Finding Your Niche & Maintaining Your Pastoral Poise: Thoughts for the New Pastor

Robby Shorter resides in southern West Virginia and serves as the lead pastor of Pineville Church of the Nazarene. Prior to coming to Pineville and the Church of the Nazarene family, he had served as pastor to six churches in the WV Conference of the UMC. Robby has an Associate’s Degree in Nursing from Bluefield State College. He holds a District Ministers License in the WV South District of the Church of the Nazarene, and is actively pursuing ordination as an Elder, having recently finished his required studies that were begun at the Course of Study School of Ohio, and completed at the WV South District Church of the Nazarene School of Ministry. In his secular career, Robby has worked extensively in the healthcare system and developed a complex resume, one requiring many different classes and certifications. He began working in the EMS field in 1983 and graduated from the Nursing Program in 1997. His resume involves the areas of expertise including ambulances, medical command telecommunications, hospital, medical helicopter, EMS telecommunication, 911 telecommunication, and volunteer firefighter. Robby grew up beside the WV Turnpike watching and loving tractor trailers. He has enjoyed extensive travel in forty-four of the lower forty-eight states as a professional tractor trailer driver. He was privileged to teach for a short time, at a professional driver training school. This was the very same school that had trained him 25 years earlier. Robby and his wife Debbie have been married since 1987 and they have one son, Josh.