Pastor Tyrone D. Douglas has accepted the invitation of the Mid-America Union Conference Executive Committee to serve as Church Ministries director for their nine-state territory. He will begin his new role on Jan. 1, 2022.
Douglas comes to Mid-America from the Southwest Region Conference headquartered in Dallas, Texas, where he has been serving as director of Children’s Ministries/ Sabbath School and associate pastor of City Temple Church. In addition, he previously, served the conference as director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries and as treasurer of the Black Adventist Youth Directors Association.
“We once again are blessed to have someone join our MAUC family with such a wide array of church ministries experience. While Pastor Douglas has spent much of his ministry with our youth, from children through young adults, he also brings experience with community services and disaster relief. He will be a wonderful blessing to our field,” said Gary Thurber, president of the Mid-America Union.
Education, accomplishments, spiritual focus
Douglas was born on the island of Barbados in the West Indies. There he was first exposed to the influences of Adventism, as his young, impressionable mind was introduced to the gospel as presented in Revelation 14.
After graduating from Shiloh Seventh-day Adventist Academy in Chicago, Illinois, Douglas enrolled at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. There he had the distinction of being the recipient of the Mosely-Warren Homiletics and Preaching Award. He also spent a year as a student missionary in the Marshall Islands, where he taught high school religion and physical education at Ebeye Seventh-day Adventist Academy.
Following his graduation from Oakwood University with a religion major and communication minor, Douglas served for five years as a bi-vocational pastor before continuing his educational pursuits at Andrews University Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan, where he graduated with a Master of Divinity degree. For the next 20 years he pastored various churches in Texas and Oklahoma before joining the Southwest Region Conference staff.
Pastor Douglas has had the privilege to minister in a number of other capacities, including as the founder and speaker of The Word Only radio broadcast. He has preached and conducted seminars and weeks of prayer across the United States, in the Caribbean, Bermuda and the Philippines. In addition, he has coordinated Pathfinder events, youth retreats, family retreats and summer camps.
Douglas stated that one of his goals as MAUC Church Ministries director is to utilize his gifts and talents in ministry through faithful service to God by nurturing, mentoring and facilitating the development of Spirit-filled leaders. He added that he plans to integrate his “strong belief in the priesthood of all believers in organizing and mobilizing for ministry.” He believes that victory is realized through prayer and time spent in communion with God through His Holy Word. His favorite text is Psalms 16:8: “I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”
He is married to the lovely Venus Decano-Douglas of the Philippines and is the proud father of Arielle Jolie Douglas, a graduate of Andrews University.
