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Teri Woodland

woodland-teresa.jpg“Operating in the international business world at very senior levels, I don’t see very many Christians—or people I would know are Christians,” says Teri Woodland. “They keep their faith separate, go to church, but then live day-to-day in a whole other world, which is their work. They don’t see the marketplace as a mission ground.”

Teri does see herself in that light, and she thanks the CCO for giving her that vision. She was still a high school student in the Pittsburgh suburbs when she attended her first Jubilee conference, and thanks to her older sister, she connected to the University of Pittsburgh’s CCO-sponsored Cornerstone fellowship even before she started as a student at Pitt. She got involved in a Bible study with CCO staff worker Phyllis Farmer, and another CCO worker, Ruth Woods, encouraged her to volunteer with PRISM (Pittsburgh Region International Student Ministry). She knew early on that she wanted to work overseas. Since shortly after her 1986 graduation from Pitt, she has lived abroad, and she currently makes her home in Beijing, China.

As a consultant and owner of Wudelan Partners, an organizational and leadership development firm based in Beijing, Teri views her management consulting work as an opportunity to help people make connections between their “private” selves and their public life.

“There is a character component to the work I do,” Teri says. “It’s about encouraging people to align what they do with what their values are, and then leading out of that. I help my clients strengthen their leadership capabilities as they work through core business issues.

“The underlying premise that the CCO emphasized, that we are to integrate our faith in Christ into who we are and what we do—that belief that God wants to redeem all of life—had a strong influence on me. It informs how I approach my work and how I live my life.”

“A large percentage of my friends are Chinese,” Teri says, “and I live in a diverse international compound with diplomats, journalists, and some business people. The family next door is from Pakistan.” She appreciates the opportunity to interact with people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences. And she appreciates how the CCO’s ministry prepared her to live out her faith transparently in whatever context she finds herself.

“The CCO set as a goal for me to live out my Christian faith in every area of my life,” Teri says. “Just having that as a goal has made all the difference. As a Christian woman in the international business world, I have been disappointed not to find many other women who have similar goals and struggles. I have mentors, but they usually are only one or two of the three—Christian, women, or in international business.”

Teri has been involved in several Chinese churches, but she mostly worships at Beijing International Christian Fellowship in the central business district, which she describes as “a very rich, ecumenical” worship experience. There are more than 85 nationalities represented in this congregation, and Teri has both attended and hosted a home group.

“Besides the relationships it gave me in college, being involved with the CCO helped me to understand the importance of being part of a church. I think the local church involvement, and the older adults in the local church, really helped me to gain a vision for what a church community is and could be. This collaboration with the larger Christian community is one of the strengths of CCO and it gives it a richness that other parachurch organizations sometimes lack.”