Invested Faith speaks Dr. Joanne Solis-Walker’s heart language.

Solis-Walker is an ordained minister, educator, and practical theologian whose lifework is invested in bridging the gap between the church and society.  As the third Invested Faith Advisor, Dr. Solis-Walker is excited about the possibilities the Invested Faith model offers. “I'm a theologian. I believe in the priesthood of all believers. I believe in God's call for us to live incarnationally - to live this out.

What Invested Faith is doing is creating a platform for that to happen and for there not to be a divide between the church and the work of society.  

One of the things that's most encouraging to me is that Invested Faith creates that pathway for people who may not fit into the traditional description of what it means to be the “priesthood of all believers,” because they don't occupy whatever may be considered as a priestly role.

Dr. Solis-Walker  will join Candler School of Theology at Emory University as associate dean and professor in the practice of leadership, effective January 1, 2022. Solis-Walker will lead projects that expand access to Candler-based theological education, collaborating with congregations, denominations, and community organizations to ensure the school’s offerings meet their educational needs. She will also serve as a senior advisor to the dean on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Solis-Walker will move to Candler from Northwest Nazarene University, where she currently serves as Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Special Assistant to the President on matters of Diversity at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. She holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership and Development with an emphasis on Ecclesial Leadership from Regent University, and a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. She is co-founder with her spouse, Dan Walker, of Camino Road, a company that focuses on helping individuals and organizations think more critically and intentionally about how their leadership meshes with culture.

Solis-Walker is a certified coach for multi-ethnic churches and organizations and speaks as an advocate on issues of equity and accessibility. “I’ve always been entrepreneurial in my thinking. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial edge. I started to think really, really hard about education, particularly theological education, and the lack of accessibility of education for people outside of the United States and for people within the United States that did not have the financial means to be able to pursue the degrees.” 

She found her space in theological education and helping institutions better serve the Hispanic and other populations. “That became a real learning laboratory for me - to be able to see that good intentions were not good enough if we did not have the processes and the systems and the policies that would allow that vision to come to fruition.”

Previously, Dr. Solis-Walker served as Assistant Dean of Global Theological Education at Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. She also helped establish an outpatient alcohol and drug rehabilitation center and did HIV work with migrants and farm workers. 

Solis-Walker notes that her work is influenced by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian scholar who combined the work of social entrepreneurship with the work of education to address broken systems and pedagogical models that limited the ability of students to learn. “He was a real educator and that influenced a lot of the work that I wanted to see happen in the classroom. For me, I think about how do you make education accessible for someone who is in prison? How do you make education accessible for someone who's poor? How do you bridge those kind of gaps?”

Solis-Walker believes Invested Faith offers a model for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to help the traditional church bridge those gaps.

 “We've got a Great Commission to fulfill as the Church and we’re coming to a place of recognition that if we are not creative about the way that we fulfill the Great Commission, then it will be an inward focus. And it will not allow us to have the presence that we need to have in the world.”

“Social entrepreneurs are a critical piece of this creative work of solving problems. Social entrepreneurs are out-of-the-box thinkers who are not afraid to take risks in order to solve problems and to overcome limitations that are community based.

“Social entrepreneurs have the capacity to see that a portion of the population need this and we’re not providing the kind of services they should have access to. A social entrepreneur is not trapped by a mode of doing things that has to fit in nicely and check off all these boxes. A social entrepreneur says we have a community problem here and we need to solve this community problem. A social entrepreneur looks beyond the red tape and says “We’ve got to figure this out in a different way. It’s bringing about change that benefits everyone. “ 

The Invested Faith model doesn’t have that red tape. There’s not just one way for creative things to surface. It sounds redundant but Invested Faith creates a creative space that allows for those possibilities to surface and says ‘It’s okay. Those ideas are welcomed here.’ In other settings, there may be limitations that don’t allow those possibilities to even surface,” said Solis-Walker.

The church has not made room for social entrepreneurs as of yet.

“I don't think social entrepreneurs have space in the church. The church needs to find the social entrepreneurial ways to have space within the community. I think it's of mutual benefit, in a way that has yet to be discovered.”

“There's a sense of ownership that comes from being able to think of a business that is talking about making this a more equitable world to live in, that really is concerned about every tongue, every tribe, every nation, about all the people of God, and is concerned about the commonalities, but also the differences that enrich that beautiful image of who we are called to be.”  New business models will lead to systems being changed.  

“One of the things that distinguish social entrepreneurs is that they don't think the same, they think differently. They’ve been gifted with being able to see things differently.  They see alternatives when there aren't any other alternatives. And so I think that is very beneficial, in general, to all of society, and to all of the systems that exist, but really beneficial for us as a church in this time, in this season. We need more people that are able to think about what kind of models can be implemented outside of the four walls of the church without ceasing to be the church.”

Invested Faith offers individuals a chance to live into their questions and is willing to listen and support their answers. Dr. Solis-Walker notes that the Invested Faith model begins with identity. “The Invested Faith model says, ‘Hey, What's God doing in you? What’s God asking you to do? What is your response? What's your heartbeat? It starts off with identity - that calling and response of someone. Here we are. We’re living in this world. What’s making you breathe? What’s your heartbeat? What makes you thrive?  What kind of thoughts keeps you up at night? Can we talk about that? Can you share it with us?’  And that's exciting for me.

I feel like this model allows for people to live into the fullness of God's calling upon their life, in a way that brings about change, that brings about positive change in society.”