Introducing Connected in Ministry: A Staff Spotlight Series. First up is Lisa Batten, Associate Director of Intercultural Resourcing, Leadership, and Fund Development. Her farm upbringing, love of grant writing, and gift for helping others move from scarcity to abundance shape how she serves Michigan’s clergy and laity.
Editor’s note: This is part of a new series — Connected in Ministry: A Staff Spotlight Series — spotlighting Michigan Conference staff members. You’ll get to know them better, hear what brings them joy in their work, and learn how their ministry helps local churches fulfill their calling and mission. Read the full series.
Every summer and well into fall, Lisa Batten puts up the harvest. The fruits and vegetables of southwest Michigan go into jars, which then go onto shelves to be enjoyed in winter, and some of them leave the house again as gifts. The work is patient. It assumes a future and plans for someone else’s table, which also describes her job fairly well.
Batten grew up on a livestock and grain farm in the same corner of the state, not far from where her father was raised. Her mother emigrated from Germany, and the family spent its vacations in what was then West Germany, visiting grandparents and extended family. She says those summers formed her deeply. She admits they also gave her a fondness for sauerkraut.
Ministry came as a second career after about ten years of lay work, which she describes as a steady climb. She started volunteering at Vacation Bible School, worked her way up to youth ministry and then campus ministry, “and now the church allows me to work with regular old adults.” Beneath the joke is something she saw again and again. Young people changed when the church showed up for them in loving ways and gave them a place to belong.
Much of her sense of belonging was formed at Three Rivers: Center Park UMC, where she and her husband raised their family and where both were baptized by Rev. Alice Fleming Townley. People there gave Batten room to lead, and when she made mistakes, they met her with grace. One of them, Naomi García, taught her how church systems work and kept reminding her that we are all God’s favorite.
As Associate Director of Intercultural Resourcing, Leadership, and Fund Development, Batten works in three areas that don’t obviously belong together: leadership development, fund development, and multicultural resourcing. She spends her days with clergy and lay leaders from local churches, campus ministers, and young adult leaders, and she writes grants for conference-related ministries and programs. The thread running through it all, she says, is the liberating power of inner work. People who have done their own individual work show up in a group “less anxious, more curious,” and ready to find creative answers to what the church faces.
The grant-writing workshops Batten leads have brought unexpected delight. She has watched pastors and laity get excited about funding ministry beyond the offering plate. A good grant proposal goes beyond the money and challenges a congregation to say plainly who God is calling them to serve and why it matters. Watching people capture the excitement of telling their ministry story and inviting others into it, she says, is “so fun.”
What she loves most is seeing a person or a group shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. What worries her is the exhaustion she witnesses in local churches. Too many clergy and laity are stretched beyond what they can carry, and even the most useful workshop can’t help someone who has no evening left to attend it.
When things get busy, she turns to contemplative prayer: praying scripture through Lectio Divina, sitting with a painting in Visio Divina, or entering Scripture imaginatively. Lately, she has added somatic practices. “Also,” she says, “remembering to breathe is always good.”
Batten enjoys spending time with people she knows and who know her. That circle includes three grown children, a young man from Uganda whom the family has come to love as one of its own, and three grandsons, the oldest not yet four. In the car, you might also hear a hair band,’70s rock, or Motown. She attended many concerts in her younger years and never lost her taste.
Her hopes are easy to say and yet hard to live: connect people to one another and to the resources they need, break down what divides them, and spread joy. “I am here for laity and clergy,” she says, “who want to grow as followers of Jesus and serve all of God’s people in ways that are grounded in abundance.”
Lisa Batten’s work alongside leaders and congregations across Michigan is made possible by the Ministry Shares your church faithfully contributes to the Michigan Conference. Thank you!
This article was written from a questionnaire completed by the featured individual and then edited by Michigan Conference staff with the assistance of AI.
Last Updated on September 29, 2026