Résumé - David A. Shirey
David Shirey is a native of Warren, OH, with a B.A. in Religious Studies from Indiana University and a M.Div. from Vanderbilt Divinity School.
Over forty years of congregational ministry, he served churches in Carthage, TN, St. Louis, MO, Wilmington, NC, Columbus, IN, Indianapolis, IN, Phoenix, AZ, and Lexington, KY. Those ministries included a small town church, an inner city congregation, congregations in county seat towns and the suburbs of metropolitan areas, a 200-year-old congregation and one he and his family started from scratch.
Since 2007, he has served on the leadership team of the Bethany Fellows, a mentoring and spiritual leadership ministry that has accompanied 200+ newly ordained pastors in their transition from seminary to congregational ministry.
Throughout his ministry, David was actively involved in community service including serving on the boards of the Foothills (AZ) Food Bank, the United Way of Bartholomew County, Columbus, IN, and Turning Point Domestic Violence Shelter, Columbus, IN. He volunteered at the Good Shepherd House (Homeless Shelter) and Hospice of the Cape Fear in Wilmington, NC, and the Five Church Association (social services outreach ministry) in inner-city St. Louis. In Lexington, he supported the many ministries of mercy and justice engaged in by Central Christian Church including God’s Pantry Food Bank, a Thrift Store, Helping Hands (a ministry to the homeless and near-homeless in the northeast downtown area), St. James Place, the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Worship Service, and the Black Church Coalition. In 2022, he was appointed to the Mayor’s Commission for Racial Justice and Equality.
His book It Don’t Get Any Better Than This is his warm-spirited ode to the church he served as a student pastor in the early 1980s. The church closed in the mid-90s and burned to the ground in the early 2000s, but lives on in the stories David tells of its inimitable people.
His sermons have been published in The Biblical Preaching Journal, Joyful Giving (Dan Moseley’s collection of stewardship sermons), Shaken Foundations (David Polk’s collection of sermons preached after 9/11), and in several other denominational and national online publications. He preached as Chaplain of the Week at The Chautauqua Institution in New York in 2018, at Chautauqua at Christmount in 2016, and has had the honor of preaching at Regional and Area Assemblies of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Southern California, The Capital Area, Texas, and Arizona and at the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Ministers and Mates breakfast in 2015.
He has spoken, led retreats, and served as keynoter in a variety of venues across the country.
David and Jennie will soon be married 40 years, enjoy hiking, hosting friends and family in their home for food, fun, and frivolity, and reading novels, mysteries, and insightful histories written by men and women outside of the dominant culture. They have three children and three grandchildren.