Meet Our Minister

Rev. Theisen (pronounced, "Tyson"), is a native of Detroit. She began high school at Regina High (sister school of Notre Dame) in Harper Woods, Michigan, before moving to Florida with her family at age 16, to complete high school at St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale. She obtained her first degrees in English and Art, at Barry University in Miami then embarked on a career in journalism and advertising at New Woman Magazine, headquartered at that time in Fort Lauderdale.

Following ten years in advertising, culminating at Young and Rubicam Ad Agency and RKM Sound Studios, both in Atlanta, Rev. Theisen entered Meadville/Lombard Theological School and University of Chicago, to obtain her M.A. in Divinity in 1979 and doctorate in Ministry in 1981.

After serving two congregations as settled minister -- six years with the Tallahassee, Florida congregation and seven with East Lansing, Michigan -- she found what she sees as her true calling -- Interim Ministry, a field placement of one or two years assisting congregations that have recently lost their ministers prepare to make successful next matches.

After three years additional training in Boston on the specifics of Interim Ministry, Rev. Theisen achieved accreditation, becoming an Accredited Interim Minister or AIM. Fort Myers is her 9th Interim congregation.

In 1998, she married Dr. Charles A. Oke, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. His assignment to help Plan and Prepare for a possible Bird Flu Pandemic took him from Atlanta to NIOSH in Pittsburgh, now wholly controlled by CDC; after 10 years, they continue a commuter marriage, which was not the original plan.

Drs. Theisen and Oke share two sons who are in college: Charles, Jr., 21, a senior at Texas Southern in Houston and Sam, 19, a third-year cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Both are currently taking a year abroad at Covenant University in Nigeria, a nondenominational Christian college of near military-school style, which they chose. We are, as you can imagine, incredibly proud of them both, different as they are -- one the jock, hoping to own his own fitness center after obtaining a degree in business and the other a scholar, hoping to use his facility with languages and an engineering degree in service of the aerospace industry.

Having served Interim Churches in Ohio, Michigan, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana and Nebraska, Rev. Theisen is delighted to return to Florida. Her large extended family has many members in Florida -- including a sister Clarissa and family in Lake Placid and nephew Jeff and family right here in Ft. Myers. She says the view from her window makes her smile, because it looks like home.

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