Welcome Dr. Claude Kayler

Main Street United Methodist Church is pleased to welcome Claude Kayler as our new Senior Pastor effective July 1, 2014.  Dr. Kayler comes to us from Covenant Community Church in Asheville, where he has served as senior pastor since 2005. 

During his 28 years with the Western North Carolina Conference, Dr. Kayler has served on the staff at Myers Park UMC in Charlotte, founded Good Shepherd UMC, also in Charlotte, and served as the senior pastor at Tyro UMC for 6 years and most recently at Covenant for 8 years.  He has worked with both traditional and contemporary worship styles in both large and small congregations.

Claude grew up in a parsonage, the son of a United Methodist pastor.  He is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke Divinity School.  He received his doctorate in ministry from Asbury Seminary in 2011.  Claude has traveled in mission to Cambodia (twice), to Tanzania to train Methodist pastors, and to Nicaragua, where he preached, baptized and conducted a wedding in Spanish.  Claude cites the most important characteristic of a church appointment to be a Missional Focus.

Claude and his wife Lorie have an adult son and a daughter attending UNC-Greensboro.  Their first worship service at Main Street UMC will be July 13.

The Methodist Tradition of Itinerant Pastors

“This preacher has one talent, that another; no one whom I ever yet knew has all the talents which are needful for beginning, continuing and perfecting the work of grace in a whole congregation.”
John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church.

The United Methodist Church in colonial America was founded by circuit-riding preachers, who traveled on horseback from settlement to crossroads to town to preach and help organize local churches.  Methodist pastors enter the ministry with a vow to go where sent, and Methodist congregations experience a change in pastors every few years.  Itinerant pastors spread fresh ideas, build relationships across the United Methodist connection and continue to grow in faith and experience.  Itinerant pastors remind us that our desires as church members, and the desires of our pastors, are second to the will of God.