Jill Shook
FIELD
Jill has spent the majority of her life as a missionary. Beginning in 1978, she joined Missions Door as a Campus Ambassador serving in San Jose and Fullerton, California, and at a private law school in Salem, Oregon.
From 1986-1989 Jill lived in México and Arizona, working with Food for the Hungry International to found and develop a program for church and university work teams to serve in Mexico and Kenya with groups from Harvard to Berkeley. Jill has also developed workshops on Teaching Like Jesus for teachers and pastors in Bolivia and Mexico.
In 1996 Jill founded Students and Tutors Achieving Real Success (STARS), a ministry of Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, where hundreds of volunteers mentor and tutor at-risk students. Entering the homes of these students, Jill recognized the connection between children's success and the high cost of housing. The lack of decent affordable housing in good neighborhoods often results in multiple families squeezed into tiny apartments concentrated in one part of town, which breeds gangs, homelessness, crime and soaring dropout rates.
Jill became passionate about finding biblical solutions to this complex issue. This led to writing a book, Making Housing Happen: Faith-Based Affordable Housing Models. This book provides a glimpse into creative ways that churches across the United States are addressing this crisis.
Jill is a Catalyst using an ABCD approach–Asset-Based Community Development–to connect resources in the community with those who need that resource. This involves forming teams and coalitions around the passions and gifts in the community to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, as well as helping those in need to bring housing redemption and healing by telling their story. Jill works with local churches seeking ways to retain Pasadena's racial and economic mix and to house Pasadena's 1,200 homeless.
Jill's broad experiences with pastors across all denominations and her work with small rural villages in Latin America give her a unique voice of hope in our country today. She has seen God transform lives, churches and communities through the power of Christ's redeeming love.
FAITH
Jill grew up in Yorba Linda, California. Her family attended various churches. As a sophomore in high school she was invited to a Bible study, where she heard of knowing Jesus Christ personally. It was there she gave her heart to Christ as her Lord and trusted God to forgive her sins.
FAMILY
Jill has a married sister with eight children and a married brother in Australia with two children. Her mother lives in California and is an artist.
