Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisette Fraser.
Hi Lisette, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’m a Dutch-Canadian living in Atlanta after ten years in Los Angeles… so it’s been an adventure! We My family immigrated to Canada from Holland when I was little. After my parents divorced, my mum and I moved back to Holland & then returned to Canada a year later when my Mum remarried another Dutch-Canadian – it’s a crazy story!
My mum and stepdad came to faith when I was nine years old and that was my first introduction to the church. It became a place I loved and felt safe. On the other hand, my dad and step-mum were pretty aggressive atheists & I spent every other weekend and half of all holidays/vacations with them, so I always felt like I lived between 2 worlds. As an only child living in between these worlds, the church really became the place I felt like I could fully be me. I felt seen and known.
In school, I was always seen as a leader. I was involved in student council, took leadership classes, and joined toastmasters in high school and when I graduated, everyone was sure I’d be a high-powered executive. But I had this pull, this calling, into ministry. The challenge was I didn’t know any women/female pastors – unless they were kids pastors – so my assumption was I’d marry a pastor. I always loved teenagers and felt like that was a place of impact, so I went to university to become a high school band teacher and figured God would work it out from there.
While at a large secular university, I met a guy who was planning to become a pastor. I figured that was it! What I didn’t realize was just how unhealthy the relationship was. Weeks away from getting married, I learned that he wasn’t faithful and at that moment, I felt like God spoke to me in the strongest way I had ever heard Him. He said, “Will you live for me or not?” and I decided that I would just have to trust where He was guiding. I dropped out of University to go to Bible College and, as they say, the rest is history!
After bible college, I married my husband Kyle and we started an adventure we could never have anticipated. From the prairies of Western Canada to Los Angeles to Atlanta, it’s been incredible. Along the way, God also opened a lot of doors for me to lead in spaces beyond the local church, from working with the Canadian Youth Workers Convention to the Fuller Youth Institute to Orange to teaching adjunct at universities and colleges.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been a wild ride! I didn’t know any women/female pastors, unless they were kids pastors or missionaries, and neither were of interest to me. When I went to bible college, the assumption was that since I was a musician, I’d want to be a worship pastor. So I started leading worship and enjoyed it, but I quickly fell more in love with the people I was working with than the music itself. I stumbled into youth ministry and loved every minute of it. But the challenge was finding places I could actually serve. We felt called to work at a church in Saskatchewan, Canada, where I later learned I was the first female minister/pastor in North America in that part of their movement. You can well imagine the types of questions and accusations I heard. I also had a deep passion for impacting those outside the church, not just the ones inside. That usually meant I didn’t do things how other people expected them to be done. It was definitely effective but not always popular. The combination of being a woman pastor and one who worked outside the box wasn’t always received well.
In 2010, my husband really wanted to pursue his education and was interested in looking at schools in the US. Since I’d only ever worked in one church movement (I call it a non-denominational denomination), that was where I looked for work first. However, none of our churches in the US would even consider a female youth pastor. So, I had to pursue other denominations. I discovered it was a lot harder than expected! I was eventually hired by a Presbyterian church. The challenge was, I didn’t fully align theologically or, as I learned, with the model. It was a steep learning curve for me. What I saw over and over throughout the years was that it was really challenging to be a woman pastor with leadership giftings in theologically orthodox environments. Over the years, I walked into many rooms with people expecting that I was the secretary (not that there’s anything wrong with being a secretary), but the assumption was rarely that I was a pastor or leader.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My passion is steering people and organizations towards God’s absolutely best for them. As a Dutch-Canadian living in the US who has had the opportunity to work with so many institutions and denominations, I bring a unique, global perspective to all I do. I feel incredibly fortunate to work for multiple incredible organizations.
I serve as the CMO (chief ministry officer) and one of the pastors at Hillsong Atlanta. I absolutely love getting to help build this beautiful, diverse, welcoming church community who is making an impact in the city and beyond. At Orange, a global family ministry organization whose head offices are also here in Atlanta, I have the opportunity to communicate with leaders and churches around the country who are influencing the next generation. I also partner with the Youth Worker Community in Canada, serving as their coaching director, working with youth workers from Canada, the US, and Jamaica to help them lead with excellence and impact. Beyond that, I help individuals and churches through coaching, consulting and communicating.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I suppose I’d call divine luck appointments! Blessings upon blessings. For an immigrant kid from the prairies of Canada, where I am today makes no sense. But God. Over and over and over, I have found myself in these rooms and spaces with people that I would never have expected to meet. It was Marv Penner in Canada, author, professor, and leader in Youth Specialties, who saw something in me, invested in me and opened doors for me.
It was him introducing me to Dr. Kara Powell, Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute, that opened a whole other set of doors for me. It was my work with Fuller that connected me to Albert Tate, Lead Pastor of Fellowship Church, that had me first dive into the multi-ethnic church and taught me about systemic racism and oppression and the history of the US. It was working at Fellowship that caused a phone call for me to join a panel about multi-cultural ministry in partnership with Fuller and the Rethink Group (Orange Conference/Tour) that had me meet Pastor Sam Collier. It could look like wild luck that I just always met the right people who opened the next door… but I think it was God!
Contact Info:
- Email: lisette.fraser@gmail.com
- Website: www.lisettefraser.com
- Instagram: lisette.fraser
- Facebook: Lisette Fraser (facebook.com/lisettefraser)
Image Credits
Yemi Kuku Olivmar’e Benjamin Dutton
