Connected in Ministry: A Staff Spotlight Series continues with Karin VanderMolen, Statistician/Database Manager, who spent 32 years at Owosso: First UMC before joining the conference team this year.
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.
Karin VanderMolen almost said no. At 25, she was a student at Baker College in Owosso when a professor mentioned that her church, Owosso: First UMC, needed an administrative assistant. VanderMolen applied and, during the interview, sat face-to-face with Rev. Carol J. Johns, her former high school principal, and the teacher who had taught her office skills at Owosso High. (“Small towns, right?”) After a second interview, she got the job.
Then she turned it down. One part of the work scared her: sitting with families who had just lost someone. She was young, hadn’t known much about death, and wasn’t sure she could do it.
Pastor Carol asked her to try it for thirty days.
VanderMolen stayed 32 years and worked with eight pastors. At 27, she was baptized and joined the congregation, and the people of Owosso: First became a second family to her and her kids, and at times to her extended family as well. They were with her through a struggle with infertility, the birth and raising of twins, the deaths of her parents, and a divorce. They are with her now for an engagement and a wedding. Along the way, she volunteered in the nursery, taught children’s Sunday school, helped with VBS and the youth group, and was active in the women’s group. The friendships have endured.
This spring, the church had to reduce her hours to part-time, which she couldn’t make work. Around the same time, the Michigan Conference’s statistician, Pamela Stewart, retired. VanderMolen applied for the opening and got it. She is grateful, she says, to still be connected to the United Methodist Church.
Her new work is quieter than the old, yet just as necessary. Pastors and lay leaders call her for help with Brick River, the database the conference uses to keep track of churches and the people who lead them. She gets them access, updates their information, and records leadership assignments. When a pastor receives a new appointment, she enters the change. She runs queries and pulls data for district offices and conference staff. In January, when annual statistics come due, she’ll help local church staff submit their numbers, then review them and prepare them for the conference Journal.
That review is what she most wants church members to understand. The yearly reports are read line by line, now by her, which is why she asks churches to take care that their numbers are right. The conference depends on them.
She is candid that two months in, she hasn’t yet had a defining moment in the new role. Her three decades at Owosso: First supplied plenty of those. For now, she enjoys the teamwork with conference and district colleagues. The hardest part is learning a new job, and everyone, she says, has been patient with her questions.
People might be surprised to learn that the woman who keeps the conference’s records straight has run a Tough Mudder and the Mud Girl Run, a noncompetitive obstacle course that raises money and awareness for breast cancer. She loves that the women help each other over the obstacles instead of racing past one another. She also likes getting muddy.
Most of her time off belongs to family. Her twins, Matthew and Faith, are 24, and Faith lives with her in Owosso. She and her fiancé play cribbage most days, and once a month her cousins come over for a potluck and cards. She works out during her lunch hour, and enjoys sleeping in and stopping by the farmers market on Saturdays. When life gets hectic, a walk and some deep breaths settle her, along with Philippians 4:13 and two hymns she loves, “Lord of the Dance” and “Spirit Song.”
Her hope for readers is plain. She says the conference staff is there to serve local churches and help them succeed in growing disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Karin VanderMolen’s work keeping your church’s records accurate and current is supported by the Ministry Shares your church faithfully contributes to the Michigan Conference.
This article was written from a questionnaire completed by the featured individual and then edited by Michigan Conference staff with AI assistance.
Last Updated on October 20, 2026