Foolish Church: Messy, Raw, Real, and Making Room

Messy, raw, and real aren’t the words most of us use when we say what’s good about our churches. But what if they were? Author Lee Schott found out, serving a beautiful church inside the Iowa women’s prison. A lifelong church person, she discovered more church, and greater faithfulness, in this most unlikely setting, with room for people the church has often overlooked. She shares the lessons she has learned there, with the hope that church leaders outside of prison might be inspired, equipped, and encouraged to loosen the fetters that keep our churches so closed off. We’ll explore church characterized by honest relationship, protection of the vulnerable, radical welcome, and healthy boundaries. Practical application for the local church context and discussion questions for group study are included throughout.

Lee is pastor of Women at the Well in Mitchellville, a church based inside the walls of the Iowa women's prison. She has been transformed by her connection with women there who demonstrate amazing resilience, faith, and wisdom as they navigate overwhelming obstacles. She is pursuing a vision of the church outside the prison embracing persons right in their communities who face challenges like the ones we see so often inside the prison: addiction, mental illness, sexual assault, and domestic violence. The church on the whole is impoverished by the absence-and the silence-of those experiences and voices in our midst.

Lee previously served (2003-2011) as co-pastor of Polk City United Methodist Church, a small-town church near the Des Moines metro. A 2007 graduate, with honors, of Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, Lee was ordained an elder in the United Methodist Church in 2009.

Lee's ministry career follows what she had thought would be a career in law. After college, she went east to Harvard Law School and began her career at a private law firm in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1995 she and her family moved home to Iowa and she worked as an in-house lawyer at a life insurance company. A lifelong United Methodist, she sensed a call from God after she began praying in earnest at the age of nearly 40. Her ministry has combined a delight in the creativity and wonder of worship with a deep commitment to social justice and how we mobilize the church to be a Spirit-led force to transform the world.