Our Minister : 
Dr. Thom Burleson
Dr Thom, our interim pastor, comes to MJPC from Union, Kentucky.
My journey in ministry has not gone according to plan. I had planned on being an educator (and only an educator) in the church. After receiving my MA in Education from Princeton Theological Seminary, I implemented the educator plan at First Presbyterian in Franklin, NC. Under no circumstances was I going to become a minister.
That was the plan. Nothing could sway me from that plan. Except that I had not planned on falling in love with the people of that congregation and discovering this need to serve the church to the fullest. So I modified the original plan, went back to Princeton for my Master of Divinity degree and became an ordained minister, ready to serve as an associate minister for education and youth. The plan did not include the pulpit.
As graduation approached, somehow the plan had shifted and I was instead called to a small congregation in Sparta, NC for eight years. During that time, through various circumstances, I got heavily involved in community ministry. While seeking to provide for the common good of small, rural Alleghany County, I did some more schooling and earned the right to call myself Doctor by virtue of a Doctor of Ministry degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary.
The plan became clearer than it had ever been before. I was off to serve another church for at least the next ten years in Union, KY. Nope. Make that just 18 months. I am now happily and surprisingly serving this wonderful congregation in West Jefferson as their interim minister… without a clue as to where the plan leads from here.