Reverend Sara Baron
Sara was appointed to First Schenectady United Methodist on July 1, 2013. She was a member of the Conference Leadership Team of the Upper New York Annual Conference and the Reaching Our Neighbors Ministry Oversight Team of the Upper New York Annual Conference. She was a delegate to the 2012 Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference (NEJ), and briefly served as a member of the General Council on Finance and Administration of the United Methodist Church. Sara co-directs a camp for people with special needs for one week each summer Sky Lake, and serves as a board member for Planned Parenthood Mohawk Hudson as well as for the Methodist Federation for Social Action.
Rev. Sara E. Baron grew up in La Plume, a tiny town in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and graduated from Lackawanna Trail High School. She majored in mathematics and minored in education at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. During college, she worked at Sky Lake, a United Methodist Church camp, working with children, teenagers, and people with special needs. After receiving her undergraduate degree, she attended the Claremont School of Theology in Los Angeles, California and where she received a Masters of Divinity degree.
While in seminary, Sara was the intern pastor at the Hollywood United Methodist Church and was commissioned as a Probationary Elder in 2005. After graduating in 2006, she was appointed to Morris United Methodist Church in Morris, New York. In 2009, she was ordained an elder in the (former) Wyoming Annual Conference. In 2010, the Wyoming Conference split and the New York portion joined with others to form the Upper New York Annual Conference. At that time Sara was appointed to serve the Park Terrace Community United Methodist Church in Apalachin, New York.
On March 18, 2017, Sara married Kevin Nelson, a Home Missioner in the United Methodist Church. The two had met and become friends through shared work in the Love Your Neighbor Coalition, the Methodist Federation for Social Action, and the NEJ Global Connection Plan. They are both well aware that they are progressive, United Methodist, NERDS.
In addition to the church, Sara enjoys downhill skiing, baking with sourdough, and cuddling two very sweet and ironically named cats: Nightmare and Holy Terror.
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