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April 03, 2016

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April 2016

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Church Vitality Leader to Head Discipleship Ministries

Rev. Junius Boyd DotsonNASHVILLE, Tenn. April 3, 2016 /Discipleship Ministries/ – The Discipleship Ministries Board of Directors has elected Rev. Junius Boyd Dotson, a well-known preacher, speaker, trainer, consultant and coach promoting vital ministries, as the agency’s new General Secretary (chief executive).

Dotson, an ordained elder in the Great Plains Conference, is senior pastor of Saint Mark United Methodist Church, a 3,500-member, multi-campus church in Wichita. His election came at the board’s meeting last week in Overland Park, Kansas.

“Junius Dotson knows how to lead people inside the church to introduce people outside the church to Jesus and invite them into Christian discipleship,” said Bishop Elaine J.W. Stanovsky of the Mountain Sky episcopal area, who is president of the Discipleship Ministries board of directors. “Working with board and staff, we believe Rev. Dotson can focus the church on three missional fronts: strengthening partnerships in our increasingly global church, improving the effective on-going ministries in our churches, engaging the growing number of 'spiritual but not religious' people in the United States."

Dotson’s gift for growing vital congregations also includes Genesis UMC, a new and innovative church in California’s Silicon Valley. He planted Genesis in 1996, four years after his ordination, and saw it grow to nearly 500 members.

“I feel blessed to be chosen to lead Discipleship Ministries. I am passionate about making disciples and welcome the opportunity to be relentlessly focused on providing the resources our leaders need to plant new churches and grow vital congregations,” said Dotson.

Dotson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, with a concentration in economics, from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Master of Divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

He will assume the General Secretary position on July 1, following MaryJane Pierce Norton, who has served as interim General Secretary since January.

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The mission of Discipleship Ministries is to support annual conference and local church leaders for their task of equipping world-changing disciples. An agency of The United Methodist Church, Discipleship Ministries is located at 1908 Grand Ave. in Nashville, Tenn. For more information, visit www.UMCdiscipleship.org, the Press Center at www.UMCdiscipleship.org/about/press-center or call the Communications Office at (877) 899-2780, Ext. 1726.