Our New Pastor and a Message from Pastor Cathy
From our Staff Pastor Parish Relations Team
We are pleased to announce we have met with a pastoral candidate through Zoom. We agreed to the appointment of a new Senior Pastor. Her name is Reverend Doctor Cathy Hall Stengel. She prefers to be called Cathy or Pastor Cathy. She comes with an extensive resume that includes serving successfully as the senior pastor of two large churches in the Rochester area and as a District Superintendent in our United Methodist Conference. She has extensive skills and experience in leading worship, leading ministry, pastoral care, and transitional ministry. We are excited that she will join us in ministry when Pastor Tom transitions to retirement on July first of this year. Like Pastor Tom, her spouse Matt is also a pastor serving a large church. Actually, Pastor Tom and Pastor Matt grew up together, attending the same church. On the next page is a letter to you from Pastor Cathy.
The Staff Pastor Parish Relations Team is looking at other possible pastoral candidates to fill the position currently occupied by Pastor Lisa. We also wish to clarify that we expect Pastor Sherry will be staying with us as part of our clergy team, as well as others who are part of our current pastoral team.
From Pastor Cathy
Pastor Cathy
Hello Pendleton Center and First UMC Niagara Falls!
I want to begin by telling you that I am praying for you in the midst of this unknown and anxiety producing time. I am also praying for your Pastor Tom and the leadership of the congregations during this season of transition in difficult times.
Let me introduce myself to you and tell you some of the most important things about what is going to happen and what isn’t going to happen.
I did not grow up in a family of faith, but the Holy Spirit moved around and ultimately within me, and I came to know and understand that faith in Jesus Christ in college. The world opened wide, and God’s Holy Spirit just kept moving me - wind, fire, still small voices, and I answered the call to pastoral ministry. I am a person and a pastor who leads with a heart full of Jesus, dependence on God, and the movement of the Holy Spirit.
I am married to Rev. Matthew Stengel. (he grew up with Tom and Jackie, Tom was in our wedding) Matt is currently the pastor at the Greece United Methodist Church in Rochester. We’ve been married for almost 38 years, and we have three grown children - a son Marty, headed to nursing school in Rochester after working in the chef business, a daughter Katie, who is a school counselor in Arizona and marrying Jeff on October 4, and our youngest son Jordan who is married to Sarah and they will introduce us to our very first grandchild, a boy, in mid-June.
I am an evangelical pastor convinced that we have the best thing to share - our faith, through our words, our actions, and the ways we live our lives. I love preaching and worship - dreaming, creating, planning, and of course, experiencing how the Spirit moves. I love all kinds of worship music - all kinds and love finding praise music and hymns to reinforce the scriptural messages in worship. I love the stories of faith as shared in scripture and depend on those words to guide me and to guide us.
I am a team person - and I cannot wait to get to know you, learn your gifts, your stories, and how God is calling you to continue to serve in ministry, current callings, new callings, all of it. I can’t wait to meet your children and youth. Over the summer and into the fall, we are going to have many - many opportunities to get together and just learn about each other - at the parsonage, at your homes, in the community, back yards, etc.
What I will do - preach the gospel, lead biblically, love you where you are, support your grief in Tom’s retirement - you can miss him and say so, it’s ok. I will listen and learn and lead from there. I will not turn the church upside down or change things in these initial months, and when change comes - we will have done it together.
We only have a few months left before Tom retires and I arrive - be reassured and encouraged, God is going to continue to bless us and guide us. I will be in Denver until sometime mid to late June and then be moving into the parsonage. I can’t wait.
Please feel free to email me - [email protected]. I will look forward to hearing from you and will respond as I am able. I am working as a chaplain in a large Denver hospital, and as you can imagine, we are working hard to support patients and staff in these difficult times.
Truly with joy and the peace that really does pass all understanding,
Cathy