Pastor Tony's Bio

Reverend Tony G. Campbell has been at New Life United Methodist Church, Grant, AL since January 1, 2012.  He is 56, a Mississippian by birth, and has been attending church all his life.  As a child he attended the Church of Christ (non-instrumental), Calvary Baptist, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in which he was called to full-time Christian ministry in 1972 while in the First Christian Church in Huntsville, AL, was liscensed in 1974 by the Alabama Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) while serving as Minister of Youth in Athens, Alabama, and ordained in 1982 in the Alabama Region after completing his seminary work at Lexington Theological Seminary in Lexington, Kentucky.  In 1988 he moved back to Mississippi and was appointed to Boyle, Litton, and Linn Charge in the Cleveland District of the North Mississippi Conference of The United Methodist Church.  He was back home, close to family, and deeply blessed by Christ.  Since then he returned to Kentucky, raised his son, and returned to Huntsville, AL area.

He is a graduate from Virgil I. Grissom High School in Huntsville, AL where he participated in sports and cheerleading; Athens College in Athen, AL with a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion with a minor in Literature; Lexington Theological Seminry in Lexington, KY with a M. Div. in Preaching.  During his education era he served as Youth Pastor in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Virginia where he made life long friends.  He is a Retired Elder from the Covington District of the Kentucky Annual Conference and his membership resides in the Concord-Neave Charge.

Tony has served in mostly rural communities as Pastor in Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky.  He has overseas volunteer missionary experience in Africa and South America.  He has homeland volunteer experience after Katrina in Mississippi, ice storms and flooding in Kentucky.  He has local volunteer experience through community and church involvement.  He has served on the Commission on the Status and Role of Women of the United Methodist Church in the Kentucky Conference; is an Honorary member of the United Methodist Women, past Spiritual Director of the Walk to Emmause/Chrysalis Communities.  He is convicted that social ministry is a necessary expression of Christ's ministry.

Tony uses humor in ministry, but has a passion for expressing the Resurrected LORD via preaching and teaching.  He engages young and old alike and has a special commitment to the spiritual growth of all ages after being influenced by dedicated leaders throughout his own childhood and youth.   He appreciates worship as an opportunity to sit – and stand! - in awe of a God who calls each of us to a special purpose and who delights in our strengths and in our weaknesses.  He has long experienced the church as one of the most special places to live in relationship with other human beings – equally called and loved by God. And,  he admits, those relationships make for interesting living!

Tony is an able administrator and leader.  He loves the flavor of rural living, but enjoys the benefits of the cities too.  He desires to live authentically into the vision and convictions that God has set for him and for each congregation he serves. “Experiencing the Resurrected LORD and living into the LORD'S desire and purpose for us is what it’s all about,”  he says.

Tony is joyfully married to Debra McKannan Maze Campbell of Huntsville, AL.  He is proud of his son, Andrew G. Campbell of Northern Kentucky; his mother, Hilda Hoover Campbell and late father, Jessie Leroy Campbell formerly of Booneville, MS; his brother, Terry G. Campbell of Fort Leonard Wood, MO who served in Desert Storm.  He is surrounded by his in-laws (the McKannans family:  Carolyn Allen McKannan, David Eugene McKannan, Gina McKannan Ramsey, Michael Allen McKannan, Jonathan Bruce McKannan).  He has: shaken hands with Dr. Elton Trueblood (Quaker Pastor/Author), Rev. E. Stanley Jones (missionary to Inda), Gov. George Wallace (Alabama), Dr. John C. Maxwell, Dr. Max Lucado, Rev. Bill Hybel (Pastor/Leadership), President George W. Bush (United States), and Mr. George Clooney (actor); hugged Mrs. Heather Renee French Henry (Miss America 2000); befriended Mr. Matthew Laytart (child with multiple birth defects in Brooksville, KY).  He is eternally grateful for and to special friends and colleagues. 

Tony spends his free time studying Christian history from a "phenomenological" perspective, studying stocks from the Benjamin Graham/Warren Buffett techniques, and laughing and playing with anyone who will tolerate and join him.

Sincerely,
me