Ministry (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) and has written several book chapters, journal articles, and national and denominational research reports. At present, she is a regional advisor for the Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations (EPIC) National Research Project through Hartford Institute for Religion Research and a research fellow with the Center for Church Management at Villanova University.

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Adriana Nieto

Dr. Adriana Nieto is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She has been with the university for over 15 years, first starting out as an adjunct professor and then becoming a full-time faculty member in 2009. Her teaching and research interests include Latina spiritualities and practices; women of color feminisms; mental health among Xicanas in early 20th-century New Mexico; Chicana protestants in the US-Mexico Borderlands; oral history and water in the ‘West’, with special interest in acequia culture and practices in southern Colorado. Dr. Nieto received her PhD in religious and theological studies from the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, her master’s in Latin American studies, with a focus on gender studies and borderland history from the University of New Mexico, and her bachelor’s in Latin American and women studies, also from the University of New Mexico. Dr. Nieto is also currently on the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI) Steering Committee and is an HTI alumna.

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