04 May Gary Gates Takes on New Denominational Role

On May 3, Gary Gates (right), pastor of South Scipio UB church (Harlan, Ind.), began serving one day a week as the denominational Director of Ministerial Licenses.

Previously, most UB ministers were educated through Huntington University. The university then dealt with courses to take, transcripts, and everything else needed to keep the person on track for their licensing and ordination requirements.

Since Huntington University is discontinuing the pastoral track of the graduate program this summer, a lot of responsibility will fall back to the denomination.

The Pastoral Ministry Leadership Team revised the licensing and ordination requirements to include a list of up to 25 core courses, which ministers can obtain from various places. The Director of Ministerial Licenses will monitor and give direction to UB men and women as they work toward licensing.

Gary’s responsibilities will include:

1. Help licentiates through the license and ordination process.
2. Evaluate schools and courses against the core topics necessary for national conference license and ordination.
3. Evaluate transcripts in a timely manner and communicate with candidates.
4. Serve as a liaison between the Bishop and the Pastoral Ministry Leadership Team.
5. Serve as an advisory member of the Pastoral Ministry Leadership Team.
6. Recruit instructors to develop the courses that are not readily available through colleges.

Gary will spend Mondays in the Healthy Ministry Resources office. He can be contacted in these ways:

Phone: 1-888-622-3019 (toll-free)
Email: gary@ub.org