Rev. Shane Stanford
In July 2011, Rev. Shane Stanford became the sixth Senior Pastor of Christ United Methodist Church.
Rev. Stanford previously served as Senior Pastor of Gulf Breeze UMC in Gulf Breeze, FL, (one of the 25 largest UM churches in the country) and as a church planter for more than 10 years.
Rev. Stanford also served as Host/Executive Director of
The United Methodist Hour, a television and radio ministry with a viewing area of more than 30,000,000 homes weekly.
He is also the author of 10 books including bestsellers,
The CURE for the Chronic Life (co-authored with Deanna Favre and which held as the #1 Pastoral Care book in the country for seven weeks),
The Seven NEXT Words of Christ and
You Can’t Do Everything…So Do Something.
His latest releases include
Making Life Matter: Embracing the Joy in the Everyday and
Mosaic: A Lenten Journey.
He has published numerous articles in journals and magazines including
The Upper Room, CNN Today and
Christianity Today.
Rev. Stanford travels often sharing his testimony and witness as an HIV+ Christian minister who contracted the disease through a blood transfusion used to treat his Hemophilia. He was a key presenter at the 2006 Saddleback Global AIDS Summit, alongside other notables as Franklin Graham, John Ortberg and then-Senator Barack Obama.
Rev. Stanford has appeared as a contributor on spirituality, family health and issues related to marriage and family, church leadership and HIV on numerous media outlets including
Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, LifeToday and
The Hour of Power.
Rev. Stanford, along with Dr. Maxie Dunnam, is the Co-Host of
Making Life Matter, a nationally broadcast radio ministry on American Family Network, and he is a principal ministry partner with Dr. Dunnam in
Kingdom Catalysts.
And, Rev. Stanford was recently named the Series Co-Host of
The Omega Bible Study Series, a follow-up to the
Disciple Bible Study Series.
Rev. Stanford is married to Dr. Pokey Stanford, formerly an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Southern Mississippi, and they are the parents of three daughters, Sarai Grace (15), Juli Anna (12) and Emma Leigh (8).
To learn more about Rev. Stanford, he invites you to visit his website at
shanestanford.org or his blog,
shanestanford.com. For those on Facebook, Rev. Stanford invites you to become a friend of Shane Stanford or follow him on twitter,
twitter.com/stanfordshane.