Christian Education Director, Betsy LaVela

Betsy serves as the Children/Family Pastor leading the transformation ministries since 2006. She holds a Masters in Divinity from Bethel Seminary (’10, summa cum laude) with a concentration in Children/Family ministry and currently serves on the Bishop of New Jersey’s lifelong formation committee. Since 1995, Betsy has been leading ministry initiatives. She has led children’s ministries internationally, in a church plant, in non-denominational churches and in Episcopal churches. Three years ago she introduced VIBE a family oriented VBS at St. Luke’s, leads a new outreach to recent graduates, founded the St. Nicholas Children’s choir, and initiated a backpack outreach to preschool families in Elizabeth. She has written and produced pageants, plays, children’s guides to baptism, and the Episcopal Eucharist, and a liturgical primer for young children. Her “Resources for Children/Family Ministry Leaders” can be found in ministry resource rooms worldwide. Betsy is an innovator with a marketing communications background (former marketing communications manager with Gandalf Technologies) and a double degree in Biology and English from Wittenberg University. Born in Delaware, raised in the Detroit area, Betsy has two adult children and celebrated 30 years of marriage to her husband Joe by participating in Serve the City Amsterdam, the city where she was called to serve children and families. Betsy, a bi-vocational pastor, also specializes in early childhood music as a Kindermusik teacher on the staff of the Judith Wharton Music Center where she teaches urban preschool outreach programs in Morristown, Elizabeth and Irvington. Website: http://orange4families.com