Jeney Park-Hearn, PhD

Jeney Park-Hearn serves as an assistant professor of practical theology and formation at Portland Seminary. Prior to her arrival as a full-time faculty member in 2022, she spent seven years as a lecturer and adjunct professor at Seattle University, where she taught courses covering topics that included systemic care skills, pastoral care skills, family systems in ministry, psychospiritual development, and relationship and pastoral therapy in a multicultural context.

She also taught in Portland Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry Program as a project faculty member (2019-22) and as an adjunct instructor during the 2021-22 academic year. Dr. Park-Hearn also served for two years as the director of contextual education at Seattle University and, for five years, as the congregational care pastor at Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church in Seattle. She was also a co-facilitator for a BIPOC affinity group for public school administrators in 2021-22.

Dr. Park-Hearn lives in Renton, Washington, with her husband Mark and daughter Emma, and attends Blaine Memorial UMC. She enjoys hiking, reading fiction, gardening, and roaming through brick and mortar bookstores.

Academic Background

PhD, Claremont School of Theology; MTS, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary; MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary; BA, University of Michigan

Expertise & Research Interests

Pastoral care skills; family systems in ministry; psychospiritual development; relational spiritual formation and intersectional pastoral theology

Research Bibliography 

Publications

• Chapter in Explore: Vocational Discovery in Ministry, Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi and Matthew
  Floding, editors (2022)

• Contributor for Wabash Blog Series: Creativity and Imagination (2022)

• Podcast Guest Presenter
  Centering: The Asian American Christian Podcast - Can Churches be Mental Health Spaces?
  (November 2019)

• “Prayers of Lament: Making Space for Our Disenfranchised Grief,” in ChristianityNext, a
  Journal of Innovative Space for Asian American Christianity (Winter 2017)

• Speaker at Asian American Christian Counseling Services Annual Symposium
  (2015)

• Guest Lecture: University of Washington (2015)

• Presenter at American Academy of Religion Western Region (2014)

• Respondant at Third Asian American Equipping Symposium: Heaing of Memories-
  Ministering to Asian American Families (2012)