Daniel Rudy to serve as executive minister for Virlina District

The Church of the Brethren’s Virlina District has called Daniel L. Rudy as district executive minister beginning on Feb. 6, 2023.

The district has called Emma Jean Franklin Woodard to serve a five-week interim role between the retirement of David Shumate on Dec. 31 and the beginning of Rudy’s service.

Rudy has pastored Ninth Street Church of the Brethren in Roanoke, Va., since 2011. He has been an instructor in the Christian Growth Institute of the Virlina and Shenandoah Districts. While serving on the Virlina District board, he has been a member of the district’s New Church Development Committee, serving as chair for the last two years. He was the district’s representative to the Virginia Council of Churches 2014-2016 and has chaired the Southeast Roanoke Christian Partnership Advisory Council for six years.

On the denominational level, he has been the pastor representative on the Pastoral Compensation and Benefits Advisory Committee of Annual Conference. During a five-year term, he gave leadership to the development of the new compensation and benefits tools for pastors recently approved by the Conference.

Rudy holds a master of divinity degree from Bethany Theological Seminary and a bachelor’s from Bridgewater (Va.) College, with a major in philosophy and religion and a minor in peace studies. He was ordained in Mid-Atlantic District in 2012.

Woodard was associate district executive minister for more than 17 years and acting executive minister in 2016. For the last four years, she has been an interim pastor in various congregations in the district. Currently she co-pastors Bethany Church of the Brethren in Boones Mill, Va., and fills the role of “pastor to pastors” on behalf of the district board. She is an ordained minister and a graduate of the TRIM program of the Brethren Academy for Ministerial Leadership.

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Find more Church of the Brethren news:

Virlina District is celebrating district executive minister David Shumate’s retirement after almost 30 years on the job and more than 40 years in the ministry, on Dec. 3 at 1-4 p.m. at Camp Bethel in Fincastle, Va.

Please pray… For Virlina District and its leadership during this time of transition.

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