Dwight K. Nelson, Pastor

Dwight has known me since I was a 24-year-old grad student. From 1985-1987 I was on his team as an assistant chaplain through the Campus Ministries office. Then in 1997 he called me back to Andrews to be an associate pastor at Pioneer Memorial Church—a position I filled until 2013. During those 16 years I spent more than 3,200 hours in staff meetings. That’s a lot of time to influence each other.

Aside from the professional development that took place under Dwight, I’m grateful for the constant call to keep going deeper with Jesus. Following Dwight’s example, for many years I’ve read through the Bible in a different version each year. And once, I took on his challenge to read the entire Bible through in January to get the broad overview. (It took me just over three months.) Following Dwight’s model, I’ve frequently read a Psalm each day, and My Utmost for His Highest, has often been my devotional book for the year.

It has been said that you should “Practice what you preach.” Dwight said we should “[only] preach what we practice.” So, when our staff decided to move into a model of small groups, Dwight said that we had to experience the value of small groups before we could preach about it. He asked me to lead our vision for small groups at Pioneer. That assignment continues to be an ongoing spiritual blessing in my life.

Dwight also commissioned the creation of the Contagious Adventist seminar. My continued involvement with that material keeps me inspired and focused on the message and mission of Jesus and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Prologue: In 2023 Pastor Dwight retired after 50 years of pastoral ministry—40 of those years were at Pioneer Memorial Church. My husband Ron and I had the privilege of helping to coordinate the farewell activities. If you want learn just a little about how God used the ministry of Pastor Dwight, you can view the program here: INCLUDE the Link.