Partnering with local lay leaders, Elders Scott Carter and Norris Daugharthy, senior pastor Lynn Edwin Gatz, longtime Randolph, N.Y., resident and leader of the McKean County Adventist Church District since 1999, is providing worship, preaching and strategic planning leadership for the Warren Seventh-day Adventist Congregation of 6616 Market St. Ext., Russell.
After the retirement of Pastor Alan and Betty Dean in May of 2008, the Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, with headquarters at 720 Museum Road, Reading, Pa., requested, that Pastor Lynn and Donna Gatz, who currently lead the Derrick City and Mt. Jewett Seventh-day Adventist congregations in McKean County, add the Warren congregation to the McKean District.
The Gatz pastoral team brings a rich breadth of experience and skills to the Warren congregation. In addition to almost 40 years of multipoint parish experience, Pastor Lynn trained in the clinical pastoral healthcare setting at the Kettering, Ohio, Medical Center and received endorsement in August of 1998. He has provided clinical spiritual supervision for the McKean County VNA and Hospice for the past seven years.
His spouse, Donna Gatz, as organist and Jubilate Singers' director in the Jamestown, N.Y., Holy Apostles Catholic parish for the past 17 years, has been an active team leader of the Chautauqua chapter of the American Guild of Organists, as well as providing inspirational musical worship leadership in the local Adventist congregations where the Gatz couple have been assigned during the past two decades.
They have three adult children, two residing in Washington State with four grandchildren, and one currently teaching English in South Korea. Pastor Lynn and Donna are enjoying getting acquainted in the Warren Adventist parish and anticipate serving more fully in the Warren community.