Lake Palestine United Methodist Church recently welcomed the Rev. Dr. Jesse M. Brannen Jr. and his wife Susan. (Contributed Photo)

Lake Palestine United Methodist Church recently welcomed the Rev. Dr. Jesse M. Brannen Jr. as its new senior pastor.

Lake Palestine UMC is located south of Chandler, overlooking Lake Palestine, on FM 315.

Rev. Dr. Brannen and his wife, Susan, came to LPUMC after he served for the past five years as senior pastor of Williams Memorial United Methodist Church in Texarkana. His first worship service at his new church assignment was held Sunday, July 6.

Brannen succeeds the Rev. Ingrid Beguiristain, who has served the local church for the past six years. Beguiristain is relocating to the Mountain Sky Conference, where she will serve East United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs and Mountain View UMC in Woodland Park, Colorado.

The Brannens have three adult children, including a daughter and one son in the Tyler area, and four grandchildren.

According to his resume, Brannen entered the ministry in 1996 and has held pastorates as a local pastor in Kentucky. He was ordained first as a deacon in 2001, and later as an elder in 2005 while serving churches in the Texas Annual Conference.

He has also held Texas Annual Conference positions as director of congregational excellence from 2014 to 2018, and as district superintendent from 2018 to 2020, before assuming the pastorate in Texarkana. Other responsibilities in the Conference included serving as chair of the Equitable Compensation Board, secretary of the Annual Conference, and appointments to the Cabinet, Board of Ordained Ministry and Committee on Investigation.

While serving in annual conference roles in both Kentucky and Texas, he received several awards.

He earned several academic honors while completing his Bachelor of Science in psychology in 2000 at Kentucky Wesleyan College, magna cum laude; a Master of Divinity from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in 2003; and a Doctor of Ministry, summa cum laude, with an emphasis on church leadership, from Midwest University in 2010.

Significantly, his doctoral dissertation was titled “Developing a Comprehensive Understanding and Application of a Distinctively Wesleyan Systematic Theology Through the Use of Small Group Studies.”

Throughout his ministry, he has been involved in community activities, including serving as an interim city council member and holding other positions in Edgewood, Texas. He was also a member of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, a philanthropic organization. While in Texarkana, he served as an adjunct professor at Texas College, teaching leadership courses.