I AM WILSHIRE - JULIE GIRARDS
 

All Around

Julie Girards knows Wilshire from just about every angle.

She knows what it’s like to be a newcomer here, and she knows what it’s like to be a veteran member. She has raised preschoolers, children and youth here. She’s been a teacher and a deacon here. And she’s the only person ever to have been both the church receptionist and then a member of the pastoral staff.

Looking back, she believes her variety of life experiences has uniquely prepared her to relate to congregants at Wilshire as a minister.

Born in Mexia, Texas, Julie moved to the Dallas area as an infant, growing up in Plano and Murphy. In 1981, she graduated from Plano High School, where she was on the drill team and a member of Future Farmers of America. For an agriculture class project, she raised and sold a lamb named Bubba.

She was the first person in her family to go to college and aspired to be a teacher or nurse. She planned to go to Texas A&M University but applied too late to get a dormitory room.

“A friend of mine was going to Baylor, so I decided to go there,” she said. “I planned to stay one semester and transfer to A&M, but I loved Baylor, so I stayed.”

She had enjoyed sewing since she was a child and had taken a fashion design class, so she decided to be a home economics teacher. Finding that department unsatisfactory, she changed to secondary education, choosing math and biology as her teaching fields.

Girards met her former husband, Jim, through his fraternity, for which she was a little sister. They began dating during her senior year. After graduation, she taught at China Springs High School for a year. They were married in 1987 and have three children: Jessica, James and Jason.

While Jim was in law school in San Antonio, Julie taught junior high and then at the health careers high school. “I taught anatomy and physiology to 10^th-graders,” she said. “That’s hard to do with a straight face.”

In 1989, they moved to Dallas when Jim took a position with a law firm. They began a family, and she sold Discovery Toys for several years, served on the auxiliary board of the Trial Lawyers of America and participated in the Dallas Christian Women’s Club and the junior group of the Dallas Symphony League.

Jim’s office was close to Wilshire, and after she passed the church one day while taking lunch to him, they decided to visit. They attended the class taught by Charles and Judy Yarbrough and were invited to a baby shower that day, even though “we didn’t know anyone,” she said. “We felt comfortable immediately and didn’t try any other churches.”

Julie was on the original steering committee that launched the Mothers of Preschoolers program at Wilshire in 1996 and continued to be involved until 2003. She taught Globetrekkers for 17 years and has been involved in Vacation Bible School somewhere every year except one. On a KidsHeart Africa trip to Kenya in 2006, she creatively coordinated the VBS activities there as well.

Along the way, she taught a young adult Sunday School class, initially as a substitute, and when Covenant Class was organized, she was the regular teacher from 1996 until 2004. She was ordained as a deacon in 2000 and has served on the Preschool and Children’s Education, Stewardship Development and Baptism committees.

“I love the relationships at Wilshire,” she said. “Wilshire sees the person as an individual rather than a statistic.”

That became especially important when she experienced a divorce.

“Being divorced is more uncomfortable in the church than in most places,” she said. “But this church ministered to me. I never felt ostracized. My mother died at the same time, and the church was my lifeline.”

Desiring to get back in the workforce soon afterward, Julie took a position as Wilshire’s receptionist. A year later, her career took an unexpected turn.

In May 2006, she became Wilshire’s interim minister to children. After the search committee began its work searching for a permanent staff member, she realized that “this job feels right. It’s where God wanted me, no question about that, so I turned in my resume.”

In the reorganization of the preschool and children’s ministry that ensued, Girards was chosen to become minister to children in the summer of 2007.

She’s found her career in a place of ministry she already knew from the inside out.

“I like the fact that I can have an impact on kids before everything gels for them,” she said, “and I can be there to tie in faith to their everyday lives.”