Matt Miofsky
Matt Miofsky is the lead pastor of The Gathering, a multi-site United Methodist Church in St. Louis, Missouri. The Gathering started in 2006 with a vision of creating a Christian community that is compelling for new generations in St. Louis. Today over 1100 people worship each week across three sites and seven services.
After studying math at Washington University in St. Louis he procrastinated getting a job and went to seminary at Candler School of Theology. Matt is married to Jessica and they have three children Caleb, Carly and George.
Violet L. Fisher
Violet Fisher was born into a Methodist family in Easton, Maryland. She graduated from Bowie University (B.S.) and George Washington University (M. Ed.) She taught in the public school systems of Virginia and Maryland for twenty-two years.
Violet’s call to ministry began when she was sixteen years old. During that time, there was no place in ordained ministry for women, especially in the Delaware Conference of the Central Jurisdiction. At the age of twenty-five, Violet was ordained by the King’s Apostle Holiness Church of God and served as National Evangelist and Missionary (short term) to East Africa, Republic of Haiti, and Jamaica, W.I.
Returning to the church of her birth, Violet graduated from Eastern Baptist Seminary and was ordained in the UMC.
Violet served in churches and as a District Superintendent in the Eastern PA Conference. She was a delegate to General and Jurisdictional Conferences 1996 and 2000, leading her delegation, and also delegate to World Methodist Council (1996) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Violet was elected to the episcopacy in 2000 and was assigned to the New York West Area. She retired from that Area in 2008. She is the mother of one son, Marcus.
Rob Fuquay
Rob Fuquay was appointed in 2011, as senior pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, IN
Following a year serving in England right out of seminary Rob led a two-point charge in rural Western North Carolina, was an associate at Matthews UMC in Charlotte and then spent 12 ½ years at Long’s Chapel UMC in Lake Junaluska, NC, during which time the church grew from 300 to nearly 1,000 in weekly worship attendance. Finally, before moving to Indianapolis, Rob was the senior pastor of Williamson’s Chapel UMC in Mooresville, NC, a 2000-plus member church with an average attendance of over 1200.
Rob’s gifts for ministry are strong preaching, leadership, and visioning. He loves the mountains, hiking, playing golf, attending his daughters’ activities, exercising, traveling, and watching college basketball (yes, both Duke AND Butler!)
Rob graduated from Pfeiffer College (now Pfeiffer University), Misenheimer, NC, in 1984, with a B.A. in Religion, and Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, in 1987, with a M.Div. degree. He has been a featured presenter at Soulfeast, an annual retreat sponsored by the Upper Room, and most recently has been asked by Bishop Scott Jones to co-publish a new curriculum, The Wesleyan Way: Faith That Matters, due out in late 2013.
Rob’s wife, Susan loves teaching Disciple and has been employed for many years at the churches Rob has served. Rob and Susan have three daughters: Julie, Sarah and Anna.
Lisa Yebuah
Lisa Yebuah is a native of Nashville, Tennessee, but claims Summerville, SC, as her hometown. She is a ’99 graduate of Wofford College and a ’04 graduate of Duke University Divinity School. Her travels to Haiti and South Africa during her seminary career fueled her desire to make the Wesleyan understanding of “love of God and love of neighbor” tangible to United Methodists in the local church. She currently serves as the Pastor of Inviting Ministries at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh, NC.
