Rev. Kara Heagel (photo by J.Lynn Studios)

One of the beautiful gifts of Scripture is its ability to capture, in words or images, the human experience of God's work and how God calls people into mission and ministry. Rev. Kara Heagel, one of the clergy members commissioned at the 2025 Dakotas Annual Conference, experienced this in a powerful way recently. "I preached on Luke 5 – when Jesus called the first disciples – and the line and the image that kept."

As she reflected on her call to ministry, Kara resonated with Jesus' gentle yet persistent invitation to explore new waters.

"I'm over here doing my own thing, and then I look over and Jesus is sitting here waiting for me to get in so that we can go learn something," reflected Pastor Kara.

Following Jesus and learning something new about herself and her calling has been a consistent theme in Kara's journey. Kara grew up in Watertown, South Dakota, where she and her family were a part of First United Methodist Church. As the granddaughter of a United Methodist elder (Rev. Boyd Blumer), the church was always a significant part of her life, including participating in conference leadership through the Conference Council on Youth Ministries during high school. Following graduation, she enrolled at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Although she was on track to be an engineer, Jesus invited her to explore some new possibilities for her life and calling.

"I began wondering, 'what does pastoral ministry look like?'" she recalled.

Opening day of "The Big Bean"

This nudging of the Spirit led to an Elisha internship for The Bridge UMC, a new church plant, as well as serving as the Connections Coordinator at First UMC in Rapid City. These experiences affirmed that the next step in her journey would be seminary at Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C. During that time, she served as the student pastor in New Freedom, Pennsylvania. She also met and married her husband, Adam.

"It's just been moments of 'try this and see what you can learn from it' and then seeing how it all culminates together to what I'm called to do right now," explained Kara.

That culmination of learning has led Pastor Kara to discern that her calling was not to ministry as a lead pastor in a local church. This realization helped guide her to the Deacon track for ordination in order to be a bridge from the church to the world. It also helped lead her to a unique expression of ministry.

"What I'm doing right now is mostly managing a coffee shop and working in pastoral ministry through that by engaging customers in what I like to call 'micro-dosing scripture' every day," explained Kara.

The vision for this ministry began when Kara first started working at the coffee shop, and customers would discover that she was a transplant from South Dakota who had attended seminary and now worked at a coffee shop. This discovery sparked a desire in people for more spiritual conversations and deeper connections.

Coffee shop staff stuffing stockings for elders in the community.

"It really started with a few people, and then they'll come in with a friend and say, 'This is the pastor that works in the coffee shop, and you know, and she has a question.' So then they start coming in every day and asking what our question for the day is," she explained.

That "question" is the theological question of the day – an approach to evangelism and discipleship that has resonated deeply with some of the coffee shop regulars.

"On my way to work in the morning, I listen to a devotion and then spend the rest of the drive reflecting on it," described Pastor Kara. "Then I have 30 minutes of opening the coffee shop, where I'm still thinking about this devotion, and I come up with a theological question of the day."

"Customers will come in and ask, 'Kara, what's the question today?' So we get to engage in different ways in ministry," she explained. "That really drives me, and my goal for the day becomes, 'How can I engage with people and show love and joy and hope to everyone that we interact with?'"

"I am fueled by giving other people joy. That's what gives me the most joy," she added.

The joy of living out this unique vocational calling is not without its challenges.

"It's a challenge to find creative ways to do ministry and pastoral ministry in this space where we can't be upfront and outward about it because we're not a Christian coffee shop," explained Kara. "The owners are very clear – we don't want to be a Christian coffee shop, but we really like this idea that there's a Deacon that's running our coffee shop."

Sharing God's love through coffee.

"The challenge is, how do we do ministry like this? What does coffee shop ministry look like in a secular space?" said Kara.

But persevering through the challenge of not having a clear playbook is also gratifying.

"Finding the little thing that unlocks the next piece is a huge joy, and it gives me the drive to keep going through the next struggle," she added.

Pastor Kara also has people in her life who help her navigate the joys and challenges of innovative ministry as well as ministry in general.

"One person who has been a huge inspiration is Chelsea," she shared. "I went to seminary with her, and she started 'The Kitchen Collective' with the Peninsula-Delaware Conference [of the United Methodist Church.] What they're doing is going into churches – specifically small churches that have commercial kitchens – and making them into co-op spaces for home bakers to be able to bake in a commercial space."

"They're doing this ministry with the church but also asking, 'how do we take it a step further to engage people and make it a discipleship thing?' She's been doing some really cool things through it, and so watching her and talking with her has helped me see, 'You can do this! We can figure this out. We can find the discipleship piece in this," said Pastor Kara.

"The Lewis Center [for Church Leadership] has been a pretty good resource for creative ways to do ministry, and the church that we go to here – Severna Park United Methodist Church – is insanely supportive since they found out that I was working there," said Pastor Kara. "We have 5 or 6 small groups from that church that meet in the coffee shop, so it's a really cool partnership, and that's really energizing."

Kara has also experienced the blessing of a family connection in ministry through regular conversations with her Grandpa Boyd.

 "We've been chit-chatting more often, and he has so much knowledge," she shared. "We also chat about hard times in ministry, and I need to hear that because it's not always easy."

Despite the challenges of blazing new trails in mission and ministry, Pastor Kara is encouraged by what she sees as a renewed spirit of innovation and support in the United Methodist Church.

Ministry beyond the wall of the church.

"One of the things [that gives me hope] is just continually seeing how many new and different things the United Methodist Church in general is doing to try and engage ministry in different ways," she said. "I was listening to a podcast the other day that was featuring a pastor and she was talking about how in her denomination they need to figure out how to get outside of the church walls and go do things and be with people and I thought, 'I feel like the United Methodist Church is doing that pretty well' and so that was really hopeful for me."

"I think especially since General Conference, people are trying to shift with current times to engage in ministry in different ways and do different things to keep the church alive," she added.

Pastor Kara also finds hope in the teenagers she works with at the coffee shop.

"I see this light inside of them that they're so on fire to do good in the world and to share joy with people and to just be happy, hopeful people," she shared. "It's really exciting to see for whatever that they're going to do in their life."

When asked how her Dakotas United Methodist family can be praying for her, Pastor Kara replied, "Prayers for discernment are always much appreciated – discernment of what ministry outside of the church walls looks like, where can we try and reach people and do something different. That's my number one daily prayer every morning."