about me
Thank you for checking out this page, and for caring about who you are listening to and learning from! My credentials for writing Bible studies are more personal than official—I don’t have a theology degree, but what I have is a deep love of God’s Word, decades of ministry experience, and a nerdy, truth-seeking personality. It's embarrassing to admit how much I enjoy being alone with my laptop, researching and writing. I love diving deep into topics I don't understand (yet), working to understand scripture in its original context, crafting compelling questions, and high-fiving myself when I find the “perfect” words to express a thought. What I lack in formal training, I hope I make up for in careful research from trustworthy sources. I have a degree in psychology and a teaching certificate, which have helped shape my passions for people and communicating well.
God’s Word was what actually led me to Him, as a teenager struggling through a hard time and seeking something solid to stand on. I secretly bought a Bible and started poring over it. Anything I liked, I would write out in a notebook—page after page of scripture washing over me. When I got to one specific psalm, it stopped me in my tracks and I felt it was written for me. Though it was a few months until I learned about the “sinners’ prayer” or understood the basics of what I was doing, I know that in that moment in His Word I fully believed. I continue to be astonished and humbled at how God shows up through scripture, to meet each of us right where we are. Studying His Word never gets old.
Personal experience gave me compassion for struggling teenagers, and much of my ministry background has been related to youth. My husband and I worked with Youth for Christ in Oregon, Alaska, and California, and I was always involved in some way with the youth ministries at churches we attended. Working with students taught me to value honest faith questions, and not to pretend that the Christian life is just easy-peasy.
Over time I became involved with women’s ministry: mentoring, leading small groups, teaching in large group settings, and occasionally writing Bible studies for those. I’m grateful for years of structured study that gave me the “big picture” of God’s Word, rather than just bits and pieces. Writing studies for our women’s ministry was something I wasn’t able to do as often as I wished, until the covid pandemic hit. Suddenly we had a need for some new ways to study scripture together, and to get real about how hard things were affecting us. The experience of re-thinking what Bible studies could be, along with a job loss that gave me more time, resulted in the Noeo study series. Good things can come out of difficult circumstances!
If you're curious about my denominational background, that's a bit of a story. Not growing up in a church-going home, I eagerly attended church with anyone who would invite me! As a child, this was mainly Methodist and Episcopal. In college as a new believer I still invited myself along with others, but I primarily attended a Nazarene church. Once married, my husband Mike and I went to different churches as our family made moves to new places—Christian and Missionary Alliance, non-denominational Bible church, and Southern Baptist (where Mike served as associate pastor). So, I feel like I have an appreciation for the faith basics we agree on, and have tried intentionally to not give Noeo Bible Studies a particular denominational perspective.
The last, and best stuff “about me”: I’ve been married to Mike, a former Youth for Christ director and pastor who recently re-trained to become a hospital chaplain, for 43 years. We have three amazing adult children, who have provided us with the top six grandkids of all time. Most of them live close by us in the San Diego area, and we love and appreciate living together in chaotic community. To Mike and all my amazing family—thank you for your support, sharing your various talents, listening to me when I needed to verbally process, and helping me make my big ideas happen!
-Doris Gilson