Valentines Day: Phil and Brenda Rasmussen
If you’ve stepped on campus, you’ve probably heard of Phil and Brenda Rasmussen, and you’ve likely been impacted by their ministry and their kindness. The two of them have made a profound impression on the community at Northwest University. Phil serves as campus pastor, and Brenda teaches music and leads NU’s gospel choir, Choralons. They’re familiar with NU, both as faculty and as students. In fact, it’s where they met.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we interviewed this Northwest University celebrity couple, giving them the opportunity to tell us how their relationship started, how it has thrived since, and offer some Valentine’s Day advice.
Why did you choose to come to NU as a student?
B: I’m Canadian, and at the time I was living up in Canada. I didn’t know you could do music in a church as a full time job, because we didn’t have full-time music directors in Canada. It was a Sunday night service, and two guys came up from the States. I introduced myself to them, they heard me playing piano, and out of the blue they said to me “There’s a Christian University in the states that you need to come to.” So I saved up my money, crossed the border and began to study.
P: My story is a little bit different than that, but the same in that it was a step of faith. I had known about Northwest University since I was very young. Thirteen family members have come here, and I was seven years old the first time I stepped into chapel. I knew God was calling me to vocational ministry and this is really where I wanted to get it done, but I couldn’t afford it. I was working in a restaurant, and the owner of the restaurant offered to pay for me to go to culinary school if I would come back and open another restaurant for him. So that’s where I was heading. I felt like God was perhaps just testing my faith. It was in meeting Brenda, actually, that sort of re-focused me back towards taking a step of faith in attending Northwest University.
Tell me more about how you two connected once you got to Northwest.
B: It was in a big friend group. Honestly, I was interested in a couple other guys within the friend group. But one night, the group had planned something and everyone canceled except for Phil and I.
P: We had gone through all of the Fall as friends in this big group just hanging out. She was the keyboard player for Choralons, and I came in and was the drummer for Choralons. We had a couple classes together as well, so there were connecting points. Probably the most prominent was our similar interest in music.
B: So it was February of that year, and it ended up just being the two of us. We went down to the Kirkland waterfront, and I thought we were just going to hang out. But then, all of a sudden, Phil said, “I know you’re older than me, but I like you…” I didn’t know what to do. I thought he’d lost his mind. So I said “Let’s just be friends,” and he was very gracious. But after that, I noticed that there were all these girls that were interested in him, and I started to dislike that. When he would study, he would study with all girls. They were everywhere. Is that not true?
P: Occasionally…
B: So I told him I wanted to talk to him, and then we just hung out for a while longer. We dated for a long time…
P: My commitment, when she said, “let’s just be friends,” is that I would be a friend to her. So it was a good month or two before she realized that she was more interested than she thought she was. Even at that, the “Boyfriend-girlfriend” label really wasn’t there until a little while later, but we were definitely hanging out as very good friends.
How long did you date before you got married?
B: We dated for a year, and then we were engaged for a year. I feel like a year is a little bit long, but the friendship part of it was awesome. We just learned a lot about each other. The thing I say to people all the time is dating should be fun! It’s amazing all the responsibilities that come once you get married. So I tell people, “Have the time of your life while you’re dating!”
P: So we hung out a couple years, and she, of course, graduated before I did. After that she served at a church in Wenatchee, so for a year we were long distance. Then she changed to a church in North Seattle, which was great.
How did you both come back to work at NU?
B: What’s really weird, is we have worked at the same places all of our lives. When he was at the church, he was a youth pastor and I was the music director. When we went to the national [Assemblies of God] office, he was the assistant national youth director and they hired me to be the national fine arts director. And then when he got the call to come here [to NU], the provost called me and said, “Hey, would you like to teach some classes?”
Do you have any Valentine’s Day advice?
B: I think it’s very hard to maintain quality relationships without Jesus at the center, because inherently, I’m a very selfish person. The number one text I receive from girls after they get married is, “I never realized how selfish I was.” What causes you to not be selfish, is an understanding of the fruits of the Spirit. I am happily married not because of me, but because of Jesus being at the center. It helps me to be a good wife, or girlfriend, or fiancé, because in and of myself, I wouldn’t have done a very good job.
P: And I would say that’s great advice whether you’re dating anybody or whether you’re just trying to be a good friend. I think what Brenda’s saying is not only true in terms of this relationship that we have to dating our future potential spouses, but I think that is true just so much in relationships and friendships. It has to start with an unselfish determination to love people genuinely as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it, with the fruit of the spirit as our foremost pursuit.
B: Whether or not we were the campus pastors, I believe that from the bottom of my heart. I really have learned it. I wasn’t great at this to begin with, but through God’s help I have become so much better.
Northwest University is blessed to have leaders like Phil and Brenda Rasmussen. They’re the kind of people who make NU a special place and encourage others by leading through example. They show us what it means to acknowledge God throughout different aspects of life, whether it’s in their work or in their relationship as husband and wife.