Serving as a pastor since 1981 has honed David Wentz’s passion for helping people connect with God and make a difference. Add a varied church background, a first career in engineering, and graduate degrees from three very different seminaries (charismatic, mainstream and Wesleyan-evangelical) and you can see why he expresses God’s truth in ways everyone can appreciate.
Raised in the Episcopal church, David has also been part of Nazarene, Pentecostal Holiness, and non-denominational congregations. As a United Methodist pastor he has served small, large, and multi-cultural churches in rural, small town, suburban and urban settings. David served as a regional church consultant in the Maryland – D.C. area and has led workshops for pastors in Turkey. In 2015 he retired to the rural Ozarks, where he writes, works in God’s great outdoors, and continues to pastor part-time. You can find his blog, “Doing Christianity,” at www.pastordavidwentz.com.
In 1974, David married his college sweetheart, Paula. They have five children, all with wonderful spouses, and fourteen grandchildren. He enjoys playing sax and flute in jazz and blues jams (though those are hard to come by in bluegrass country), and writing worship music with his guitar. David’s heroes are John Wesley, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. – and for you old baseball fans, Brooks Robinson.
David earned a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia; two Masters of Divinity, one from Melodyland School of Theology and one from Wesley Theological Seminary; and a Doctor of Ministry in Christian Leadership from Asbury Theological Seminary.
The book of Ezekiel describes David’s calling. Twenty-five hundred years ago God called Ezekiel to teach God’s ways. He instructed Ezekiel to proclaim the Holy Spirit – the one who revives dry bones and forms them into a dwelling for God and a source of living water that heals nations. Bones are still dry today. God still wants to dwell among his people. Nations still need healing. And people still need to be taught God’s ways and be moved by God’s Spirit. David calls that “Doing Christianity,” and it motivates everything he writes.
