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Pastor Jim has been our pastor since November 2004 – we enjoy being a family of God together! Pastor Jim at a Glance
- Grew up in Idaho, Colorado, California, and Nigeria, West Africa
- Graduate of the University of La Verne (CA) and Bethany Theological Seminary (IL)
- B.A. in German and Religion; M.Div. and D.Min.
- Volunteer service with children in Ludwigshafen, West Germany Obdachlosengebiet
- 1st Pastorate – 12 years with the Green Tree congregation, Oaks, PA
- 2nd Pastorate – 16 years with the Montezuma congregation, Dayton, VA
- 3rd Pastorate – here at Annville … for the past 5 years
- Served as the 2008 Moderator of our denomination during our 300th Anniversary year
- Married to Carolyn: three grown children and six grandchildren
BackroundJames M. Beckwith has served as the pastor of our congregation since November 1, 2004. We call him “Pastor Jim” and enjoy the way in which we feel like we belong together as a family. Indeed, we are God’s family together.
Pastor Jim and his wife Carolyn live in North Cornwall Township, Lebanon, PA. She is an obstetrics nurse at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon. They enjoy their three children and six grandchildren and the variety of occupations among their children: computer programmer, legal documents editor, pastor to young families, and commuter services promoter.
Jim’s great-grandfather led a group of Brethren from Cando, North Dakota to Payette, Idaho, in 1899, and for three generations his family lived along the Snake River Valley in Western Idaho. Then his father was called to the ministry, and Jim grew up in Wiley, Colorado; Reedley, California; and on the mission field in Garkida, Nigeria, West Africa, where his experiences in boarding school gave him opportunity to interact with people of faith across an international spectrum of perspectives. Becoming friends with Assemblies of God, Christian Reformed, Mennonite, Independent Baptist, Lutheran, etc. missionary children as well as with children of Catholic and Muslim mining and industrial workers helped to shape Jim’s interests in helping people understand each other across cultural divides.
After graduating from La Verne College in southern California, Jim and Carolyn spent the first two years of their marriage in Brethren Volunteer Service in Ludwigshafen, Germany, where Jim supervised a joint Protestant-Catholic after-school program for ghetto children. Jim’s MDiv and DMin degrees are from Bethany Theological Seminary, located at that time in Oak Brook, Illinois. He was ordained by the Modesto, California, Church of the Brethren. Prior to coming to Annville, Jim served for 12 years as pastor of the Green Tree Church of the Brethren in Oaks, Pennsylvania, and for 16 years as pastor of the Montezuma Church of the Brethren near Dayton, Virginia. He has taught courses on Brethren heritage and worship, served as District Board Chr. and Moderator of the Shenandoah District in Virginia, and chaired the Germantown Ministry Board in Philadelphia, the denominational ecumenical committee, the denominational nominating committee, and most recently served as the 2008 Moderator for the Church of the Brethren denomination during its 300th Anniversary year.
During his 2006-2009 tenure as Moderator-elect, Moderator, and Immediate Past Moderator, Jim’s responsibilities included planning an historic joint conference of the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church – two denominations which split in 1883 and were therefore meeting together for the first time in 125 years. He also preached at the international celebration of the Brethren movement, which gathered representatives of the six denominational branches and numerous mission churches of the Brethren movement at the site of the original Brethren baptisms of 1708 in Schwarzenau, Germany. And he had opportunity to represent the Church of the Brethren at the formal launching of Christian Churches Together (CCT), which brings heads of communions together from Roman Catholic, Orthodox, historic Protestant, Pentecostal, Evangelical, and Racial Ethnic Christian denominations to work on issues related to poverty and to evangelization. Jim also joined with other Protestant church leaders to meet with the President of Iran in the fall of 2007 at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City. These busy activities have now subsided after he concluded his service at the 2009 Annual Conference in San Diego. Pastor Jim looks forward to focusing more completely on the many ministries of our Annville congregation.
Pastor Jim’s graduate degree focused on pastoral care, and he enjoys visiting and praying with our church family. He also invests time and energy in working with the Kidz Klub youth group, and LVC students who come to ACoB. And of course, leading worship and overall congregational planning are prime responsibilities for his role as pastor.
Jim relaxes best when playing with his grandchildren. He finds the variety of God’s creation fascinating and believes that God is not finished with any of us yet.
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