Dennis E Lawton

1220 State Ave

Coraopolis, PA 15108

Coraopolis U M Church
Senior Pastor

Bio
Dennis Lawton is twenty-eight years in ministry to congregations in Washington DC, Western PA and North West Ireland.  He has worked as a generalist in rural and small-town multi-point congregations much of that time.  He grew up on a small family farm near Erie, leaving to get his education in the city: Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and Wesley Seminary in the nation’s capital. 
 
His gifts of Creative communications, Teaching, and Hospitality have served his personal calling of connecting people to God and within the faith community.  His education and ministry have taken him to various parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East.  Always the church was present; the people of God of whom we all are and play a part.
 
As board chair of Wesley Woods, he encouraged the connection with our local churches as well as broader partnerships with other groups. He labored to create a clergy/laity balanced ministerium group among the congregations in Linesville to better coordinate foodbank, backpack program and youth tutoring, firmly believing that the mission we set ourselves to do together will not be lasting without a faith community at its center.

Dennis is currently serving in Coraopolis at a very active congregation involving music, hospitality, and service groups, with a variety of ministry partners, uniformed groups for children and teens, addiction care and support groups, Salvation Army, Pittsburgh musical organizations, sharing our space.  We share our building with a Latino charismatic congregation and a Brazillian SDA congregation.
 
Dennis and Doreen began ministry together in 1996 following their wedding in her village church in Tipperary. They have two children; Devon is in her second year at Pitt, studying for her MA.  Owen is serving in Tucson in the Air Force.