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!
Blessed Assurance
Follow the Light
Anyone who has been lost at night can vouch for how good it felt to find their way to a campfire, house or cabin, or even just a well-traveled road with headlights appearing and disappearing. Ancient mariners used the position of the stars to navigate their way across vast distances. In fact, we are told in the Book of Genesis that God created dark and light and put lights in the sky so that we would know that God is there.
Moths and other insects are drawn to all the different kinds of lights that humans have invented. Humans too, have always followed the light, both real and imagined. Light has been a symbol for knowledge, just think about all those cartoons you have seen with people deep in thought who have a light bulb suddenly turn on above their heads. Light is a symbol for welcome as in the motel slogan that used to say, “We’ll leave the light on for ya”, or as a lighthouse at a harbor entrance. Light has always been a powerful symbol of safety and comfort. The light of candles has been used in religious ceremonies for thousands of years – signifying the presence of the holy, and the ability for us to carry that light out into our dark world.
Light is an important symbol at Easter as well. For the first time in many years, Orthodox and Western Easter are on the same day. You may not be aware that the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity split from each other in the year 1054. There were many reasons, not the least of which was the argument over which Pope reigned supreme. The Pope in Rome considered himself the direct descendant of the Apostle Peter, and Popes in the East felt that one of them should be the supreme speaker for the Church. The split occurred and then the calendars changed from Gregorian to Julian in the 1700s and Easter was not unified anymore.
Our Orthodox brothers and sisters have a wonderful tradition as the Easter Vigil ends just at dawn of sharing the light of Christ which has come back into the world. The priest announces to those who have been worshiping all night the words “Christos Anesti” or “Christ is Risen”. They then share the light of their Christ candles with all in the Sanctuary and they carry the light of the Resurrected Christ back out into their world. They invite others to follow the light of the Risen Christ in their lives and seek to be light to others – to drive out the darkness that the world often imposes in our lives.
We who identify ourselves as Christians are called to live each day of our lives as lights in the world for others to follow – to live each day as Easter people. People who believe in the promise of the Resurrection understand that the Almighty love of God is able to do the impossible, not just in Palestine some 2000 years ago, but in everyday peoples’ lives in our day. The blessed assurance we have as followers of the Risen Christ is that the light of Christ can never go out. We can always follow it and find our way back to a relationship with God and with our neighbors – it is never too late to follow the light.
You may be living in darkness right now. You may have lost the light or may not have ever heard that there is such a welcoming light that is available to you. If you are looking for a healthy and welcoming light to follow, then I invite you to come to a faith community this week. The post-Easter messages will tell the stories of how Jesus appeared to the faithful and how he empowered them to spread his light across the world by making new disciples for the transformation of the world into God’s kingdom. If you choose to follow the light, you will find blessings and peace that you’ve never known. May God continue to light your path!