Answering the call to serve
Each month "Transitions" profiles an individual who has made significant changes in his or her work life and highlights the techniques used to make the changes.
Eileen Morris, 52
Career transition: From software consultant to minister.
What she used to do: Owned and operated her own software consulting and training firm.
What she does now: Acting associate minister, Wellesley Hills Congregational Church, with responsibility for youth ministry and outreach.
Making the switch: For Eileen Morris, the call to the ministry came early in life. But as her story reveals, she was unable to answer it for more than 30 years.
From the time she was very young, Morris was active in church life. She was baptized at age 3 by the man she calls her "spiritual mentor" and who was also the father of her best friend. At age 6, she accompanied her friend and her friend's father on ministerial trips to veterans' hospitals. When she had free time she "played church, not store or school," she said, even "baptizing" the cats and dogs in her family's barn.
"Church was my home - always," says Morris, who was active in youth groups, fellowship, and music programs.
At age 16, when she was on a trip to New York City with friends from high school, she vividly remembers a voice inside her urging her to "be a pastor, lead a church." But when she talked to the minister and her school guidance counselor about this direction, they both said the ministry was not something women were really doing and that there were other ways to serve. And so Morris embarked upon her career journey.
Graduating from high school in 1971, she became the first in her family to go to college, entering The Boston Conservatory with the aim of becoming an elementary school music teacher. But after 2 1/2 years she had to drop out due to lack of funds.
Having worked part time during college figuring payroll for an all-night diner, she was able to land an entry-level job as a bookkeeping clerk. Within a year she was able to parlay this early experience into a higher-level position.
Feeling encouraged by her success in her newfound line of work, she enrolled in Bunker Hill Community College at night in accounting. "My feeling was," says Morris, "I fell into it, I might as well make the most of it."
At age 20, Morris met and married a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student. Now living in Woburn, she became active in the local Congregational church as a volunteer and paid soloist in the choir. Later she became more involved, producing Christian-themed musicals with the youth group.
Meanwhile, she took another step up professionally when she was hired as a bookkeeper for a furniture manufacturer. Then, in 1979, her husband was transferred to San Francisco. She gave her notice and moved to the West Coast where she landed a position at Stanford University working in the controller's office as a bookkeeping supervisor for grants and contracts.
Morris also discovered the University of Phoenix, which gave students credit for life skills. She transferred her credits from the Boston Conservatory and Bunker Hill, took courses in statistics, psychology, and management, put together a portfolio of materials addressing her previous work, and wrote a thesis in which she designed a system to automate the recordkeeping of the Stanford grants and contracts. She earned her bachelor's of science in business administration in 1981.
Then, her husband was transferred back to Boston. The couple bought a house in Winchester, and Morris became controller at venture capital firm Charles River Partnership.
Morris became active in the First Congregational Church in Winchester. She also got pregnant in 1983, but the pregnancy was not an easy one. She was bedridden for the final two months, and both mother and child were ill at the time of birth. She had left her job to have the baby. Then, when their son was 18 months old, her husband left the family.
Distraught and still sick, while driving with her infant son back from New Hampshire one day, Morris heard the same voice from years before, urging her to become a pastor. "This was my second clear call to the ministry," says Morris.
But at that point, with a small child to care for on her own, no income, and in poor health, further education was out of the question. She took a job with a high-end women's clothier, which afforded her the hours she needed, and she knew once again that she'd have to find other ways to serve.
Within two years, she entered a start-up computer business with a partner, putting her financial experience back to work selling computer-based accounting systems. Ten years later, after a successful run, she went out on her own.
During this time Morris also met and married her second husband in 1993. With the shape of her new life emerging, Morris then recalls another pivotal moment.
"Would you be willing to be me this Sunday?" a young associate minister at her church asked Morris one day. Morris agreed and did so well preparing the Congregational prayer and reading the scripture that the church carved out a role for her as a substitute minister.
Later she was challenged by the young minister: "What are you doing with your life? Why aren't you in divinity school?" Morris's reply was that she had always found other ways to serve.
Morris was told that, through an endowment fund, her church would be able to underwrite the bulk of her divinity school tuition. So in January 2001, Morris applied to Andover Newton Theological School. She was admitted in March.
If it was ever going to happen, Morris knew, this was the time. Her tuition was covered, and she had a supportive husband whose income would allow her to leave the workforce for a time. "I said goodbye to over 300 customers I'd built up over six years, closed my doors in June 2001, and stared divinity school on Sept. 11, 2001," she says.
She was awarded a master's of divinity degree in May 2004. She was serving in a temporary position as pastor at a Newton church when the call went out for a youth minister at Wellesley Hills Congregational Church. She applied for and got the job.
''This is a big church. My business background is very helpful here," she says, discussing the challenges of preparing programs for dozens of children and parents for a weekend retreat. Morris is also "passionate about outreach," whereby the church serves the community and service organizations. "There are many ways we can show the love of God," Morris says.
While her current position is part time, Morris said she puts in 40 or more hours a week. "A lot of what I do happens at night and on the weekend," she says, referring to the youth groups, committee meetings, and Sunday services.
Morris feels fortunate to have a supportive spouse with an additional income so that together they can make ends meet. "I certainly made more money before," says Morris, who says that obtaining a full-time ministerial position is her goal.
"I've never done anything that felt so right before. But I could not have done this work one hour earlier in my life," she says. "Parts of my life have been incredibly hard. And I wondered at the time, 'Why am I going through this?' Now I know."
Do you have a career transition story you would be willing to share? If so, please let us know at transitions@bostonworks.com. Be sure to include your name, phone number, and e-mail address along with a brief description of your career change. 