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Ed Priestaf - Pastor

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God called Ed and Amy into the ministry in 2001 while they were attending Marietta First    United Methodist Church in Georgia.  Ed served as a student pastor for Rush Chapel, a small country church in Rome, GA while he earned his seminary degree from Candler at Emory.  He came to North Carolina with Amy and their 3 children in 2006, where he served as an associate at Benson Memorial UMC in North Raleigh, until he was appointed to Ebenezer UMC in 2010.  Their kids are Noah, Grace, and Evan. Amy works full time as a Physician Assistant in labor & delivery triage at Wake Med in Raleigh.

 In these ministry experiences, much of Ed’s focus has been on teaching and on missions.  Ed has participated in or led trips to the Blackfeet tribe of Montana, a small rural church and school in Jamaica, an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and local excursions to Lumberton, the Food Bank’s community garden, North Raleigh ministries, Stop Hunger Now, and Raleigh’s Clubs in the City.   At Benson Memorial he helped launch an off-campus young adult ministry called “Another Level”, and has been a big supporter and participant in Ebenezer’s Upward basketball and  cheerleading program. 

The pastor and his wife Amy met in 1995 in Atlanta, Georgia.  Amy was working as a Physician Assistant in women’s health, and Ed was a computer systems analyst with a large software company.  Amy was born in Columbus, Ohio, and was raised in Chapel Hill, where her parents still reside today.  Ed was born and raised in Dearborn, Michigan until his first career took him to    Atlanta.  He’s worked some interesting jobs: his first paid job was as a parrot in a department store promotion, and he later spent his summers helping his dad in a family landscaping business.  After graduating from Kalamazoo College (thus avoiding altogether the complicated sports rivalries of the ACC) with a degree in physics, he bounced around as a counselor at a   children’s home, a college teacher’s assistant, and a wilderness ranger for the Forest Service in Colorado. He’s found that these life experiences have been used to help him relate to people of many different backgrounds.  

Ed has a passion for making disciples of Jesus who make disciples, for building cross-cultural bridges of understanding, and for helping churches build thriving new relationships with increasingly diverse neighborhoods.

Ed is excited for the transition.  He says, “I’ve begun to hear the stories and reputation of McMannen as a church that has long been a leader in missions of many shapes and sizes.  I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us to share together!  McMannen seems to be a    congregation that cares deeply for one another and for its neighbors, a congregation that worships in spirit and in truth and is striving to live out the calling Jesus has placed on their hearts.  These stories have reinforced my awareness that God is bringing us together for      kingdom purposes and God’s glory!”