Lake Avenue Church, Pasadena, CA - June 22, 2025

Women's Leadership Conference - “Beloved Becoming Beautiful” Tabora, Tanzania/TZ - June 26-30, 2025

Izenga Church, TZ, Preach - July 6, 2025

AICT Tabora Church, TZ , Preach- July 13, 2025

Tabora Bible College, TZ - Guest Lecturer “Preaching for Transformation” & “Book of Daniel” - July 7-18, 2025

EvaSue Conference - “Biblical Basis for Mental Health” Bishoftu, Ethiopia - Aug 1-13, 2025

Redeemer Int’l Congregation Preach - Addis, Ethiopia - August 17, 2025

Cape Town, SA - Aug 15-30, 2025

Greece - Sept 1-13, 2025

Albania / Bosnia - Sept 14- 20, 2025

Germany - Sept 21-30, 2025

Galway, Ireland - October 1-27, 2025

Wheaton College “Missions in Focus” Speaker - February 18-20, 2026

The ordination service of Beth Paz, Director of College and Young Adults occured at 4 pm on Sunday, March 19 at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, CA.

Ordination is the formal determination by a church of a person's call to and qualification for vocational church ministry. This ordination process is intended to serve as a confirmation of the candidate’s inner call from God. In compliance with Lake Avenue Church’s policy, Beth has completed all of the requirements for ordination, including the approval of the Vicinage Council and affirmative vote of the Elder Council.

This special service confirmed Beth’s commitment before God of vocational service at Lake Avenue Church.

It's my "Year of 40 Things" - my fortieth birthday turning into a birth-year where I tackle 40 things that are deeply meaningful or bring great joy. A few of these things are small, but a few are pretty big, like getting ordained (a discernment and qualification process for vocational ministry in the Church). Climbing for a cause is absolutely the ethos of this theme! I will be stretched in my trust with God through the challenges of strenuous training, raising justice awareness, meeting my sponsorship goal of 60 kids and summiting the highest freestanding mountain in the world.

Nothing is accomplished in isolation, I'm inviting you, my beautiful community, into the journey with me. Would you consider sponsoring a child in honor of my ordination in the Church? Would you consider taking a leap of faith in your finances to sponsor a child this year?

Beth is co-leading a service and learning encounter through Lake Avenue Church to the capital city of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. At the invitation of our partners at EvaSUE, we primarily will assist in the equipping of the conference that hosts hundreds of young college student leaders who gather annually for four days. We'll serve and pray for this group of young leaders who will leave encouraged in their witness to communities across the country. We will witness the strong evangelistic and revival spirit of the Ethiopian Church and be challenged in our witness as we return home. We will engage in an extended learning experience towards cultural and historic immersion in the capital city and surrounding areas to visit Orthodox, Muslim and Protestant interactions and meet with ministry leaders.

Walkabout

/ Australian a journey (originally on foot) undertaken by an Australian Aboriginal in order to live in the traditional manner.

Sometimes disruption is an opportunity. 

2025 began with total disruption - unwelcome and unwanted. I was grappling with new realities of my beloved and aging parents. Our immediate family had not one, but two serious cancer diagnoses that resulted in months of prayers as treatments and surgeries followed. And I became unhoused and uprooted when, in crisis, I fled my home in Altadena as it burned in the Eaton Firestorm. Disruption in every direction - internal, external, relational, geographical, psychological… I took a leave of absence from my work as a Pastor of Missional Outreach to assess the quicksand-feeling of a landscape that I was in. I had a fun and loving community. I had a job that was meaningful but also taxing. I had no debt, no lease, no rental contract, no prospective romantic interest, no kids. Sometimes we return and rebuild, sometimes we release and risk towards the new. A pivot was coming.

Pragmatically, my whole idea of a “walkabout” is completely impractical. Quit your job and buy a one-way ticket to Africa?! But, I ended my work as a Pastor in June of 2025 without another job lined up. Contrary to how it looks, I don't actually just throw caution to the wind! I went through all the capitalist questions. It wasn’t easy to drop my one security (job) with its paycheck, benefits and retirement savings. I wondered if I was being fiscally irresponsible to leave a gap in my resume and live off savings. Perhaps, but my metric doesn’t place money nor position as my highest value right now. I wandered through the competency questions- was I failing or unfit for pastoral work in some way? But the truth of the matter rang out in my heart - I am capable. I am choosing to leave for the better. Giving myself permission was the hardest part, to put myself first. By nature and by default I am a Caregiver- of people, relationships, a steward of what I’ve been given. To give myself permission to care for myself in the form of adventure is beautiful. 

It seemed in Pasadena I kept trying towards the “Universal Family Plan” (House-with-a-picket-fence/gorgeous-romantic partner/kiddos/athletics-and-music-events) and it simply never worked out for me. And so I decided to give myself to the opposite. Instead of being “responsible.” I’m taking a risk. Stop consumerism, adopt minimalism. Instead of striving for upward mobility (in position/wealth/status), I’ll be downwardly mobile (anonymous/poor/unknown). Instead of centering America, I’ll center the 2/3 Globe. Uprooted not planted, slow not speedy, wandering not rebuilding, spending not saving.  I’m choosing experiences over things, the journey without knowing the destination or having a timeline. Which means I’m comfortable with mystery instead of control and looking foolish instead of smart. No partner?- I’ll go solo. Literally no belongings or home? - I’ll carry a backpack. America is being arrogant and bullying? - I’ll go find a humbler people; there is life beyond American Exceptionalism. Accomplishments? - let me earn zero credits and muddle through life without anything to show for it. Let’s see if my desires lead to purpose instead of vise-versa. All the while, praying that maybe I’ll find my life instead of losing it.