Alumni Council Spotlight: David Dorn
Mr. David Dorn, II, MDiv 2013
David grew up going to church and sitting on the front row of the same United Methodist church his parents currently still attend. He was taught the Bible while he was homeschooled, and he watched a television show called “Gospel Bill” often. Every time Bill told David to pray to receive salvation, he would do it! He gave his life to Jesus at the age of five and it began to sink in by the age of seven. As a kid, David wanted to be a pastor when he grew up; however, his sister told him that he would not have any money if he became a pastor, so he began to consider going into politics while in high school.
In college, David joined his student ministry’s leadership team, and during his last semester, he was the president of the ministry. He really enjoyed leading and running this ministry, yet he was still running from his call to vocational ministry. During his time at college, David attended a David Platt leadership retreat at the Baptist Student Union, which inspired him to change his major and pursue ministry as a career.
He served as a youth director for two years and began discerning whether to attend a local seminary or to pursue a degree at Asbury online. He was dating his future wife at the time, Aimee, and did not want to leave her in order to move to seminary. When he visited Asbury, he was met with grace and hospitality from the admissions department, and at chapel, he felt as though he was on “holy ground.” Though he loved his visit to Wilmore, he decided to take his classes online. Soon after this decision, he received a call that there had been a mistake in communication from the financial aid office, and that he had received a Kalas scholarship. The only stipulation was: if you can come live on campus, you can accept this scholarship.
David planned to live in Wilmore for a year, then go back to his online classes since he really wanted the in-class experience of taking Dr. Bauer’s Inductive Bible Study of Matthew course. David decided quickly to propose to Aimee, and a week later she came to Wilmore. Moving his new family into the Wilmore culture was a huge and incredible blessing for them, and he calls his time at Asbury “incredibly formative.”
While in seminary, David pursued ministry through websites, blogs, videos, and a production studio. During the first year, people thought he was weird; during the second year, people began to be interested in what he was doing; during the third year, people asked him for advice on how to do it; and during the fourth year, the Texas annual conference hired him to do this type of ministry for them.
After seminary, David worked at Woodlands United Methodist Church near Houston, Texas. He also worked with Abingdon Press pn books and Bible study videos. Nine months after graduating from seminary, he served as the associate of modern worship for The Loft, a congregation of 1,000 that focuses on reaching the hurting and those who have been wounded by the church. Currently, he serves as the contemporary service pastor of Marvin United Methodist Church in Tyler, Texas. This congregation has grown over fifty percent in two years, and they have added multiple services on the weekends.
David is married to his wife, Aimee. He has two step-daughters, Magen and Hali, who are twenty and seventeen years old. He has a one-year-old daughter named Ava Grace. In his spare time, he spends it with Ava Grace, writing and planning for new books, and golfing.
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