SUWANEE, Ga. ––William E. (Bud) Sears III, a member of Suwanee First United Methodist Church in Suwanee, and an M.Div. candidate at Asbury Theological Seminary, has been certified as a men’s ministry specialist by the Nashville-based General Commission on United Methodist Men.
Certification for the men’s ministry specialist takes 12-18 months and is completed with the guidance of the Turner Center for Church Development at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Sears is now available to help North Georgia churches expand their ministries to men.
During the past 38 years, Sears has served, at different times, in various roles at Suwanee First, including minister of music, adult Sunday school class teacher, task force leader in the development of a safe-sanctuaries policy, a safe-sanctuaries instructor, chair of the missions committee, lay member of the North Georgia Annual Conference, and president of the local UM Men organization. The men’s ministry at Suwanee First has spent time and money upgrading a battered women’s shelter in a nearby community and helped others restore the Leigh Cottage at the United Methodist Children’s Home in Decatur after the cottage was destroyed by fire. Sears also serves the North Georgia Conference UM Men as vice president for local missions.
A certified lay speaker, Sears is a graduate of the No Man Left Behind Conference (NMLB) conducted by Florida-based Man in the Mirror ministries.
A graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology with a bachelor of electrical engineering and a master of science in electrical engineering, Sears served for 39 years in various technical and managerial roles for the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
“At the end of college, Beverly Miller and I were married in 1966,” says Sears. “Beverly was a United Methodist who couldn’t handle the worship style of the Baptists. So I joined Buford First United Methodist Church with the full intention of evangelizing that group”. He jokes that all Baptists in those days knew that all Methodists were “headed straight for hell.” He was disabused of that belief in short order after joining the United Methodist Church in 1968.
Sears is a recent graduate of the United Methodist Licensing School for Pastoral Ministry and is currently awaiting an appointment as a part-time local pastor in the North Georgia Conference. Due to the uncertainty of where and when he might be appointed, he is somewhat unsure of his specific ministry plans in the near term. In any case, he is currently available to assist churches in the North Georgia Conference with programs of evangelism, missions, spiritual growth and training of churches in the organization of effective ministries to all the men in the church. He is particularly interested in helping churches grow in ministry to men through practical application of the NMLB model.