Dr. Beth LaRocca-Pitts Named as New Saint Mark Senior Pastor

The Staff Parish Relations (SPR) Committee joins Saint Mark members in being sad to see Rev. Jimmy Moor leave us.  At the same time, we are excited about our future with our new minister, Dr. Beth Larocca-Pitts who will join us the last week of June.  As you read the information below, you will see that we will be in good hands.  Please be in prayer as one amazing minister leaves us and at the same time we are joined by a new one.

Leslie Elliott-Earby, SPR Chair

Dr. Beth Larocca-Pitts

Dr. Beth LaRocca-Pitts has been named as the new senior pastor at Saint Mark.  She will be joining us during the last part off June and her first Sunday here will be June 27. At a recent Administrative Council Executive Committee Meeting, Jimmy Moor commented that the appointment of Beth to Saint Mark was an "inspired appointment." Although we'll get to know more about Dr. LaRocca-Pitts over the next several weeks, below is information about her from the website of her current church, Watkinsville United Methodist Church.

Dr. LaRocca-Pitts has been a member of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church since 1983, though she has been preaching for longer than that! “When I was 12 years old and a member of St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Athens, I realized that I would never be happy in life if I had to do another job other than the job that the priest at St. Joseph’s did. So I started attending my mother’s church, Athens First UMC and at age 14 I joined there. I also got a lay speaker’s certificate at age 17 and began preaching around the district.”

When it was time for college, Beth decided on Duke University instead of UGA where her father Joe had taught for nearly 40 years in the College of Pharmacy. She graduated in 1981 and then went to Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary inEvanston, Illinois. In 1983 she was ordained a deacon in the North Georgia Annual Conference, then in 1984 returned to take her first appointment at the Bishop Circuit in lower Oconee County. The circuit then included Bishop, Farmington, High Shoals, and Salem UMC’s. In 1986 Beth was ordained an elder, and in 1984 she returned to school for her PhD at Harvard University. There she majored in Old Testament Studies through the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department. She also continued her archaeological research trips to Israel during these years, which she had begun as an undergraduate. All told, she has served on the staffs of four digs to date: Ein Nabratein, Sepphoris, Beth Shemesh, and Tel Ein Zippori.

     

At Harvard, Beth met her husband Mark, a native of Terre Haute, Indiana, a student at Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD candidate also in the Near Eastern languages department. Beth fell for Mark, in part, because he spoke Hebrew better than she did, having lived in Israel for three years after undergraduate school at Indiana University. Beth and Mark were married in 1991 and in 1993, they returned to Athens where Beth was appointed to serve as an associate pastor at Athens First, and Mark worked at Athens Regional as a patient representative. In 1996, Beth was hired by Duke Divinity School to teach Old Testament. Mark went to work at Duke Medical Center as a chaplain. While at Duke in 1998, they were blessed with the arrival of their twins, Joe and Ellie! In 2001, Mark was hired to be one of the staff chaplains at Athens Regional Medical Center and the family moved back to Athens as soon as the Duke school year concluded in 2002. Beth was then appointed to serve Snellville UMC as associate pastor and served there two years and began teaching part time in the religion department at UGA.

    

Then, in 2004, she began to serve as senior pastor at Watkinsville First United Methodist Church, which is a scant 4 miles up the road from the church at Bishop where she began her ministry.  Mark currently works at Athens Regional and has taken on many positions of national leadership in the American Association of Professional Chaplains. Joe and Ellie are fifth graders. Beth has taught Old Testament at UGA at 8 am to hardy souls, and dead languages to grad students as they have need of her unusual assortment of skills. She also serves the annual conference as the convenor of the conference clergywomen’s annual luncheon, as a member of the district committee on ministry, and as a member of the conference committee on resolutions. She is also currently teaching in the Course of Study School which trains local pastors for ministry.

To view Dr. LaRocca-Pitts resumé, click here.