Five Minutes with Ancy Post

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got connected to the Covenant.

I am Indian American, so I grew up in a church that was not for women in ministry. At some point, I decided to go to seminary—not to go into vocational ministry, but to learn how to be a better lay leader. I’m also a physical therapist, so I was working as I went to seminary.

That’s impressive.

At one point I realized that if I continued the way I was going, taking one or two classes a year, I would have to go to seminary for another eight years. So I decided to quit my job and go full-time for a year. In the midst of that, I met my husband. On our first date, he found out I was going to seminary—he was Catholic, so he was kind of like, “Why are we dating if you’re going to be a nun?”

Once we got engaged, he paid off all the student loans I had taken out to go to seminary.

So I finished all my classes and all I had left was my internship. And I was kind of like, “Well, I’m done now. I don’t need a degree. I was going for fun so I would have more knowledge.” But he was like, “What? I paid for this. You’re getting a degree.”

That’s how I came to Metro Community Church in Englewood, New Jersey. I didn’t know anything about the church. There was a list of churches where other seminary students had gone for their internships; I called two of those churches, and Metro was the one that called me back.

How long ago was that?

Fifteen and a half years ago.

Tell me about your journey as a physical therapist going into pastoral ministry. What was that like?

I loved being a physical therapist, and I think I’m good at it. At seminary we had to say what our calling was—that was really hard for me. But what I realized is a part of my calling is to facilitate and encourage. As a physical therapist, I got to facilitate healing and help people move along their journey toward wellness. And as a pastor, discipling students and managing staff, I get to encourage growth in leaders as they facilitate growth in our church.

So although my role is different now, God has been able to use me in similar ways. When I preach, I’m able to have a unique take on some of the Scriptures because I understand the body a little differently. I’m able to make all these connection points to how the body and the spirit work together.

When I went to seminary, I had no plans of leaving physical therapy. I was not only a physical therapist; I was managing clinics and staff. But toward the end, God moved me out of managing people, so it was easier to leave when people were not as dependent on me.

For many years when I was working as a pastor, I was part-time. So I was able to continue to work as a physical therapist two or three times a week. It was minimal, but I wanted to keep my hand in it because things change in the industry so quickly. So I kept working a few hours a week until the pandemic happened and everything shut down.

While I love physical therapy, almost every week there would be moments where I would wonder,  “Do you really need me today? Do I have the patience for this?” Whereas as a pastor, even on my worst day, I don’t mind going to work. So I guess God made a change in my heart about that. There’s joy even in the midst of the challenging days.

Your story illustrates the value of bi-vocational ministry. When you are bi-vocational, you stay connected to people outside the church in a different way than if you were in full-time ministry. Not that it’s better or more noble, but there’s a value in making those connections—like what you mentioned about knowing the body—and relating to people who aren’t in evangelical church culture.

I completely agree. When I was working in physical therapy, sometimes I’d go in to work on a Monday, and people would ask, “How was your weekend?” I would get to tell them, “I’m not just a PT, I’m a pastor.” I was able to have more impact on nonbelievers. Sometimes people would say, “I’m not spiritual or anything, but my dad has cancer—would you pray for him?” The impact of being able to pray for people, being that nonjudgmental presence, was more available to me when I was in secular work than it sometimes is in church. In church, I tend to only have access to people who believe and who want to talk to me. When I worked as a physical therapist, whoever my patient was, they got to hear my story and I got to hear their story. I may not get to evangelize them per se, but I got to be a light in those spaces. I do miss that very much.

Tell me how you got connected to CAPA and why you felt drawn to this new role.

CAPA does a pastoral care retreat right before Gather, usually for participants who they think need pastoral care or need pouring into. One year I was chosen to go to that retreat, and I think that was the first time I really felt seen by CAPA. Usually, I went to CAPA gatherings alongside the other pastors from my church. I helped out whenever I could, but I didn’t really feel like part of it. But when they invited me to that retreat, I felt very seen. I felt like they were pouring into me. I got to hear more of the story of CAPA and how it came about. That changed something for me.

So every time we had Midwinter, I would email them, asking, “Do you need help? Let me know.” I became more of an active participant in what CAPA was doing because I felt like they were seeing me.

Then a few years ago, CAPA started to recognize that it did not have as much South Asian representation, but that we were there. We were showing up for the CAPA dinners and stuff, and CAPA started investing in us, saying, “If you guys get together for appetizers or something, we’ll financially support that.” And so Manoj Mathai would gather us.

Honestly, I didn’t know any other real South Asians until he came and found me. I remember the first time I heard there was another Indian woman pastor in the Covenant, Ruby Varghese. I spent that entire Midwinter trying to meet her because I had never met another Indian woman pastor in my life. It meant so much to me because it felt like I was not alone. As Manoj gathered us, I met other South Asians I didn’t even know existed. It was just beautiful to find other people who kind of looked like me and may have a little bit more of the Asian experience that I have.

After I became president this past Midwinter, one of the first things I did was try to get that group back together in some way, because we haven’t gathered since the pandemic. I need my people to keep me grounded.

Do you have specific plans for a new direction for CAPA?

Well, God’s kind of always pushing me to things that I’m not ready for or had not planned. I didn’t plan to be a pastor, and I didn’t plan to be president of CAPA. When I was elected, honestly at that moment I was like, God, I don’t want to do this. I am very busy. I think that’s when I heard God say, That’s why it has to be you. I felt very much like God was telling me I needed to step into this role at this time.

I think CAPA is in this stage where we’re growing in numbers, but we’re like a church plant. We were kind of just doing things that had to get done because it’s an unpaid board. We’re just trying to do the CAPA business meeting and dinner at Midwinter. We do a Gather retreat, an ordination reception at Gather, and two CAPA Connect Zoom calls during the year. That’s really all the board can handle, honestly.

This year, the previous CAPA president Mary March led us into a lot of advocacy. We’re having our first leadership conference this year. Like AAMA has Peer Mentoring and ALIPE has Elevate, we’re going to have CAPA CON in October. And on the board right now we have Angela Yee, who is so good at strategic planning and helping create systems, and Sharon Kim, who loves strategic planning and she’s a professor, along with Hollis Kim, Josiah Cheng, and Steve Wong. We’re transitioning from the informal to more formal, creating better systems so we can be more efficient and more fruitful, and take better care of our pastors.

But we’re a small board, and we have a hundred-plus members. We need to be doing more strategic planning and thinking about the future than what can be done right now. I realized maybe that’s why God picked me because that’s what I’ve helped do in other spaces. My heart is to make sure that, just like I felt seen and heard by CAPA, I want to help others feel seen and heard so they too will be part of building it.

My hope is to see CAPA as a voice within the denomination, advocating not only for ourselves but also for the other ethnic associations in these spaces. I want to see more active participation so we can be a much more active body within the Covenant. We hope to have some kind of Asian immersion journey in the future, hopefully next year. I don’t think the Asian stories are very well known—the pain that’s happened to Asians in this country. Sometimes I feel like we can become invisible. There’s the model minority myth, where Asians are elevated in their proximity to whiteness, but the pain, the difficulty, the challenges—they’re erased.

CAPA is not a monolith. We don’t have the same commonalities as other ethnic groups. But we’re creating a common identity in Christ and our faith.