Pastor Cynthia Weems became our church’s Senior Pastor on July 1, 2024. She has served in ordained ministry for twenty-five years and is delighted to be a part of our pastoral team for this next chapter of her ministry and ours.

 

Pastor Cynthia most recently served as an assistant to Bishop Tom Berlin in the area of Congregational Mission. Prior to this role, she served for eight years as District Superintendent of the South East District, based in Miami. This district covered sixty United Methodist churches from Delray Beach to Key West and spanned five language groups. During these years Pastor Cynthia worked with churches to expand their mission, grow in discipleship, redevelop their properties and partner with other churches and organizations. A highlight of these years was the initiation of a District Youth Event each February around the anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School (located in the South East District). Cynthia has also served as pastor of First United Methodist Church of Miami, a church with an extensive ministry to the diverse unhoused population of downtown Miami, as well as churches in Plantation, FL, Kansas and Connecticut. Cynthia knew at age 8 that she wanted to be a pastor and considers her first twenty-five years of ministry to be a true gift from God.

 

Pastor Cynthia grew up in Mississippi, the home state of both of her parents. Her father was a pastor, and later a seminary administrator, and her mother a public school teacher. She would spend formative years in Kansas City, where her parents still live, and she roots for Kansas City sports teams (who wouldn’t?). She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Millsaps College and was a Yale Fellow at Yale Divinity School. She also has her Doctor of Ministry degree from Saint Paul School of Theology. Following seminary, she served as a volunteer missionary in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Her nearly two years in Bolivia were incredibly formative and she often shares stories of her travels in her sermons. She learned Spanish while living there and later learned Portuguese, both of which were incredibly helpful during her fifteen years of ministry in Miami. Though Cynthia was a successful student in the classroom, she credits her time in Bolivia as the most educational and spiritually formative time of her life.

 

Cynthia is married to the Rev. Dr. Mark Holland who is also a United Methodist pastor. He was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas and later served in both church and civic leadership there as the senior pastor of Trinity UMC and as a commissioner and then mayor. Together, Mark and Cynthia have a blended family of young adult children. The youngest, Cynthia’s daughter Mariana, relocated with them to Sun City Center and now attends Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.