Pastor Scott Sittig
PASTOR SCOTT SITTIG
Pastor Scott is the Lead Pastor of New Hope Free Methodist Church located in the heart of Rochester. New Hope is a vibrant, multicultural movement of ordinary people, devoted to experiencing and expressing the extraordinary love of Jesus. He lives with his wife and five kids in the City of Rochester on one of the city's historic boulevards near the beautiful Maplewood Park. He has been involved in urban and youth ministry since his college days, including serving for seven years at the Olive Branch Mission in Chicago. He is a sports enthusiast willing to talk about any upcoming or past sporting event or season, and he enjoys being outdoors and playing or coaching with his kids. Pastor Scott has been on staff with New Hope for several years serving in various roles including Treasurer, Youth Pastor, Board Member, Life Group Leader, and Executive Pastor. In taking this new role he shared: “I believe the many seasons of life prepare us for other seasons in which God changes our course of service and opens new opportunities to partner with Him in the work that He is doing all around us. I am humbled and excited to lead such a dedicated and caring community of people and I believe that the Lord is going to use us all together to impact our community and our world in ways we cannot comprehend now.”
Pastor Scott's Letter
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Pastor Heritage Munyakuri
Pastor Heritage Munyakuri is an Assistant Pastor at New Hope. He also serves as the coordinator for Foundation of Hope, an outreach ministry of New Hope to aid orphans with food and education who remain in Africa. His passions include, prayer, preaching, serving others and leading people to Jesus Christ.
Pastor Heritage accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior in 2001. He immediately started to share the Good News with his friends, family and others who did not know Jesus. It wasn’t long afterward that he felt a call to ministry and has been engaged in pastoral service ever since.
He is married to his beautiful wife Maombi Monique and they have two girls together: Joy Ingabire Munyakuri; and Shalom Ganza Munyakuri. His family blesses him and is a tremendous encouragement to him. He loves to spend time with them and considers them a treasure from God. He has shared with many that he made a covenant with God to take good care of them as long as he lives.
New Hope has been blessed by God bringing many people to us from Central Africa, most of who do not speak English. In his role as Assistant Pastor, Heritage oversees our ministry to African immigrants in order to help them hear the Good news of Jesus Christ in their native language. As people transition into life in America, they also have many social needs and Heritage serves tirelessly to make sure that as many needs as possible are met.
In his own words Heritage says, “I am honored to serve New Hope church. My hope is that we are going to grow together as a unified church body and that no one will be left behind. I love New Hope church and the people we are serving.”
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Pastor Michael Traylor, MD, MPA
Michael is an Assistant pastor and elder at New Hope. Formerly, Dr. Traylor was the founding Pastor of Christ Community Fellowship, in Twinsburg, Ohio, on the eastern edge of the metropolitan Cleveland area. Michael has also served as the coordinator of local ministerial groups and has directed numerous community based ministries over the past decade. He has served in denominational roles as district leader and general church delegate. His passions include leadership development, community development, and relational wholeness.
Michael answered his call to pastor while finding success as a board certified Pediatrician in Cleveland, Ohio. He continues to practice pediatrics at the Anthony Jordan Health Center in Rochester. His medical experiences include directorships of health centers, free clinics, and child advocacy programs. Additionally, he was involved in short term missions programs in Kenya, Malawi, and Rwanda Africa, where Michael and his wife, Amelia Cleveland-Traylor, MD, rendered patient care, offered consultations, and preached the gospel.
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Pastor Amelia Cleveland-Traylor, MD
Pastor Amelia was ordained as an elder in the Free Methodist Church in 2005. Since then, she has served as an Assistant Pastor to her husband, Michael Traylor, initially at Christ Community Fellowship (Twinsburg, OH) and presently at New Hope FMC. Her ministry interests and responsibilities have included praise and worship, women’s ministry, youth ministry, small group leadership, and pastoral care. Amelia served on the MEG (ministerial education guidance) board and the MAC boards as part of the Ohio Conference.
Dr. Amelia Cleveland-Traylor is a board certified obstetrician gynecologist employed by Rochester General Hospital and has recently been appointed as Associate Residency Director. Dr. Amelia became a certified group fitness instructor in 1998 and enjoys dance, Zumba, aerobics, music and basketball. She has been married to Michael Traylor since 1987 and they have two children
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Pastor David Peelle
Pastor Dave has served as Associate Pastor since 2005 and is a Conference Ministerial Candidate preparing for ordination in the Free Methodist Church, completing a Master of Divinity degree at Northeastern Seminary. His ministry experience ranges from Alpha Groups, BLOCK Ministry and coffee making to zip crews for ventilator ducts. Areas of special interest are small groups focused on discipleship and current topics in real life, as well as individual mentoring.
Dave works for the Rochester City School District as an Administrative Analyst, building comprehensive reports of students' standardized test scores and demographic data, as well as assembly of the Annual RCSD District Budget. His wife Baiba is an ordained elder in the Free Methodist Church and serves as the Associate Pastor at Community of the Savior congregation in Rochester. Their son Jonathan and his wife Jill live in St. Louis, where she is Staff Nurse at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (orthopedics) and he is a cognitive neuroscientist, Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at Washington University.
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Pastor Alicia Dixon-Garrard
Pastor Dixon Garrard is Director for Community Outreach of Valleyview Alliance Church Vestal Campus.
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Pastor Karen Jenkins
Karen resides in the City of Rochester and is a wife and mother of five children.
She has a Certificate in Ministry from Northeastern Seminary, is studying Health Administration at Roberts Wesleyan college and plans to return to Northeastern Seminary for a Masters of Divinity degree. Pastor Karen is passionate about justice and other issues pertaining to women. She is currently serving as Assistant Pastor at New Hope Free Methodist Church.
She formed, Hope for Women a New hope FM ministry to Equip, Encourage, and Edify so that those who are involved may understand who they are in God and grow in the love of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Karen has a preaching ministry in and around the City of Rochester.
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Minister Amanda Holdridge
Amanda Holdridge serves as a Local Ministerial Candidate at New Hope. She became a LMC in May of 2014 to more formally pursue ministry interests at New Hope and in the city of Rochester. Amanda has lived and worked in Rochester since 2011. She has worked in leadership in ministry since the age of 13, first for almost ten years through the United Methodist Church as a lay minister in the Cornerstone District and then through Campus Ambassadors, a campus outreach ministry, on SUNY Brockport campus for six years, and has served in various capacities at New Hope since moving to Rochester in 2009.
Amanda has a Bachelor's Degree in English from SUNY Brockport and studied Missions and International Health at Elim Bible Institute. She is currently employed as a clinical technician for University of Rochester Orthopedics. She has a passion for preaching and missions, having spent time in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua serving in ministry, as well as in Mississippi, Louisiana and New York. Amanda has recently purchased a house for the purpose of starting a community house in the Beechwood neighborhood of Rochester, and the Beacon Community House will be reaching the community as of February 2016. She looks forward to growing into this current role in ministry and exploring her passion for the people and city of Rochester.
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Sarg. Rob and Rev. Megan Hoose
Rob and Rev. Megan Hoose have been involved with youth ministry in various settings since the 1990's. Rob and Megan both began as Christian camp counselors, and have since served in their various local churches and several summer camps as youth ministry staff. Rob has been the youth director of Cattaraugus Christian Family Camp for the past 11 years. Megan worked alongside Rob for the first 5 years and has since served instead as director of family chapel at Family camp. The Hooses attend Pearce Memorial Church, where Megan serves assistant pastor of community outreach, and Rob is a junior high youth worker. Both have also taught Sunday school classes for various ages. Megan is co-facilitating the Morning Moms group and is a leader in the Stephen Ministry program. In addition to youth ministry, Rob is a full time art teacher at Edison Tech High School and Megan is teaching philosophical ethics at Roberts Wesleyan College this semester. Rob loves integrating pop culture into his art curriculum and managing the website that he shares with his brother and eldest son, Jessup. Megan loves knitting and practicing her French. The Hooses have two wonderful sons, Jessup, who is in first grade, and Aaron, who is in preschool. The Hoose family loves Legos, board-gaming, comics, sci-fi, good books, smoothies, coffee, animals, and the great outdoors.
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Pastor Pete Mills
I’m Pete Mills, lead pastor for the Crossroads Community Church. As a pastor, I have the wonderful privilege of helping people discover the love of God and become all they can be through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Pastor Joanne Colon
Joanne Colon left us to be with our Lord December 2013. She served as co-pastor of Heart & Soul Community Church, Rochester, N.Y with her husband Luis. She used her gifts as an adjunct professor of Church History and Children’s Ministry in the Certificate in Ministry Program at Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan College.
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Reverend Jonathan Bratt
Served 21 years as a Free Methodist pastor in Elkland, Pa.; pastor for discipleship and family life in Chittenango, N.Y.; and 15 years at the Dearborn Free Methodist Church in Dearborn, MI. I became chaplain of Roberts Wesleyan College in 2008.
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Pastor John Gakwaya, D. Min.
Senior Pastor of Dayton Compassion Church
Email: pastorjohn@daytoncfmc.org
Before becoming the founder of the DCC, Pastor John immigrated from Rwanda, Africa; where he also, founded the Kigali Free Methodist Church. He served as a Teacher, Pastor and Superintendent in the Free Methodist Church in Rwanda.
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New Hope Church
Sometimes, we as a church have a service that does not have a specific speaker. This can happen for a few reasons. Sometimes we have technical difficulties, sometimes God just tells us to do stuff, sometimes we have had a lost that we as a church not just the pastors need to express.
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