The Rev. Dr. Michelle Bogue-Trost (Bōg’-Trost), pronouns she/her, is a lifelong United Methodist. Daughter of a USAF pilot and in ministry for 27+ years, she has called many places “home,” including California, Michigan, Louisiana, Alabama and New York. Married to Nate Trost, with two adult children, Rachel and Jacob, between them, and sharing a home with Nate’s mother Alice and two cats, she makes home where she is called to be, and strives always to bloom where she is planted.

Michelle is deeply committed to the strengths and ethos of the Wesleyan tradition, its deep theology of grace, and its legacy of ministry and mission in the world--despite past and continuing differences within the body. She believes that The Church is in a pivotal moment, and its leaders must be: Able to lead in critically different ways; prepared to norm the expansiveness of the Body of Christ; able to cast creative vision; willing to rethink our use of resources; and attuned to discerning the most fruitful way forward through a landscape reshaped by pandemic and denominational split.

She has served under appointment to congregations ranging in membership from 11 to 1000, and has also served in District, Conference, Jurisdictional and General Conference roles, including continuing service on delegations to GC and JC beginning in 2004. She works with clergy and congregations in the UMC and beyond as they craft new vision to reach their highest possible potential given their current contextual reality, with skills in leadership, vision-casting, team building, change and conflict management, relevant preaching, creative worship, engaging teaching, and meaningful coaching. 

Her work as congregational leader is centered in listening for the movement of God’s Spirit while taking the legacies of the past and the realities of the present and crafting them into a vision for the future that empowers all of God’s people to use all their gifts to realize God’s realm on earth. She believes that all ministry is contextual, no matter the size or complexity of the congregation, and that leadership must be authentic, adaptive, proactive, and pastoral, as the Body of Christ works together.