First United Methodist Church of Port Jefferson
Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Meet our Pastor

                            

                                 Meet Our Pastor, Rev. David Mantz

                              

  

 

Greetings from upstate NY!
Right now the parsonage is pretty close to a disaster zone – boxes and stuff scattered everywhere as our family prepares to move to Long Island. We’ve all had opportunity to visit several times now and are all quite excited, although moving is about as stressful a thing as anyone can do!
One thing we are not stressed about is getting the opportunity to meet, greet and get to know each of you! We believe God matches pastors and churches in a special way, sort of like a blessed arranged marriage by a perfect parent. We’re therefore very excited to see what God has in store for all of us as we work together to build up His kingdom, for His glory.
By way of introduction . . . I was born on Aug 18th, 1960 as David Wayne Mantz in Manchester, CT to parents Wayne and Louise. My dad has gone on to Glory some 8 years past, but you’ll meet mom as she’ll be on island to help unpack and certainly for the big Installation Service and Celebration we’ll do later in September.   I was married in 1997 to the Rev Sandra B Mantz (also a UMC pastor, actually with more years of service credit). Pastor Sandy will be the new pastor at Setauket UMC.
Because of having young children (Emily 12, Elizabeth 11, and Wayne 10) our District Superintendant asked us to live in the Setauket parsonage, which is a bit larger apparently and in a bit more of a residential neighborhood. However, the commute is still just about 4 miles, so I’ll be in Port Jeff as often as Sandy will be in Setauket. Our churches are 2 miles apart and I hear already do things together. We couldn’t be happier about the shared possibilities of ministry together!
I spent my grade school years in Manchester, moving just after entering Junior High to Stratford, CT where we lived four years.  My dad was again transferred to Garden City, Long Island where I went to High School, college at SUNY Albany, started my first job in NYC in computers with Pfizer, and earned an MBA degree from Adelphi University. It’s good to be coming back home! The only thing I didn’t miss is Long Island traffic.
After Garden City, I moved around in the data processing field to Stamford, CT, Rocky Hill, CT, and then spent 10 years in Springfield, MA working for Mass Mutual. It was there I really became active in the local church leading the Missions Board, beginning a young adult ministry, and serving as a church leader in a congregation of over 400 people. Gradually, God made it clear that I was to retire rather early in 1996, sell everything and start all over. I graduated from Gordon Conwell seminary just north of Boston in Dec 1999 after serving four years as Assistant Pastor with a wonderful man of God, David K Swenson, at the Winthrop Street Baptist Church in Taunton, MA.
God only knows how we made it through seminary days, with school way up in South Hamilton, MA, the church I served on weekends in Taunton, MA, and Sandy pregnant with our first child while serving as Pastor to the United Methodist Church of Wappinger Falls, NY. Each leg of that triangle was a four hour drive!
Finally in 2000, I was appointed as half-time Pastor to Wiccopee UMC, then also half-time to Modena in 2001, and full-time to Modena beginning 2002. After 10 years in Modena, and 15 years for Sandy in Wappingers, we are delighted to begin serving among you! My first official service will be with you on July 3rd. Dave Clark has graciously agreed to help every step of the way since I won’t have opportunity to learn how you all do church ahead of time, but instead, get to jump right into it! I will be on island beginning Jun 17 unpacking and setting up. After we help Pastor Huibing move in early July, I’ll get over to setting up an office in Port Jefferson.
Such fun and excitement! It will be great to see what God has planned for us!
Grace and peace to all my new family and friends!!!
Pastor Dave