MEET OUR PASTORS
Rev. Dr. Jody Seymour
Senior Pastor
Jody’s roots go back to Biloxi, Mississippi, where he was born in 1947. He moved with his family to North Carolina during the elementary school days and spent his high school years in Salisbury, N.C., where he and Betsy were high school sweethearts.
Jody graduated from Greensboro College and Duke Divinity School and did his Doctoral work in Spiritual Formation through the Graduate Theological Foundation. He studied one year at Candler School of Theology at Emory on a Lily Foundation program in Congregational Analysis.
He is the author of four books, “Looking for God in All the Wrong Place,” “Finding God Between the Lines,” “A Time for Healing: Overcoming the Perils of Ministry,” and the most recent one, “Lost but Making Excellent Time: Transforming the Rat Race into a Pilgrimage." Jody is also a certified Enneagram instructor. The Enneagram is a personality system that is often used in spiritual direction.
He has served seven churches in the Western North Carolina Conference, which have included Salisbury, Mt. Pleasant, Pilot Mountain, Newton, Charlotte, and Gastonia. Jody enjoys tennis and writing. He and Betsy, who worked for American Retirement Corporation for 18 years before retiring, have been married for 42 years. They have two children, Abigail and Amanda, who both reside in Charlotte.
Jody says, “My passion is to take the old story and make it come alive. I love to help people formulate questions of faith before we ever get to the answers. The spiritual pilgrimage is not only about ‘having arrived,’ but about experiencing the journey and seeking to understand the challenges that come with such a journey.”
He has served as the Senior Pastor of Davidson United Methodist church for the past 7 years. Jody is also the Chair of the Order of Elders and serves on the Executive Committee of the Western North Carolina Conference Board of Ministry.
In Jody's Words...tune in to see what's on Jody's mind: http://jodyseymour.blogspot.com/
Rev. Jeff Hassel
Senior Associate Pastor
Minister of Missions and Membership
A pastor since 1994, Jeff came to be a pastor through mission experiences with his home church in Connecticut. Over the last 20 years, he's worked as the volunteer coordinator for the Appalachia Service Project, Associate Pastor of First United Methodist in High Point, pastor of three other N.C. churches, and was a missionary to Lithuania for six years.
Jeff came to DUMC in the summer of 2008 to head up missions and church membership. If you decide to join, Jeff is the one you will be talking with.
Rev. Dr. Susan Heafner-Heun
Senior Associate Pastor
Minister of Outreach and Nurture
Susan is a graduate of Greensboro College and did her Master's of Divinity work both at Duke University and Union College in New York. She has a Doctor of Ministry from Hood Theological Seminary. Susan has served as an Associate Pastor at Mt. Zion and First Church Gastonia, and Senior Pastor to the Fairfield - Bethel churches in Denver, N.C.
Susan has a passion for helping those who are marginalized in our society with a special love for those with various limiting or handicapping conditions. She loves to shape worship and preach and enjoys using creative expressions to make the old story come alive. She is married to John Heun and they have just adopted a beautiful baby daughter.
Rev. Ashley Thomas
Associate Pastor
Campus Minister
Originally from Cashiers, N.C., Ashley is a graduate of UNC Wilmington, and Duke Divinity School. She came to Davidson in the summer of 2008 after a residency in Clinical Pastoral Education at Duke Medical Center, where she worked as a chaplain in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Ashley works with Davidson College students and young adult ministries in the church. She married Rev. Andrew Thomas ("A.J.") Thomas on October 8, 2011.