In Episode 6 of The Brenton Peck Podcast, I’m joined by Reverend Dr. V. Jean Thomas — Early Childhood Pastor at Nampa First Church of the Nazarene and adjunct professor at Northwest Nazarene University.

Jean shares her journey from college into pastoral ministry, her call into children’s ministry, and her years of pursuing her master’s and doctorate. She offers an honest look at the spiritual, emotional, and academic formation behind a life spent serving families and the church.

We also explore the hidden pressures mothers carry today — the cultural expectations, the tension between calling and family, the exhaustion that pushed her into deeper research, and the hope she offers in her book Mothering, God, and the Mothering God. Jean’s story brings pastoral wisdom, academic insight, and personal honesty.

This is a conversation about faith, ministry, motherhood, identity, calling, and the God who meets us in both the sacred and the ordinary.

Rev. Dr. V. Jean Thomas is an Early Childhood Pastor at Nampa First Church of the Nazarene and adjunct professor at Northwest Nazarene University. With deep experience in children’s ministry, pastoral leadership, and academic research, she is passionate about forming families in faith and creating spaces where young children encounter the love of God.

Her book, Mothering, God, and the Mothering God, explores theological frameworks of motherhood, cultural pressures on women, and the spiritual invitation of raising children. Jean blends pastoral insight with lived experience, offering compassionate wisdom for mothers, ministers, and anyone carrying the weight of calling and family.

• The call to ministry (Isaiah 6, prayer, seeing women pastor for the first time)

• Why children’s ministry matters — “not childcare; it’s worship”

• Marriage, dual calling, seminary, and ordination

• Pandemic pivots: Zoom preschool + “Church for Littles”

• What stuck after COVID: simple discipleship and relationship-first ministry

• Motherhood & ministry fatigue → research that led to her book

• How individualism shaped modern expectations for mothers

• Baby dedications & the church as family, not spectators

• Relational idolatry — Christ-first, not child-first

• Industrial Revolution → nuclear family → generational drift

• After kids: gatekeeping, partnership drift, invisible pressures

• Shared responsibility + building a healthy family system

• Writing her book + why theology matters for modern motherhood

• Faith & Formation

• Family, Fatherhood & Legacy

• Responsibility & Becoming

• Story & Identity

👍 V. Jean Thomas on Facebook

📕 Mothering, God, and the Mothering God (Book)