A man who pastored Chattanooga churches for 16 years has recently found himself in the same situation as Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — campaigning for high office.
The Rev. David Graves, superintendent of the United Methodist Church’s Kingsport District, is the nominee of the denomination’s Holston Conference for one of five available positions as bishop at July’s Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference.
If he is elected, he would be assigned to lead one of the 15 conferences within the Southeastern Jurisdiction.
“[Campaigning] is difficult when the political arena right now is pretty stressful,” said Graves, who was minister of youth and recreation at Hixson UMC 1989-1994, pastored Ooltewah United Methodist Church 1998-2009 and was active in the Chattanooga-LaFayette Emmaus Community. “The bishop thing is like running a campaign, and I don’t like that.”
So, instead, the Knoxville native has chosen to look at the process as a journey.