Profiles of Roothbert: Reverend Dr. Phaedra D. Blocker
“I had never thought about becoming a preacher,” began Dr. Phaedra Blocker, an ordained minister and professor at Palmer Theological Seminary. “And when God called me to preaching and pastoral ministry, I had a pretty long list of reasons why that was probably a bad idea. But God didn’t agree.”
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Phaedra became a Roothbert Fellow in 2013. “I was looking for support in my doctoral work in spiritual transformation at Northern Theological Seminary,” explained Phaedra. Within the Roothbert Fund, Phaedra found an intentional community, an opportunity to simply hear and share different perspectives, and come to know people she might not have otherwise met. “The opportunity to be in a space with people of so many backgrounds, cultures, and faith traditions was wonderful.”
Phaedra did not grow up in a church setting. While church made the occasional appearance in her life, it was not a constant. “My maternal grandmother and mom attended a church for many years, but eventually moved on from there, and after getting married my mom couldn’t find a place where she really wanted to settle, so we visited local churches occasionally. My dad was a believer in God and a seeker, in part, I think because a lot of his early life was with his grandmother, who was an Orthodox Jew. He had questions! By the time I got to high school, however, I would sometimes spend the night with my best friend in West Philly, and we’d attend the Presbyterian church right around the corner from her.”
As Phaedra grew older, she grew more into her spirituality and assumed a more active role in choosing her faith tradition. “I eventually joined that same Presbyterian church in West Philly, and I stayed there up through college until I moved to New York to work.” When she returned to Philadelphia a few years later, she began attending the Baptist church that her mother and grandmother had recently joined. For many years, Phaedra considered church a place of nurture and growth, and a place through which to “give back” to the community. But then God came calling.
“I spent a few weeks trying to talk God out of this call to ministry,” admitted Phaedra. “I was very involved in different ministries at my church, but there weren’t a lot of models for women in preaching and pastoral ministry that resonated with me at the time. It wasn’t until I heard women like Rev. Barbara Gunn and Rev. Wanda Sawyer, who used to come to our church annually to preach, that I began to see the possibilities for me to step into that role.” Eventually, Phaedra realized that her own personality and values, her own way of being, could manifest an authentic model of ministry. “God led me to seminary where I eventually gave my wholehearted yes—with some trepidation. She was later licensed and ordained, first serving as an associate pastor for a large church in the Germantown/Mount Airy section of Philadelphia, and later as an assistant pastor for a small, Liberian congregation in West Philadelphia. It was during this time, as well, that she was invited to teach at Palmer Seminary.
For Phaedra, ministry assumes many forms. With a background in management, communications, consulting, and organizational development, as well as counseling and pastoral care, Phaedra has served in multiple contexts—often at the same time! “The primary ways that ministry has manifested for me has been preaching, teaching, and singing. It’s a trinitarian experience,” she says, laughing. “But I never seem to get far from the other pieces either. I love that.” She often characterizes her journey thus far as the connecting of the many, at times seemingly unrelated, dots God has put in front of her. “At times, I didn’t see how any of these endeavors had something to do with others, but then sometimes years later, I see how the most disparate things all of a sudden connect. Sitting here, almost a couple decades later, it’s really fascinating to think about that trajectory.”
These days, Phaedra’s work orbits around spiritual formation and leadership development, guiding others toward wholeness. “Wholeness for me is emotional as well as spiritual and physical, and transformation is not just externalized behavior or internalized spiritual navel-gazing, but rather how we live out our lives, who we are becoming as people and how we walk in the world.” “I am very grounded in the concept that we are created in the image of God,” she shared, “which transcends any notions about what church you go to, your faith, or your tradition. I also believe that we are intended to become the fullest image of God that we were designed to be in the world. Some of us get closer to that than others during our lifetime. For me, that ‘getting closer’ happens as we increasingly embrace the invitation to follow Christ.”
Phaedra advocates for a contemplative response to this invitation, which is not “just sitting there and waiting for stuff to fall out of the sky,” but rather cultivating an awareness of God’s presence, movement, and function. “It’s not that we don’t have any agency. If we are being intentional about our journey, we are continually adjusting our lives to live into the sacred rhythms that help us find healing and wholeness and what we, in my tradition, would call ‘Christlikeness.’ That’s about real life in real time. In the course of my everyday life, I do a lot of planning. I have a lot of structure and process—but with an element of spaciousness. I’ve learned that everything you map out does not need to be held so tightly. I believe that we have to make room for God to act—and to guide us in our acting.”
A key part of this spaciousness, according to Phaedra, is understanding that the journey is far from linear. “Part of my own growth has been in getting more comfortable with the fact that the plan in my head is not necessarily God’s plan. It may be a circuitous path, but it ends up being a path of intentionality that brings me in contact with certain people and a certain context to do certain work. And that’s where trust comes in. “I have asked God for a memo many times, and it has never shown up. So, I have just had to learn to trust. As I get older, I grow increasingly comfortable with that. God has a way of sending us on what seems like a meandering path, and sometimes you have to take two steps back to take three steps forward, but often it’s because the journey itself is the point rather than where we think we may be trying to go.”
“I am clear that where I am now is not where I was 25 years ago. I had to grow in my own intentionality around my own journey. There are times when I don’t get it right, but the grace of God and a sense of intimacy with God means realizing that that does not make you any less cherished by God. It makes you human.”