Carol Nordstrom
God may work in unexpected ways, but God always guides and supports those who are called.
Rev. Dr. Carol Shimmin-Nordstrom’s parents, Alfred and Susan Shimmin, grew up on cattle ranches in western Nebraska. They became members of the Covenant Church when Carol’s father was transferred to Duluth, Minnesota. When she was five days old, Carol was carried into Lakeview Covenant Church in Duluth. Carol’s parents taught her to love God, to serve others, and to be open to God’s leading. Her mother worked as an obstetrics nurse at the local hospital. Her father worked at the electrical utility plant. Her parents shared domestic tasks and childcare, which taught Carol that roles were not necessarily gender specific.
One of Carol’s personal assets is her high intelligence. This sometimes became a liability for her. At age ten, Carol asked her Sunday School teacher why the crowds of people always seemed to know where Jesus and his disciples would come to shore on the Sea of Galilee. Carol grew up near Lake Superior where even the immense iron ore boats looked small in the distance. Her Sunday School teacher responded, “Be quiet. Don’t interrupt.”
Carol attended Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the fall of 1969 where she she became friends with three other women who always took top honors. Carol continued to participate in speech and debate competitions that she had begun in high school. This sharpened her skills in communicating clearly and persuasively.
Carol entered Bethel Seminary in 1973 with the intention of applying to Princeton Seminary to earn a doctorate in New Testament. In reflecting on her seminary experience, she remembers, “I asked to be exempt from preaching class while I was in seminary, but my internship opened up a new possibility for me. Helping people to understand the New Testament did not have to be academic; it could also be pastoral.” Carol served her internship year (1975–1976) at Lake Union Covenant Church in South Haven, Minnesota. Skirts were short in those days, and a thoughtful older couple blessed Carol with a blue pulpit robe to wear in the worship services. She still wears the robe and remembers to bless their memory and pray for the Lake Union Church. Carol finished her Master of Divinity degree at Bethel Seminary in May of 1976. The crucial vote to ordain women in the Covenant would occur one month later.
The 1976 Covenant Annual Meeting that vote in affirmation of the ordination of women was the first Annual Meeting Carol participated in as a delegate, representing her home church, Bethany Covenant Church in Cloquet, Minnesota. She recalls, “I had a professor at Bethel that told me he would help me to gain ordination in the Presbyterian Church if the vote did not go through.” As a result of the affirmative vote, Carol attended North Park Theological Seminary for one year of Covenant Orientation. This provided an opportunity to learn more about the theological diversity of her denomination.
With her educational credentials in hand, it was now time for Carol to seek ordination in the Covenant. In September 1977, Carol was called as minister of youth and community outreach at Kensington Road Covenant Church in Calgary, Alberta. There she served with Rev. Keith Fullerton, a leading advocate for women in ministry. One year later, Rev. Fullerton was elected to become the superintendent of the Canada Conference. When the church called a new senior pastor, Carol tendered her resignation. Carol observes, “Policy at that time was that when a new pastor was called, pastoral staff turned in their resignations.”
The Rev. Wendell B. Anderson invited Carol to join the faculty at Covenant Bible College (CBC) in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where she served for nine months. While teaching at CBC, Carol met her husband, Craig A. Nordstrom, a quirky, bookish seminary intern with a melancholic personality. Craig thrilled Carol when he presented her with the ten-volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament in lieu of an engagement ring. They married in June 1980 after leading thirteen students in a 5,000-mile gospel team concert tour across the Canada Conference.
Carol was elected to the ECC’s Board of Women’s Work in 1978 and represented that body at the Covenant Leadership Conference in 1979. She later went on to serve on the Board of Publications and the Board of Nominations.
While her husband Craig served his first pastorate at Siren Covenant Church in Siren, Wisconsin, Carol provided supply preaching at two Lutheran congregations and one Methodist church. During this time, Carol wrote articles for publication, spoke at Bible camps and women’s retreats, and began a Doctor of Ministry degree at Luther-Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Carol earned her DMin in 1987 with a doctoral thesis titled, “Clergy Couple Ministry in the Evangelical Covenant Church”—a study she continued to apply in a group for clergy couples she launched and led at the Midwinter Conference.
Carol and Craig strongly felt God’s call to serve as a clergy couple in a Covenant congregation. After sixteen months without call, they began their ministry together at Garyton Covenant Church in Portage, Indiana, a congregation they served for six years and saw the church flourish by God’s grace and much hard work!
In 1992 Carol was called to become the Executive Director of Wellspring, a Covenant ministry in Chicago providing residential services for domestic violence survivors and their children. There she developed skills for fundraising and organizational administration. She continued to preach in Covenant congregations that supported this ministry. While serving at Wellspring, Carol became the first woman to serve as the chair of the Central Conference Ministerial Association.
In 1998 Carol was called to serve as the Executive Director of Christian Community Action in Valparaiso, Indiania. This organization operated a therapeutic residence for women diagnosed with severe psychiatric disorders and provided both a homelessness prevention program and housing for families without a place to live. During her tenure, Carol greatly expanded community support, often by preaching at supporting congregations. “We raised 2.2 million dollars to purchase and renovate a shelter, raising the census from eight to twenty-eight families.”
Carol did fulfill her dream of teaching biblical studies by joining the adjunct faculty of Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois, and later at Indiana Wesleyan University at their Merrillville, Indiana, campus.
God also remembered his promise to Carol to guide her and support her in parish ministry, going on to serve as the pastor of Salem United Church of Christ in Wanatah, Indiana, for seven years (2009–2016). This was a congregation descended from the German pietists that influenced the early Covenant Church in Sweden. “God graced me with a church that loved me and Craig and still loves us.” During her time at Salem, Carol mentored a young woman who went on to seminary and is currently the pastor of the congregation.
Carol and Craig Nordstrom currently reside in Beverly Shores, Indiania, and have been married for forty-five years. Both Craig and Carol continue to serve as supply ministers in five area churches. Carol continues to offer grant research for congregations seeking to expand their ministries.
Carol continues to be led by the benedictory words in Ephesians, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” (Ephesians 3:20–21, 4:1, NRSV)