Susan Forshey
Susan Forshey still remembers when she first looked up the word “contemplative” in the 4th grade and life has never been the same since. Interested in all things monastic as a child, her middle school years in a small German village of Landstuhl brought her to faith. The cathedrals of Europe, with their vibrant art and prayerful Gothic silence, formed her in both a love of Christian history and the Lord Jesus Christ. Beginning first in Roman Catholicism, college life six years later at Western Washington University whisked Susan into ecumenism overnight. Attending both a local Catholic church and an Assemblies of God, she sought to balance her love of praise and worship with the quiet of Eucharistic liturgy. Finally receiving a BA in History (Russian and Medieval), Susan also explored her love of science and nature by taking Environmental Studies classes. After graduation, Susan worked with a large high school youth group at University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, then returned to Western to minister with Campus Christian Fellowship, a Chi Alpha ministry.
Moving to Seattle in 1994 and working for Microsoft, Susan became a member at Bethany Presbyterian, where she found a community committed to incarnating the five strands of Christian spirituality named by Richard Foster: contemplative, social justice, holiness, evangelical, and charismatic. During the past 14 years at Bethany, Susan has led worship with guitar, voice, and piano; facilitated small groups; taught adult Christian education classes on prayer, spiritual disciplines, and church history; led healing prayer services; and hosted retreats. Deeply committed to the relationships cultivated over the years, Bethany remains her church home and family.
From 1994-2000, Susan volunteered with Real Change Homeless Newspaper as office assistant, board member, and journalist, writing articles about local faith-based organizations which served the thousands of Seattle homeless; she also interviewed local artists who participated in the Real Change Empowerment Project’s Homeless Art Gallery.
In 1995, Susan began an intentional community with 6 other Bethany young adults and lived in it until 2000. She also directed the Seattle’s Intentional Community Program, a Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteer Project, housed at University Presbyterian Church. This program placed young adults into houses in the urban areas of Seattle, partnering them with inner city ministries. During her time as director, Susan facilitated the houses and was spiritual director for the participants, led retreats on community building, prayer and spiritual disciplines, and week-long ministry trips for young adults to inner city Chicago. These trips exposed the participants to a wide variety of Christian traditions, ways of doing urban ministry, and brought them face to face with the issues of urban poverty.
After piecing together Masters of Divinity classes at Seattle University and Fuller Seminary, the call of graduate theological education brought Susan to St John’s University, Collegeville, to finish her degree. Described in Kathleen Norris’ A Cloister Walk, St John’s, a Benedictine abbey, allowed Susan to go deeply into her childhood love of contemplative and monastic life. Often feeling too Protestant to be Catholic and too Catholic to be Protestant, she chaired the Ecumenical Committee at the St John’s School of Theology and delighted in helping the diversity of traditions represented to share their wisdom with each other. Recently, she was invited to present a paper, “Reading Life: Lectio Divina as an Approach to Practical Theological Research,” at the Association of Practical Theology conference held at St John’s. The experience was a delightful “full-circle” as she was able to bring the richness of her Benedictine education and the study of Practical Theology into conversation.
In 2003, Susan served as pastoral intern at Bethany Presbyterian Church and as a chaplain at Swedish Medical Center, Seattle. After graduating with her Masters of Divinity, she took a position at Virginia Mason Medical Center in human resources, ultimately becoming the physician recruiter for the hospital. Three years ago, Susan moved to Boston and began a ThD program in Practical Theology and Spirituality. She coordinates the Spiritual Formation and Church Life Project directed by Dr Claire Wolfteich and housed at the Center for Practical Theology, BU School of Theology. The project offers student renewal retreat funding, retreats for BU School of Theology students, connection with spiritual direction resources, and oversees the Pastoral and Spiritual Formation program for the MDiv/MTS students. Susan is also a teaching assistant for the Theology II course. She is currently finishing her comprehensive exams and hopes to pursue writing her dissertation on an ecclesial person’s response to consumerism. Ultimately, Susan hopes to find an academic position that allows her to engage students in discussions on practical theology, spirituality, and ecclesial discipleship.
