Rev. Dan Albrant serves as the pastor for both Mineral and Mt. Pleasant UMC’s.
Welcome to the website for the Mineral-Mount Pleasant Charge of The United Methodist Church! We are very glad you stopped by for a visit and to learn more about us. Our churches have been yoked together in a charge (that is they share one pastor) since 1947. The churches themselves are only about 6 miles apart, one in the town of Mineral, and the other closer to the town of Louisa.
I have been the pastor of this Charge since July 2022. I was pastor of the Madison Charge in Madison, Virginia, from July 2017 to June 2022. Prior to that I was a hospital clinical pharmacist, practicing in intensive care, emergency departments, and operating rooms. I served as a consultant on new pharmacist practices and quality improvement as well as designing and implementing new training programs for pharmacists to improve patient outcomes.
You may be wondering how I got from Pharmacy to Ministry? Good question…it was an evolution. I was called by God to be a pharmacist, of that I am certain. During my time working in the high stress, low touch environment of intensive care, I began to feel disquieted in my soul. Something was missing – I needed to care for people in a different and more wholistic way. So, God moved me along a path of rejoining church, getting involved in Stephen Ministry as a minister and leader, and in an intentional period of spiritual growth. All this took about 12 years before I found myself at age 50 with the strong desire to attend Seminary. I attended Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, from 2013 to 2017 and graduated with a Masters of Divinity degree with honors.
The United Methodist Church has gone through a season of change with disaffiliation of about 20% of its churches. That time has now ended, and both of these churches remain firmly United Methodist under the care and direction of our Resident Bishop. Our worship style is Traditional, and sermons come directly from the weekly scripture readings of the Revised Common Lectionary (used by many Christian denominations). There is a Choir at the Mineral UMC and many wonderful ministries for you to engage in at both churches. We hope that you will come and give us a try one Sunday. You will be warmly welcomed, and we believe that you will feel like you are at home.
I love serving the rural church and her people. My wife and I have found a home here at Lake Anna and we look forward to many years of ministry outreach, worship, fellowship and fun. We enjoy sharing our lives with those whom God has called to be the church of Jesus Christ. We have two young adult sons, one of whom flies for NetJets and the other who is training to be an electrician. Our black Labrador, Hope, rounds out our immediate family. Let me know how I might be of service to you, or how we might pray for people or situations that are important to you. You can find copies of my sermons under the "Blogs" tab and links to other resources for your spiritual journey. May God bless you on your way!
Caring
Do you consider yourself a caring person? Would others say that you are gifted to be someone who cares for others? Interestingly, CDC data show that between 20% and 25% of adults aged 45-64 are providing care for a friend or family member at any given time across the U.S. Of those who provide care for another, 1/3 of them provide 20 or more hours per week of uncompensated care, and over 50% have been caring for someone for more than 2 years. (data from the CDC website) It is expected that, with an aging population, these numbers will only increase.
Caring for one another is part of what it means to live in healthy communities. People form close knit groups, and everyone pitches in to help each other. Resilient communities are formed when we know that we don’t always have to make our way through life alone. Knowing that we have others we can lean on when things aren’t going our way, decreases our stress, helps us heal faster, and makes us all healthier.
We were created to be in relationship with one another. It’s only been within the last few decades that we seem to have forgotten that fact. Used to be that farming communities would pool resources and help each other out at haying and harvesting time. Barn raising was known as a “frolic” because the whole community would turn out to help a neighbor and to enjoy each other’s company. These communities thrived in shared responsibility and caring for each other. I think it’s time to get back to more of that in our community.
Caring for one another is sacred work. It’s more than just asking how someone is doing and then not really listening to the answer. People who are valued as caring people are those who accompany us through thick or thin. Roman Catholic priest and spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, wrote, “…When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares….”
The blessed assurance that we have from the God of our understanding is that we were all created to be caring and to be cared for – each in their own season. Some are better at it than others – they are gifted, but everyone can learn to care for another person. Our communities can learn again to not just provide episodic care, but to look deeper at the cause of the hurt and do their best to correct that which is causing ongoing pain and wounding. To do the difficult and long-term work of systemic change so that we can all live in communities that will walk with each other for as long as it takes. We can all be more caring.
It may be that you are in need of care, or that you feel called to be providing caring actions for others. There are many groups in Louisa County that could utilize your gifts or that can help care for you. There are also people gathering multiple times each week in faith communities that have a focus on bringing love out of their walls and into the larger ecosystem. If you are looking for caring people, or for a place to learn how to be more caring, then I invite you into a faith community this week. There you will find the love of God at work, transforming lives and helping people be more caring. Come join us in our work to be more caring – and to touch as many lives as we can. No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. Blessings for your week as you provide all the care you can!