Wesley Memorial Welcomes
Karen Miller
When the Staff-Parish Committee met with our District Superintendent recently to hear about the appointment being considered for Wesley, there was anticipation and excitement in the room. I hope you will feel that today as we begin a new journey and welcome Rev. Karen Miller into our church family. Karen's favorite scripture is Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me".
Her husband, Perry, is also a minister and has received the call to serve at a church in the Statesville District as well. Karen enjoys traveling in the U.S. and overseas, reading fiction and non-fiction, taking walks in the woods, laughing, cooking vegetarian dishes and watching Law and Order. Karen loves children and was educated to become an elementary school teacher before she felt God's call to go into the ministry. She graduated from Southern Methodist University with a Bachelor of Science degree, and from Duke Divinity School with a Master's of Divinity.
She loved hiking, biking and kayaking when she lived in Asheville, N.C. for 12 years and served as pastor and District Superintendent of the Asheville District.
Her husband, Perry, is a golfer, tennis player and Karen’s traveling buddy. She says he’s lots of fun! They met in seminary at Duke and spent their first 5 years in the Memphis Conference, serving Tennessee and Kentucky. They moved to the Western North Carolina Conference and have been connected ever since.
Some of her favorite memories in ministry have been serving as summer intern on Ocracoke Island, as the first female pastor in Marshall County, Kentucky, being pregnant and giving birth while serving as an associate minister at Burkhead United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem, and serving a church so close to Lowe's Motor Speedway that church-goers had to put signs on their cars to get through race traffic to go to church.
Karen and Perry have a daughter, Liz, 22 who currently resides in Asheville where she is an intern with Leadership Asheville. She will live with her parents for a month this summer before going to the University of Denver’s Kordel School of International Studies where she will continue her studies toward a Master’s Degree in Human Rights. She hopes to return to Africa, where she spent some of her time during college at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Buddy, their mellowed-out cat, has been a member of the family for 10 years. He’s just an old bachelor who enjoys a good meal and sleeping in front of the TV.
We hope you will accept God’s call for us as we look to welcome Karen into the pulpit on Sunday, July 4th.
