The Reverend Diane K. Hooge is the Senior Pastor of Judson Memorial Baptist Church. Diane brings a wealth of experience gleaned from many years in the ministry. She is a caring, compassionate person with a deeply spiritual approach to pastoral care. Diane is widely regarded as a healer listener, spiritual mentor, extraordinary counselor and excellent preacher. Her leadership style is collaborative and she possesses a special ability to seek out gifts in individuals and to nurture and encourage those gifts.
Diane Hooge is
an ordained American Baptist minister with 17 years of experience in the
ministry. Her call to seminary came in 1983 after having served on the Emerald
Church staff in Eugene, Oregon for five years. She had previously received her
Certificate in Gerontology and served the church as minister to senior adults.
During these years, she also was involved in strengthening the church's
children's ministry. She believes that when both ends of the age spectrum have
solid places to connect, the whole church becomes stronger.
Diane
graduated from the American Baptist Seminary of the West and served as interim
minister for various congregations for several years. For four years Diane
served as associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Seattle, Washington, a
1,000 member congregation. Before coming to Judson, Diane was area minister for
two American Baptist Associations in Massachusetts serving over 60 churches.
Over the past several years, she has been concerned about the number of moderate
to liberal pastors who are retiring from our American Baptist Churches.
Diane
wants to be the pastor of a church that welcomes all. She is attracted to Judson
because she is convinced that we are doing a great many 'right' things to be
attractive and inviting to people who need to find a place of belonging. She
also appreciates Judson's desire to have lay leaders involved in the Sunday
service. One of her passions is to help churches strengthen the laity.
As an
area minister, Diane has enjoyed consulting with various churches and the
challenge of working with the cultural and theological diversity that is present
in New England. She misses, however, the building blocks of community life:
worship planning, baby dedications, lunches with members, baptisms, strategic
planning, and preaching as a member of the community. In a society where people
find few places of security,
Diane
thinks the church must be a safe place. With the stresses of dual careers,
limited childcare, complex commutes and aging parents, Diane feels families need
to have a supportive faith community to under gird their lives.
Part
of Diane's calling is to work toward bringing about healing and wholeness. She
is energized by helping people to discover their own unique gifts and callings.
Diane thinks the local church becomes authentically empowered when people are
able to utilize their gifts both in the local church and within the larger
community.
Diane's preaching style is primarily exegetical (critical analysis or interpretation of the Bible) with an emphasis on how we live out our faith. She sees one of her primary roles as that of prayerfully helping to lead the design for creative worship services that have a standard of excellence. Diane values a team leadership model that creates and weaves all the components of the service into a unified whole and thinks worship needs to incorporate a variety of styles and medias in order to have a sense of vibrancy.
Diane and Ken Hooge
Diane is married to Ken Hooge and they have two adult sons. Diane's personal interests include travel, antiques, reading, movies and spending time with family and friends