Our Leadership

 

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jim began his college education at the Florida Institute of Technology, majoring in space science and mechanical engineering.  After becoming involved in a local Presbyterian church and the campus ministry, his career goals changed and he transferred to University of Pittsburgh to earn a degree in biophysics and mircobiology.

 

After graduation, Jim worked in the medical field, servicing heart monitors, defibrillators and dialysis equipment.  Through service as a decon, elder and as part of a lay leadership ministering to junior highs in a 1500-member church, Jim gradually came to recognize his calling to be a Minister of the Word and Sacrament.

 

Upon finishing Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, he was called as a tent-making pastor, serving a small rural congregation in central Pennsylvania as their half-time pastor while continuing to service medical equipment full-time.  His acceptance in 1992 of the call to be Associate Pastor of Hope Presbyterian Church, Winter Haven, Florida, meant that he could leave his secular job and devote his full energies to ministry.  His experience in the secular world and in the life of the church have nutrured his perspective on how faith relates to the world outside the church and the challenge to equip and enable others to live the Christian life.  He began his ministry at Highland on June 1, 2000.  In May 2005 Jim completed his Doctor of Ministry degree at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, with a focus on liturgical renewal.

 

Jim is married to Chirs, his high school sweetheart and a first-grade teacher in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System.  They have two daughters.  Amanda Dobler, who lives with her husband in Alamagordo, NM and Abby Rollins, who lives in Washington, D.C.

  

 

 

 

                                               

  Office Manager                        Music Director                          Clerk of Session

 

 

 

 

           

  

 

 

 

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