David Nelson will serve as the new executive director of Serve Ministries at Peachtree City United Methodist Church. Nelson’s role will involve providing church members with opportunities to serve locally, regionally and globally. He began his new position Aug. 1.
Nelson graduated in 1995 from the Master of Arts in Christian Education program at Erskine Theological Seminary in Due West, S.C.
Upon completion of his studies, he served the homeless population of Greenville, S.C. as the senior case manager with SHARE Homeless Services.
Sensing a call to missions, he then moved to Tyrone in June of 1999 with his wife and three children to serve with Operation Mobilization, an international mission organization. Nelson has extensive experience serving and mobilizing churches to active mission involvement. He has helped churches develop mission structures and strategies, facilitated domestic and international mission trips, organized mission conferences and trained church leaders and volunteers.
During the past eight years Nelson has served through the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and World Relief in Clarkston, Ga., an area the New York Times has called the most diverse square mile in America. His role with NAMB was to help indigenous leaders plant house churches and to provide serving opportunities for visiting church teams.
With World Relief, Nelson began as the church mobilization manager and most recently has been serving as the church partnership director for the Atlanta metro region, connecting churches to newly arriving refugee families, facilitating international partnerships as well as promoting programs and projects.
In his travels to more than 25 countries, Nelson has visited several refugee camps and community development projects, trained pastors, and helped build partnerships between churches and fields.
He has been a member of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) for several years which has contributed to a holistic approach to ministry.
Nelson says he “desires to see church members being used in word and deed resulting in social, spiritual and economic transformation.”
