This Fall, we are incredibly excited to have Katie Brown join our staff in a new position as our Director of Youth Ministries. Katie has been serving as a youth director in a large ministry in Houston for the past 5 years and brings a wealth of experience, knowledge and passion with her to LiveOak. We have partnered with the Center for Youth Ministry Training to enable Katie to minister in our church while she is also pursuing a Masters degree in youth ministry through Austin Seminary. God is clearly up to something transformational by sending Katie our way!
Read Katie's Letter of Introduction to our Church:
I was born and raised in Humble, TX, a suburb outside of Houston, and grew up going to First Presbyterian Church of Kingwood. This is where I met Caz and Camie, as they were my youth pastors during my middle school years before they moved to Michigan. We kept in touch a bit as they moved, but I never expected what God had in store.
I started attending The University of Texas for my Elementary Education degree in 2009 and during the following summer I received a Facebook message from Camie! Camie invited me over for lunch and began to tell me all about LiveOak. I was overwhelmed with joy that God had brought Caz and Camie back in my life and was eager to begin volunteering at LiveOak in anyway that I could. I began teaching Sunday School and fell in love with teaching kids about Jesus. Through my experience of volunteering in Sunday School, Caz and Camie encouraged me to seek out an internship in youth ministry to see if God could be calling me into full-time ministry.
During the summer of 2012, God led me to St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Houston where I was the high school intern. I had no idea what to expect during this internship, but during a moment of prayer on a trip, God made it clear that youth ministry is what I was supposed to do. The following January St. Luke's offered me a full-time position after I graduated and I have been incredibly blessed to work there ever since. Currently, I am the Associate Director of High School Ministries and am our Small Group Coordinator. I have loved every minute I've been at St. Luke's, but I am so excited to take this next step! I can't wait to meet all of you and especially can't wait to meet the students! I am eager to see all God has in store for us in the upcoming years and thank you all for your prayers and support! See you all in August!
Blessings,
Katie Brown