After more than three years of staying afloat utilizing a series of lay ministers, The Baptist Church in Warren finally has its own dedicated pastor once again, as New Bedford resident Debra Lee joined the church on Aug. 27 and is now settling in to her new position in the iconic stone structure on Main Street.

Lee said during a recent interview that she didn’t have one single epiphany that drove her towards a career in the church, but had grown up going to the Baptist Church in her native Fall River and, looking back, saw some other signs that make a lot more sense now in retrospect.

“The calling was all through life off and on. As a kid I used to play church in the cellar. Some kids play school, and I would play church,” she said. “I would have all the neighborhood kids in and make them read the Bible and play my little organ and have them singing down in the cellar.”

But after graduating from New Bedford High School, Lee dove into post-secondary education, getting a degree first from UMASS Dartmouth and then a Master’s in Public Administration from Bridgewater State. Her goal was to become a Town Administrator, and she worked for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health for 16 years.

Towards the end of that career, Lee heard her calling back to faith service and acquired her Master’s in Divinity from the former Andover Newton Seminary in Newton, Mass., which closed in 2016 after becoming integrated with the Yale Divinity School in Connecticut.

“I knew I was the recipient of a lot of God’s grace, and so through that I felt like through my personal example that I could help others to grow closer,” she said.

Lee has been the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Swansea, Mass. for the past six years, and remains there today. She retired from a town position in New Bedford as the Director of their Council on Aging in order to dedicate more time to the church, which led her to Warren.

“Churches are struggling these days financially. I was thinking outside the box to try and save both places some money,” she said. She splits her time between 15 hours a week in Swansea and 15 in Warren, and the Baptist Church in Warren changed their worship to 9 a.m. for the first time in its storied history to help accommodate Lee, who then treks to Swansea for 10:30 a.m. services there.

“It helps both churches out to be able to afford a pastor and share me,” she said. “I think there’s a lot of opportunity for growth in both places.”

In an age where church attendance and the number of available pastors is well known to be on the decline, Lee mentioned a recent sermon she gave that she felt kept things in perspective.

“Jesus was never interested in numbers,” she said. “It’s the people you have. You serve the people you have, and as long as you’re connecting with them, that’s what’s important.”

Forming meaningful and personal connections to congregants and helping them achieve a better understanding and appreciation of their faith is Lee’s top priority, she said. And a big part of doing that, she said, was to be as welcoming and embracing as possible.

“I think everybody needs to feel like they belong and they need to feel like they're accepted that they're welcomed that that they're worthy. I know a lot of us have gone through struggles in life where we don't feel worthy and we don't feel like we measure up, but in God's eyes we all measure up, and we're all working toward continuing on that journey,” she said. “I think that's the call…we're all on a journey. None of us have reached nirvana. We're all working together to try to and be role models and an example for people in the world. We may be the only glimpse of Christ that people see, and so what do we portray? That's really important.”