Amy Clarke Ferrante

An evening out for burgers and a bit of karaoke proved a turning point nine years ago for Amy Ferrante and for Santa Rosa’s New Vintage Church, where she’d just become a member.

Her turn at the mic drew attention to a singing voice church Pastor Andy VomSteeg immediately knew he wanted to incorporate into services for his small congregation.

He’d been looking for a singer, and though she suffered a terrible nervous stomach during her first three months in the role, Ferrante grew into it, becoming worship leader and a central creative figure in the burgeoning contemporary church, VomSteeg said.

Her sudden death Tuesday morning at age 40 during a relapse of a rare illness diagnosed last winter has only underscored her importance to a broad spectrum of people, friends and loved ones, he said.

“She helped grow this church from, at the time, about 100 people, to over 1,000 people,” VomSteeg said Thursday. “She was instrumental in that.”

“I’ve just been bombarded for the past 2½ days,” said her high school sweetheart and husband, Anthony Ferrante. “I appreciated it, but I didn’t fully understand the depth of the impact she had on thousands of people in this community.”

On Monday, the day of her memorial service at Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, where New Vintage holds Sunday worship service, friends and family expect an overflow crowd, from church members to families she knew as a longtime preschool teacher, to old friends from Santa Rosa High School and those she met through many community activities.

“We just need to focus on celebrating her and the people she touched, which is everybody that crossed her path,” Anthony Ferrante said, “and her amazing ability to love people. And it wasn’t fake. I saw her do it every day.”

The mother of two, a college-age daughter, Morgan, and son, Chase, 13, Amy Ferrante was the daughter of a preacher, someone who grew up in the church and always embraced the Christian faith, her husband said.

But they were looking for a new church home when the preschool where she was teaching moved its classrooms onto the property of what was then called First Baptist Church.

Though the school and church were separate entities, Amy Ferrante felt a responsibility to check it out. She was so enthused by what she discovered she insisted her family take a look, too.

“Amy got it instantly,” Anthony Ferrante said. “She got the vision of the church. She got what they were trying to do — throwing away all the outdated, old traditions, the judgment, the condemnation that comes with so many churches.

“She’s responsible for so many people’s changed lives at that church,” he said. “And it was effortless for her. She could accept people and love people where they were at, no matter what they went through.”

Ferrante’s ministry included leading 30 minutes of song and worship each Sunday, as well as lending a creative hand to the staff’s work developing themes, sets and “environments” for programs and services, VomSteeg said.

She also continued teaching preschool, most recently at Windsor Christian Academy, and, at various times, conducted one-on-one intervention sessions at The Swain Center for Listening, Communicating and Learning; worked with pregnant teens at the Pregnancy Counseling Center; coached cheerleading at Rincon Valley Christian School; worked as a server at Chevy’s; and participated in two mission trips to Ghana in West Africa.

She invested her all in each pursuit and eagerly connected with people, her husband said.

“I think her key trait was unconditional love and patience,” close friend Gary Tennyson said.

Then last September, Amy Ferrante developed an array of symptoms that after three months of intensive testing would finally yield a diagnosis of Still’s disease, a rare, inflammatory illness for which spiking fever, nausea, arthritic pain and other symptoms are typical.

The Ferrantes had never heard of it.

But even as exclusion of every other disease suggested that’s what she had, Amy Ferrante began to get better, her husband said.

For about eight months she felt almost normal, until a sudden relapse 2½ weeks ago.

Bed-ridden for most of the time since, Ferrante last weekend developed vasculitis, an inflammation of the vascular system.

Early Tuesday morning, she awakened her husband and said she couldn’t move her legs. A few minutes later, she died.

In addition to her family in Santa Rosa, Ferrante is survived by her parents, Joe and Judy Clarke of Spokane, WA., and sister, Jennifer Kendall, also of Spokane.

Monday’s service begins at 11 a.m. at the Wells Fargo Center, 50 Mark West Springs Road, in Santa Road. A reception will follow.