Rev. Doug Dyson
Rev. Doug Dyson is now the pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Lamartine and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Knox. He took on his new role as pastor on November 1, 2023. An Installation service is planned for Thursday, December 7, 2023.
Rev. Dyson, grew up, one of four sons of a United Methodist pastor in New Jersey, spending most of his childhood in Princeton, NJ. After high school he married his high school sweetheart, Linda, and together they raised their two married biological daughters along with six adopted children.
Rev. Dyson studied psychology at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, NJ. He received his Master of Divinity, with a focused specialization in Church Revitalization and Renewal from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH. He is currently attending United Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg, working on a Doctor of Ministry degree.
Pastor Dyson began in ministry in the same United Methodist conference in which his father served, starting as a student pastor in 1995. Throughout his ministry he served in rural, suburban, and urban settings in both small and large churches, crossing denominational lines. He was an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church (the UMC shares a “Full Communion” relationship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). Pastor Dyson was invited (in October 2021) by Bishop Lozano to bring his 26 years of pastoral ministry experience to the office of Assistant to the Bishop for Congregational Collaboration and Revitalization in the Northwestern PA Synod of the ELCA. The goal is to create vital ministries among smaller towns and rural congregations by providing a collaborative model for shared pastoral leadership and mutual ministry. In July of this year, he was received onto the roster of Ministers of Word and Sacrament for the Northwestern PA Synod, ELCA. That’s when the churches along with Pastor Dyson began exploring together the possibility of a call to the Salem/St. Paul’s Lutheran Parish. Pastor Dyson believes that each and every small congregation is vital to the ministry of the Kingdom of God because only a “neighborhood church” best understands its unique community identity, rather than larger “merged” congregations.
Pastor Doug’s passion is summed up in the quote, “A great commitment to the Great Commission lived out through the Great Commandment makes a great church.” He believes that Jesus calls us to love God with all that we are (an ever-deepening discipleship for every believer) and to love our neighbor with all that we have (This is a love that is ACTION above all). For Pastor Doug, this is the very heart of the Christian call. Pastor Dyson looks forward to seeing where God will take him and the churches together. Being a Star Trek fan, he sums up this exciting time of new beginning by praying that together they would be encouraged to “boldly go when no one has gone before”, as he and the congregations seek out Christ’s “new life” together.
Comments