Introducing Our New Associate Pastor

As you know, Jim and Greta McDonald have announced that they will be retiring at the end of June 2018.  We will miss them greatly.  After knowing this, with input from our church, Bishop Sally Dyck, District Superintendent Dick Wisdom and the Northern Illinois Conference (NIC) Cabinet diligently worked to find the next Senior Pastor, Rev. Claude R. King, Sr., and now have continued to work diligently to find the Associate Pastor for our church, Pastor Anna Voinovich.

Bishop Sally Dyck and the Northern Illinois Conference Cabinet have prayerfully discerned the Pastor Anna Voinovich to serve as the Associate Pastor of First UMC of Downers Grove for the following missional reasons: her passionate spirituality, her gift  in meeting people where they, her creativity in outreach and mission, and her experience in working on a large church staff.

Anna Voinovich has recently been recommended by the Northern Illinois Conference Board of Ordained Ministry for commissioning, and will serve as a provisional Elder in the United Methodist Church. This May she will complete her Master of Divinity degree at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Prior to this, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish, along with a Minor in Educational Studies and a Minor in Gender Studies, from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Currently, Pastor Anna is serving as a licensed local pastor in a multisite UMC faith community that includes El Mesias UMC, Barrington UMC, FUMC West Dundee, and Bethel NFC. Pastor Anna is thrilled to be joining the Downers Grove First UMC community! She is passionate about worship that invites and inspires us to live out our faith every day of the week, justice and mission work that unites us with all of God's children in and outside of the church building, and faith development that helps us grow as disciples.

Pastor Anna is really looking forward to getting to know the staff, leaders, members, families and friends of First UMC, Downers Grove as their new Associate Pastor.