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Dear Covenant Partners and Friends at First Presbyterian,

 

I want you to know what privilege it is to be chosen as your Transitional Pastor. I look forward to getting to know you and seeing where God leads us in the next few months. A Transitional Pastor is just like any other Pastor. We preach, teach, lead, and provide all types of Pastoral Care. However, we also have the important task of helping a church prepare for the arrival of a new Pastor. Because of this, Transitional Pastors are a little like John the Baptist. We point to another who is coming after us, and one of our main tasks is to help prepare the way for them. To begin getting to know who I am a little, I offer the following condensed version of a biography I use from time to time:

 

I was born in Memphis, TN where I spent my early years. When I was 11, my

dad was transferred to the Atlanta area where I spent my teen years and

graduated from high school. After high school, I attended the University of

Pennsylvania from 1973-75 and then transferred to Duke University. While at

Duke, I felt a call to the ministry, and after graduation from Duke in 1978, I

received a M.A. from to Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in

1980, followed by a D. Min from Union Theological Seminary in Richmond,

Virginia in 1983. I was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, USA at the Buffalo Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, NC in 1983. Over the years, I served churches from small to very large in North Carolina, West Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Minnesota, and Florida. In 2017, I retired from the installed pastoral ministry and moved from the Presbyterian Church, USA to the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO). I became a part of ECO’s Certified Transitional Pastor Program and have served three churches as a  CTP: Haines Presbyterian Church in Haines Alaska from 2018-19, and Westfield Presbyterian Church near New Castle, PA from 2019-20, and First Presbyterian Church in Albert Lea, MN in 2021. 

 

In addition to my pastoral ministry, I also had the privilege of serving as a

Chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1987-2014. I retired as the Command

Chaplain for the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Command in Pinellas Park, FL.

Saving the best for last, I met my bride of 42 years Cyndi while we were undergraduates at Duke University. Cyndi graduated from Duke with a B.S. in Nursing and over the years worked in many areas of Nursing in both full and part-time roles. She retired in 2014. We have three married daughters: Nancy, Cathleen, and Melissa. We are also blessed to have seven grandchildren. Nancy has a boy and two girls, while Cathleen and Melissa have a boy and girl each. We both greatly enjoy our roles of Nana and Papa to our grandchildren.

 

In His Grip,

Pastor Chris Carlson