Our Staff
Pastor - Rev. Tom Telfer
tomt.umg @gmail.com
Administrative Assistant – Heather Culp
office@fairbanksfirst.org
Children’s and Youth Ministries Coordinator - Clarice Moore
clarice@fairbanksfirst.org
Bio:
Clarice Moore has been on staff as Director of Children’s and Youth Ministries since 1993. Prior to First UMC she was on staff at Piedmont UMC in Piedmont, OK, and McFarlin UMC in Norman, OK. “It was always a goal to stay at a church from the time a youth entered 7th grade and remain until they graduated. I’ve now seen lots of kids enter Kindergarten and also graduate high school, and that has been an amazing gift. I believe our teen years are not just meant to be endured, but to be fully lived and loved, and with God as their guide this can be true for all our youth.” Clarice is married to David, and they have one teenage daughter, Eryn.
Director of Small Group Ministries – David Rumph Jr.
davidr.umc@gmail.com
Bio:
Greetings to you all in the precious name of Jesus. I am David Rumph, our Church’s Director of Small Group Ministries. Allow me to share a little about myself and to present a couple of my thoughts on small groups.
I began collecting Methodist Sunday School perfect attendance pins before the Methodist Church became the United Methodist Church in 1968. I come from a long line of Methodists, and remain convinced I am related to Hubert and Alma Rumph, who helped found our Fairbanks congregation 57 years ago. I studied the theology and practice of John and Charles Wesley at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. I also served two small United Methodist congregations as pastor while I was in school there.
I have come to appreciate the brilliance of Class Meetings as they were practiced among the first British Methodists. The Wesleys seem to have “re-discovered” the benefits which are to be found in small group meetings. They insisted their converts were to attend a “school for growing souls,” where members held each other mutually accountable to agreed-upon values for making their lives congruent with their theology.
Opportunities to learn and to grow and to love and to be loved are present in unique ways when a group of Christian people meet together. My goal is to help each of us strengthen our connections to God, to our Church, and to our personal ministry in the world, by providing a place where we can find and practice mutual “soul-care.”
May it be so, amen.
Choir Director - Francis Lupton (8:30 & 11:00 am)
francislupton@yahoo.com
Praise Band Director – Patti Gallagher (9:45 am – Praise Band)
musicmaker@acsalaska.net
Organist - Karen Spaleta
kjhirst@gmail.com
Bell Choir Director – Dianne Coursey
dkcoursey@alaska.edu
Children’s Choir Director – Marion Stone
mstone@northstar.k12.ak.us
American Sign Language Interpreter - Lizanne Hanson, CI, CT
