Some saluted. Others mimed hugs from a 6-foot distance or asked for a closer look at the camouflage stole his mother made him. But all who gathered outside their church Friday in Beckley, though socially distant, warmly congratulated Michael Anthony Potesta after his elder ordination service.
Potesta’s ordination marked the third for Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball in the week following Annual Conference. On Sunday, Aug. 2, at the chapel of West Virginia Wesleyan College, she ordained Heather Moore, deacon, and Jenna Wright Moon, elder.
Later, the bishop will ordain Paula Nutter Napier, elder, who serves the New Haven-Graham Charge in Mason County.
Dr. Jay Parkins, chair of the Board of Ordained Ministry, on Aug. 2 also presented the names Bradley Gene Davis and Jonathon Charles Collins to be commissioned for the work of an elder.
In addition, the Aug. 2 service included the baptism of Nora Grace, daughter of Rev. Lauren Godwin and Josh Hill. She was baptized by her grandfather, Rev. Greg Godwin.
“We’re used to the processionals and the choir and the clergy and laity all gathered together today,” the Bishop said during the service. “We do it differently today. … But no matter that, we gather in the spirit and love and the grace and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Bishop reminded those watching in person and via livestream that through baptism, all Christians are made part of the priesthood of all believers.
“We all share in Christ’s ministry of love and service,” she said.
Service, in the unusual case of this 2020 class, involves not only the work of the church, but military service. Moon is a U.S. Army Reserve military chaplain and Potesta serves as a U.S. Navy military chaplain.
“They join a great tradition of other military chaplains from West Virginia,” Steiner Ball said. “It just shows how people are called from West Virginia to serve our world, to be powerful witnesses of hope and love to people everywhere.”
Steiner Ball noted that military chaplains are frequently placed in new and anxious situations, in many ways like the early disciples she spoke of during her sermon.
“Jesus is with those who are grieving, those who are recovering, and those who are needing hope in the midst of personal and communal upheavals that tend to bring periods of gloom and discouragement. And Christ interrupts and changes things,” she said in her sermon.
“We are called to be the conveyors of hope, the people who created an atmosphere of Godly expectation, the people who bring spiritual comfort.”
In addition to being a conveyor of hope as a U.S. Navy military chaplain, Potesta serves as lead pastor of Raleigh Shared Ministries.
“The connection for me is that each and every one of us is created in God’s image,” Potesta said of his ministries. “ … I want to remind them of how much God loves them and how we are all called to love one another.
“ … I want to be the stone in the soup,” he said, referring to the folk tale and children’s book in which hungry travelers trick a village into feeding them by suggesting they add spices to the pot of water in which they are boiling a rock. The stone served merely as a way to entice villagers to add their own flavors, and they all shared a delicious meal in the end. “It was the village that made the soup taste so good.
“Life can be very hard and difficult. Life certainly isn’t fair. Life isn’t easy at all times, so we need to be reminded of the love and of the grace and of the hospitality that not only God gives us, but that we are called to give each other,” he said.
Potesta entered the U.S. Army in 1999, at the age of 19. He later pursued an art degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design, then transferred to West Virginia Wesleyan College and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2014 at the age of 33.
Potesta started his masters of divinity studies in August of 2014 at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., where he also served at Foundry United Methodist Church. After he graduated with honors in 2017, he took the oath of office at Foundry and became an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving as an Ensign O1 in the U.S. Navy Reserves Inactive as a chaplain candidate program officer.
Also in 2017, he entered a Clinical Pastoral Education residency at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Huntington. In February of 2018, he was approved for endorsement for chaplaincy in the United States Navy. He finished the Clinical Pastoral Education residency and came to Beckley in September of 2018, where he serves while waiting to go into the U.S. Navy as a military chaplain. He currently holds the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade O2.
ordained by Bishop Steiner Ball
Rev. Moon’s military service extends 19 years. The Wheeling native is a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve, currently serving the 321st Ordnance Battalion in Cross Lanes. In 2006 and 2007, her Army career took her to Baghdad, Iraq, with the 324th Military Police Battalion in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. When she returned, Moon graduated from West Liberty University in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. In 2014 she earned a Master’s of Divinity Degree from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Moon is also the former pastor of three United Methodist churches in Grantsville, Md., and the wife of Rev. Jonathan Moon, an associate pastor at Christ Church United Methodist in Charleston.
Rev. Moore serves the Kanes Creek-Mt. Vernon Charge as their pastor and she is an adjunct instructor for the Religious Studies Program at West Virginia University. She’s a graduate of West Virginia University and the Perkins School of Theology. As the daughter of the late Rev. Thomas L. Moore, she jokes that her earliest commission was “to the important work of a pastor’s kid.”
“Through these experiences, I found a calling to service, compassion, justice and even word (though proclaiming the word still makes me nervous),” Moore wrote. “From service trips to Board of Ordained Ministry internships to foundational conversations with colleagues in ministry, I came to an awareness that I was exhibiting signs of a call to ministry as a deacon. And I couldn’t be happier with this prognosis!”
Steiner Ball reminded the newly ordained that it is important for them to tell people everywhere that, “Jesus turns things around,” as he did with the transformation of Saul to Paul.
“If we can move with Christ’s movement and direction, the church will find peace, and we’ll rise up out of the challenges and difficulties of this time to a newness of growth and life,” she said.
