sgroves@delphosherald.com
DELPHOS — This past March, Wesleyan Church voted in its newest senior pastor, the Rev. Rodney Shade, who has been the interim pastor for the church since June 2012.
He was saved in October 1974 and was sanctified in the Wesleyan Church in Bradford in 1975.
Throughout his 30 years of ministry, Rev. Shade has remained in Ohio. He began his ministry in 1982 in Troy, where in his five-year tenure with the church, the congregation doubled in attendance. Five years later, Shade became the assistant pastor in New Miami, where he led a congregation of 120 people, was in charge of the church’s Christian School and created a program of how to minister to those not attending the church’s services.
“It’s kinda like PR (Public Relations) in sales,” Shade mused.
Shade experienced a short tenure in New Miami due to the senior pastor’s resignation, which required him to resign his assistant pastor position. In 1988 while in Sidney, Shade’s ministry went really well. In 13 years, the church tripled in attendance, quadrupled in finances and led to the building of a 4,400-square-foot parsonage.