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Pastor of Spiritual Formation
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Pastor Janelle Hooper was born and raised in Houston, Texas. As a youth she served as President of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Lutheran Youth Organization, putting on middle and high school retreats for the 165 churches in the region. As a result of being empowered by the church at a young age, she felt a call to ministry by the time she was 14. She attended Syracuse University in New York for two years and graduated as a Longhorn from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in African-American Studies in 1998. At both colleges she sang in the Black Gospel choir. Pastor Janelle attended Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus Ohio, serving as a youth minister at a nearby church. She received her M.Div degree from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in 2003. She has served as associate pastors at both St. Paul Lutheran Church in Wheaton, IL and St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Naperville, IL.
Pastor Janelle feels passionate about helping people be whole. She sees herself as helping midwife people in faith; walking alongside them to point out the Holy in the ordinary of life. As Pastor of Spiritual Formation she hopes to encourage people to ask any and all questions so that she may walk with them in discovering a God of boundless compassion, who is full of mystery and who challenges us to love our neighbor and live justly.
Pastor Janelle is married to Brad Hooper, an elementary school teacher. They live in Wheaton with their dog Tex. They both take pleasure in reading, walking the dog, spending time with family and friends, and following the Cubs!
