Rev. Sara McKinley
Senior Minister
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About Sara
I was born in England and went to an English boarding school through age 17 while my family lived in Africa. We lived in Algiers in North Africa, Khartoum in the Sudan, Ibadan in Nigeria and Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. I attended the University of Bristol in England where I earned by Bachelors degree in Psychology. During this time my mother and step father had moved to Clark University in Massachusetts and I visited the States for the first time and loved it. After graduating from Bristol University I moved to Massachusetts where I worked as the Director of Court Volunteers for the Worcester Juvenile Court while I went to school at night to get my MBA. After graduating from Clark University in Worcester, Mass., I was employed by a plastics injection molding company based in Clinton, Massachusetts. I worked for them for 9 years as a Personnel and Organization Development Manager, Plant Manager, General Manager, Director of Far East Operations, and then General Business Manager for their consumer industrial division. I have had experience with building a factory in Singapore, running factories in Massachusetts and Hong King, managing over 200 employees and being responsible for budgets upwards of $30 million. In the late 1980s I was married and had a son, Andrew, who is now 18 and is the love of my life. He will be attending FSU for the summer term beginning on June 25.
I was raised in the Church of England, being baptized and confirmed in the Anglican Church. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was 13 years old. While in Massachusetts I became a member of the Episcopal Church which is where I met my husband singing in the choir. We moved to Florida in 1988 and started our own business - Boca Type and Graphic Design Center -- and began attending Boca West Community UMC. We became more and more involved as committed lay people in the church and attended our Walk to Emmaus in 1993 out of which I received my call to ministry. I did not particularly want to be a pastor but found myself unable to resist God's call on my life and it seemed that many of the skills I had developed in the business world could be well applied to ministry in the church and the world. I attended Candler School of Theology where I received my Masters of Divinity graduating valedictorian in May 1998. I was ordained as a Deacon in 1998 and then as an Elder in 2001.
I was appointed to Plantation UMC as the Associate Pastor in 1998 and have been blessed to serve with the Rev. Timothy Smiley on an unofficial co-pastor basis for the past nine years. I have loved being in ministry in the south Florida area. I love the diversity within our congregation -- both ethnic, racial, age and socio-economic diversity and I love our ministry to children, youth and their families. The mission of Plantation United Methodist Church is "Crossing the Street to Reach the Next Generations for Jesus."
In 2001 I was divorced from my husband after he had an affair with the organist at the church where he was working as the music director. This was a devastating experience for my son and me and it and has taken several years of healing. I am eternally grateful to the wonderful congregation at Plantation who loved me through this most difficult life event. I have experienced the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ made manifest through the body of Christ in action.
I am a passionate follower of Jesus Christ with a vibrant prayer life and a voracious appetite for Scripture using the Life Journal and other journaling techniques. I love to preach and to teach and have supervised either directly or indirectly a staff of 18 employees and had responsibility for overseeing a child care center (55 kids) and a preschool (116 kids) at Plantation. I would describe my style as very relational and I love working collaboratively as team.
General vision
My vision is to build on the incredibly good work that God has been doing through your current pastoral team. I am thrilled to see your passion for ministries to children, youth and their families demonstrated in your recently completed children's and youth center. My vision is based on Ephesians 4:12-13: "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the love of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ." I have a vision of equipping lay leaders for growing teams of disciples for the work of "making disciples who make disciples." I hope we can continue the work of becoming an eternally focused church that exists for the benefit of those who do not yet know Jesus and for ministering to the saints so that they will grow in their knowledge and love of God and of neighbor. I have a vision for continuing to extend the love of Jesus through the amazing number and effectiveness of the mission projects in which First Church is involved. I would love for every member or regular guest at First Church to be able to tell what there ministry is in the church and what their mission is in the world. I also have a passion for making sure that we are all connected to Christ through some kind of small group. All of this can only happen with a foundation of prayer and reading God's word. I pray that you will join me in prayer and the reading of Scripture to discern God's will for First Church as together we go through this transition of leadership.
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Did you know?
While living in Africa, Sara was a guest at Muslim Ramadan feasts.
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