“I Am Just a Willing Vessel”

July 16, 2025 | St. Louis, Missouri, United States | Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, United States, Crystal E. Ward’s late grandmother used to tell her extended family, “Stick together, trust God, and pray for the Holy Spirit.” Ward complied, without knowing at the time how God would answer her prayers. On July 9, during the sixty-second General Conference Session in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, Ward was nominated and then elected as an associate Ministerial secretary for the world church.

Just one day before, on July 8, Ward had written to God in her prayer journal. “Lord, I just want to be used in an impactful way, however You want to use me.” Not in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that less than 24 hours later she would receive a mandate to support Adventist pastors, elders, and deacons at a global level.

Crystal E. Ward was elected as GC Ministerial Association associate secretary during the 62nd General Conference Session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, held at Americas Center Convention Complex, St Louis, Missouri, United States July 3-12, 2025. 

“I am in awe,” Ward said. “I don’t even know what my new position entails yet. But I was told that this is an opportunity to impact the world church on a global platform. And when I look back, I can see it’s an answered prayer.”

Success on Wall Street

Ward’s story seems out of a movie script. She studied finance and investment, and specialized in policy and executive management, graduating from Columbia Business School. “I have always loved numbers,” Ward says. “For me, numbers tell a story.” She eventually made it into the corporate world of Wall Street. In a tough and competitive environment she ended up as a senior vice president in banking.

However, Ward felt she wanted to do something more fulfilling. “I wanted to live the purpose God was calling me for. But at the time, I honestly didn’t think it was a call to full-time ministry.”

Blessings of the Pandemic

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. While Ward had always served the churches she had attended as a layperson, the closure of churches allowed her to get even more involved than before. With the encouragement of her local church pastor, Ward, a local church elder at the time, began to host a Sabbath School table. Then she got involved with Ephesus TV, a show during which she hosted people such as one of the candidates for New York mayor and the district attorney. “It was a platform about listening to people’s testimonies and seeing how the church could partner and do more work with the community,” she shared.

It was at that time that Ward felt a distinct call to ministry. “Intellectually, I knew what it was to be called, but then the experience happened. I prayed about it, fasted, and talked to some of my mentors, who told me, ‘Indeed, you are being called to ministry.’ ”

A New Direction

In August 2020 Ward enrolled at the Andrews University Theological Seminary and started online. The following year, as the school returned to in-person classes, she put her place up for rent and moved to Michigan, where the seminary is located.

Halfway through that experience Ward began to get calls from churches, even when she was not looking for anything. One of those churches was Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church in Maryland, and its senior pastor, Chad Stuart, invited her to an interview with the Pastoral Search Committee. The committee voted unanimously to invite her to be the congregation’s next executive pastor.

“At that moment I knew that I had to say yes, because of all that journey of surrender, when I had said, ‘Lord, I’ll go wherever You want me to go.’ I just knew that God was calling me there. And it’s been an amazing experience, serving at Spencerville and starting new initiatives. I genuinely love my church, love the people,” Ward says, as she still refers to “her church” in the present tense.

Three years after Ward was installed as Spencerville pastor, she was elected to her new position at the GC. “I was impacting Spencerville, and I loved that. But now it seems God is taking me to another level of impact,” she says.

God’s Call Above Everything Else

Ward is convinced God prepared her, even when she didn’t know that this is what He had for her. “It had never been my decision to become a pastor,” she emphasizes.

Serving as a pastor in the Adventist Church is not always easy for a woman, Ward conceded. She says, however, that she hasn’t experienced any negative comments directly. “Of course, I have met people who don’t believe in women in ministry. I don’t really argue or debate that. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I know that God called me, and my responsibility is to answer to that call. That’s how I have always functioned and operated,” she says.

Ward explains that her experience in the corporate world has prepared her for this moment. “It was a male-dominated environment. There were many times that I was ‘the only’—the only female, or the only Black person, or the youngest person. So that has been something that I have gotten used to, something that I don’t even think about.”

In that sense, Ward says, her strength is found in focusing on the certainty of her call. “I just know that God called me. Anywhere that God puts me, I just operate within the purpose and the call that He has for me. I’m just a willing vessel. And the package that I come in happens to be a female, a Black female, but the call is the same.”

A Seat at the Table

Ward’s experience has shown her that when you commit to God, He can lead you to places you hadn’t imagined, but always with a purpose to serve others. “I believe that God has allowed me to have seats at certain tables where many others would like to be, and being there, I can be that voice for whoever needs to be represented,” she said. “It’s not just about being a woman or being Black. I think God has given me different experiences, and I can talk into those experiences at whatever table He places me at.”