RICHMOND, Va. — Campuses across Virginia will start the school year with new Baptist campus ministers, following action taken by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s emerging leaders team last month.
Carey and Gannon Sims
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• At the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., Carey Sims has been named Baptist collegiate minister. Her husband, Gannon Sims, will serve as collegiate ministry associate and also as coordinator assistant for Fresh Expressions, a church reenergizing movement coordinated by the Mission Board. (See story below.)
Carey Sims, a native of Onanock, Va., will coordinate campus ministry in the Fredericksburg area, including Mary Washington. She is a graduate of Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and earned a master of business administration at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va., and a master of divinity from Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C. She most recently served as a chaplain resident at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
Gannon Sims, a native Texan, is a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and earned a master of divinity from Duke Divinity School. He recently completed a pastoral residency at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.
Cheliras
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• Melissa Cheliras is part-time collegiate minister at the University of Richmond and also has been named collegiate ministry coordinator, working with all Baptist campus ministers affiliated with the emerging leaders team.
Cheliras is a graduate of Virginia Tech, where she majored in communications, and from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass., where her emphasis was in faith development and faith in crisis. Most recently she served as associate director of Baptist collegiate ministries at Virginia Tech. She also has been a collegiate ministry volunteer at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.; director of a Christian fellowship at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell; and collegiate minister at New Colony Baptist Church in Billerica, Mass.
Clevenger
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• Sarah McCloud Clevenger has been named part-time interim collegiate minister for Southwest Virginia, based at the University of Virginia at Wise.
Clevenger is a graduate of Bluefield College in Bluefield, Va., where she received a bachelor of arts in Christian studies. She most recently served as an admissions counselor and recruiter at Bluefield.