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Energizing and Equipping Local Churches
in Making Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World
Rev. Carol Woods named superintendent
2/16/2010
Bishop Mike Lowry announced Sunday, Feb. 14, the appointment of Rev. Carol Woods as superintendent of the Brownwood District. This is Rev. Woods’ second appointment to a Cabinet position, having served as superintendent of the Northeast District of the North Texas Conference from 1997 to 2002.
It was in 2002 that she transferred to the Central Texas Conference and was named senior pastor at Overton Park (now Arborlawn) United Methodist Church in Fort Worth. Two years later, she was named senior pastor at the 520-member First United Methodist Church of Mineral Wells. Churches she served in the North Texas Conference are Callisburg, Friendship in Sherman, Price Memorial in Dennison, and Trailwood.
“The country is my home, and I love town and country churches,” says Woods who finds it exciting to be assigned to the Brownwood District. “Our family has lived so many years within the districts’ borders, and the strength and love of the people of these town and country churches astonishes me.
“They know how to commit to their faith and to the gospel. They know how to do mission for the poor and hungry. They stand for what they believe, serve unselfishly, and keep searching for the new directions where God is leading us,” she said about the people of the Brownwood District. Rev. Woods and her husband, K. Clint Morrow, will live in Brownwood.
“I also pray that my previous service on a district will make me quickly available to serve the Brownwood District in a compassionate and helpful way,” said Woods. “One of the joys of my ministry over the years has been helping in the start up of many different kinds of new mission opportunities — for the poor or hungry, for peoples of different languages and cultures, for new faith communities. It is my prayer that together we will find many new ways to do this. We are all God’s missionaries and the mission field is large.”
In acknowledging the challenges before the church today, Woods recalls the Sunday mornings when families in the neighborhood were getting into their cars to go to church. Now, she observes, on any given Sunday morning there’s probably only one.
“We live in a post Christian age where words like ‘church’ and ‘faith’ are scary or misunderstood concepts,” Woods said. “It’s a new mission field right here at home. The challenge before us as Christians today is to find ways to interpret and offer the amazing love of Christ and the transforming power He offers all of us through His grace in the community of faith.”
Rev. Woods brings some educational diversity to her ministry, having earned a B.A. in philosophy and a B.S. in design at the University of Texas at Austin before pursuing her master of divinity at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University in 1987. She draws from this educational background and her experiences in ministry to serve her passion for sharing the heart and soul of the person of Jesus Christ.
“Remember the first person who ever told you the story of Jesus?” she asks. “That person changed your life. You have probably done that for someone else — a child you taught in Sunday school, that friend going through a divorce that you brought to church,” she said. “Inviting new people, building relationships, opening the doors of faith, sharing how God touched your life; in all these ways we offer Christ. Jesus transforms lives — ours and others,” affirms Woods, adding that, “helping God’s people do that is my passion.”