Bishop Swenson was ordained both deacon and elder by Bishop Wilbur Choy. She served as Associate Pastor of Claremont United Methodist Church in Claremont, California; Pastor of Orchards United Methodist Church, Vancouver, Washington; District Superintendent of the Puget Sound District, Pacific Northwest Conference; Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church, Wenatchee, Washington. She also served as Youth Director for St. Luke’s UMC and Capitol Street UMC in Jackson, Mississippi, Elma UMC and Mason UMC in the PNW Conference and Claremont UMC in Claremont, California.

Bishop Swenson served as Dean of the Cabinet, PNW Conference. While assigned to First UMC Wenatchee, she also was President of the Board of Directors of the Rape Crisis and Domestic Violence Center and served on the North Central Washington AIDS Coalition. She has served as a director of the General Board of Discipleship and General Board of Global Ministries, where she also was the Chair of the Committee to Eliminate Institutional Racism, and the Committee on Personnel and Nominations. She was an elected PNW Conference delegate to General and Jurisdictional Conferences in 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1992.

Bishop Swenson was elected to the episcopacy by the Western Jurisdictional Conference in 1992 and assigned to the Denver Area. During her tenure, she served again with the General Board of Discipleship and as President from 1996-2000. In 2000, she moved to the California-Pacific Annual Conference and began to serve with the GCFA, including President of GCFA.