Meet The Senior Pastor

Rev.Rebecca Oakes Long was appointed to serve as the Senior Pastor at Green Valley Community Church on July 1, 2008.  She comes to this appointment with 21 years of ministry experience in the United Methodist Church.  She is joined by her husband, Gary Long, an artist in paper making and monotype printing.   

Pastor Becky grew up in a little town in Ohio and attended the same small United Methodist  Church all of her childhood.  She is United Methodist to her toes, coming from a family of 27 ministers.  But the road to ministry was a circuitous one with her answering God's call only after a career as a high school librarian and history teacher and then as a legal secretary.  In 1983, she and Gary traveled to Durham, North Carolina, where she entered seminary at Duke Divinity School.

Pastor Becky began her ministry in the Desert Southwest Annual Conference in 1987 as the associate pastor at Willowbrook United Methodist Church in Sun City, AZ.  There she learned pastoral care to the elderly, grief ministry, and how the gospel of Jesus Christ and service to him can touch the lives of all ages of Christians.  From there she became the pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in the Maryvale area of Phoenix.  Maryvale was a blue-collar community with some very fringe elements.  There were three gangs working in the area and a multitude of drug dealings.  It was a special challenge to work with the youth as they navigated their way through school in this uncertain and sometimes violent atmosphere.  Then she moved to Tucson where she served Christ Church United Methodist.  A friend quipped that as long as she kept following Christ, she couldn't go wrong.  As senior pastor of a large staff, Pastor Becky learned how to lead and enable others to fulfill their calling to ministry.  Most recently, she has served at Dove of the Desert United Methodist Church in Glendale.  Dove is a teenage church, about 15 years old, and was experiencing true teenage problems.  During her time there, the church began to redefine its ministry and vision and move into the future that God has planned for them. 

And now Pastor Becky has arrived at Green Valley Community Church looking forward to serving Jesus Christ among this grace-filled and generous congregation.  She invites you to stop by and have a cup of coffee with her.