REV. DR. JACKIE FRAZIER ROESE

FOUNDER

Dr. Jackie Roese grew up working on her family farm in upstate New York. She focused that work ethic in pursuing her Masters and Doctorate degrees while raising three children. She has taught the scriptures and trained other women to do the same for more than 25 years.

She served as the Teaching Pastor to Women in a large church in Texas. While there she envisioned, wrote, and oversaw the development of over 15 bible studies studied by women around the world. In 2008 she became the first female to preach at her church and became a part of the Sunday morning preaching team.

In 2009 while working on her doctorate she developed, She Can Teach, a course that trains women to teach the Bible effectively. To coincide with the course, in 2013 Jackie published her first book, She Can Teach: Training Women to Teach the Scriptures Effectively. She’s trained women here and abroad to preach through her She Can Teach course.

In 2012, Jackie founded The Marcella Project, an organization committed to reshaping the view of women. The Marcella Project’s goal is to ennoble women (lift up to dignity as Jesus intended) through Scripture-focused teaching, training, and dialogue. In 2015 Jackie wrote her second book, Lime Green: Reshaping Our View of Women in the Church. Jackie also speaks around the U.S. at conferences and retreats.

In 2018 Jackie Roese authored I’m Enough: Learning to Live Confidently in Our Own Skin, and co-authored Relationshift: A New Conversation about Men and Women. She also created an I’m Enough Online Masterclass that empowers women to embrace who God made them to be.

She has had the opportunity to teach and train women in Rwanda, Romania, and South Sudan. She and her husband, Steve, were influential in the start-up of the micro-finance organization called, AWI, African Women’s Initiative. She has been married to Steve, Founder & President of Water Is Basic, for more than 30 years and has three adult children, Hunter, Hampton, and Madison.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

RAY BEFUS

BOARD MEMBER

After graduating Calvin College and Dallas Theological Seminary, Ray gave his life to fulfilling a pastoral calling. He and his wife found a home in the VineyardUSA—a community of churches—and planted the Vineyard North congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Today they serve as regional leaders, overseeing some 25 pastoral teams and congregations. Ray is currently making a professional transition from full-time pastoral work to develop High Point Training & Coaching, where he works with business and non-profit leadership teams to offer experiential training and executive coaching. He brings a lifetime of experience in strategic planning, leadership development, conflict resolution, Biblical exegesis, and theological reflection.

NANCY POLLARD

Board Member

Nancy graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English Literature and a concentration in Women's Studies; she then earned a J.D. from Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law and practiced as a Trusts & Estates attorney in Dallas and Austin. She currently lives in Austin with her husband Mark and runs a small business from home while raising her 2, 3, and 4 year old sons, Clark, Adam, and Simon, and three large rescue dogs, Monkey and Gus. Nancy has experience serving on a variety of non-profit boards.

PETER WELLS

BOARD MEMBER

Dr. Peter Wells received his Doctorate in Medicine from the Indiana University School of Medicine, completed his Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine at Vanderbilt University and a Fellowship in Cardiology and Electrophysiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where he then served on the faculty. He spent the next 15 years as the Director of the Cardiology Fellowship Training Program at Baylor University Medical Center. Over 30-plus years of work Peter has done teaching, research and writing as an expert in cardiac electrophysiology. He has been interested in the roles of men in the church and the family and has co-led seminars and men’s retreats. He and his wife, Linda, have done extensive research on leadership roles in the Church and coauthored a position paper on women as elders. Linda and Peter have two grown children, Derek (31) and Camille (24). No grandchildren, but two grand-dogs. (And Peter loves to fly fish!)

OUR ORIGIN

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

After more than a decade working as a leader in a megachurch and speaking at women’s conferences around the US, Jackie Roese realized she was bumping into the same thing again and again. Women all over the country were struggling with issues of covert gender injustice – the Church viewed them as second-class, and their view of themselves was often second-class, too. Where Scripture should have brought freedom from bondage, it was being taught in a way that oppressed women in faith communities.

Knowing that gender issues are complex and widespread, we began asking: what can we do? What is our tiny piece of this enormous pie? There are incredible organizations tackling issues of gender injustice in practical ways that provide support and aid and bring freedom and empowerment. Their work is invaluable, but we realized that no matter how gender issues present themselves, they continue to exist because of the core belief systems that created them. Tackling the root belief systems that enable gender injustice to exist is our piece of the pie.

So we set out to teach the word of God in a way that ennobles women – dignifying them and lifting them up to nobility, just as Jesus intended. We wanted to reshape the way women view themselves and the way the faith community views women, so that the Church can change what's happening to women and girls around the world. In 2012, The Marcella Project was founded to reshape our view of women in the Church through Scripture-focused teaching, training, and dialogue.

THE STORY BEHIND THE NAME

Marcella epitomizes what it means to not succumb to the world’s ideal of “what it means to be a woman." Instead, she chased after Jesus, letting his love define who she would be. She let nothing get in the way of her pursuit to know God through the Word and to live like Jesus by caring for the poor.

Her story challenges us to be “Marcellas” in our world. This means pursuing Jesus at all costs and even defying our world’s ideal of womanhood by allowing our love for Jesus to define who we will be and how we will live. Watch the video to hear more about Marcella's story.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, CHRISTIANS HAVE TRADITIONALLY GATHERED IN WORSHIP AND RECITED THE SAME CREEDS TOGETHER - THE APOSTLE'S CREED, THE NICENE CREED. THE CREEDS ARE INTENDED TO BE ESSENTIAL STATEMENTS OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN FAITH, BOTH TEACHING AND IDENTIFYING CONFORMITY OF BELIEFS, WHILE SERVING AS A VEHICLE FOR COLLECTIVE, PUBLIC PROFESSION OF FAITH. THE NICENE CREED, ESTABLISHED IN 325 AD, IS ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY ACCEPTED STATEMENTS OF FAITH AMONG CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.

The team at The Marcella Project decided that rather than trying to create a modern version of the beliefs so poignantly defined in the Nicene Creed, it would be more fitting to join our rich Christian heritage and proclaim, as so many Christians before us and so many Christians will for centuries to come, what we believe by reciting this Creed as our public profession of faith.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,

By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered, died and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures;
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father (and the Son)
Who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
Who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Contemporary Version (Prepared by the International Consultation on English Texts)