Meet Pastor

My official office hours are Tuesdays from 9:00–11:00 a.m. I am always available for pastoral emergencies.

I encourage you to text, email, or call me if you want to schedule an appointment to talk with me either during office hours or at another time.

I hope you’ll drop by! My workdays are Sundays through Wednesdays.

You can reach me by email at pastorkaren.humc@gmail.com or by phone or text at (541) 915-0335.

FROM OUR SHARED HEART:

I’m your new pastor, Karen Love Baisinger, a fifth-generation Methodist preacher from Tennessee. My mother was born at home in rural middle Tennessee near a Methodist church started when my maternal great-great grandfather donated the land for a cemetery and a Methodist Episcopal church.

I grew up in Memphis and lived there until I moved to the WA in the Pacific Northwest in 1988. I started college at Lambuth University, a United Methodist college about 75 miles from Memphis, and graduated from the University of Memphis in 1971 with a BSE, endorsed to teach high school English and history.

I began to experience a call to the ordained ministry in 1975. Against great resistance and with very minimal support, I began seminary at Memphis Theological Seminary in 1976 and what a glorious, exciting, stressful, and painful experience it was! As part of another big wave of women seeking ordination at that time, the four women in my graduating class were the top four academically. I graduated summa cum laude with my M.Div. in 1980. I was ordained in 1980. My first appointment was as an Associate Pastor at St. James UMC, a 700 member church in Memphis.

During seminary, I trained with a clinical psychologist and Teaching Member of the International Transactional Analysis Association (ITAA) for three years and became certified as a Clinical Transactional Analyst. When I started three “spiritual growth” groups at St James, I began to feel called to an extension ministry in pastoral counseling. I started a private practice under appointment by the Bishop. I was endorsed as a Pastoral Counselor by the regional endorsing board of the UMC for chaplains, counselors and other extension ministries. I was a Licensed Professional Counselor in TN.

In 1987, as I was meditating, I had a vision appear in my mind, an image of a map of the US with the PNW “lit up.” I was able to make that move to Olympia, WA in 1988. I was in private practice specializing in on-going weekly psychospiritual process groups, running as many as 7 groups a week and offering monthly weekend “Intensives” for a deeper level of emotional healing, mostly with clients in recovery. I have provided a lot of couples, family, and individual counseling as well.

In 1993, I moved to Spokane, WA to work as a Chaplain and EAP counselor for Addiction Recovery Systems. In 1995, I re-entered parish ministry, serving Stevenson UMC in the Columbia Gorge, Montesano UMC in Grays Harbor County in the PNW, Fircrest UMC in Fircrest, WA, a suburb of Tacoma, and Allen UMC in Skagit County north of Seattle.

In 2005, I received my Doctor of Ministry degree from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. I was in the “John Wesley and the Poor” track and did my doctoral research and paper in “Coaching as a Ministry Tool.” In the OR-ID Conference, I served Florence UMC from 2019-2022. Additionally, in private practice, I have provided pastoral counseling and psychospiritual coaching in Eugene and here in Coos Bay.