Church Leadership

Grant Wildwright has served as pastor at First Pres Benton since 2023.  He studied at Middlebury College in Vermont and Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia, and has lived in New Jersey, London, and Wyoming.  His wife, Jocelyn, is also an ordained Presbyterian minister and ran summer programming at Ferncliff, the local Presbyterian camp, for the last six years.  His cat, Oreo, is not a Presbyterian minister, and shows little inclination toward becoming one.  Grant loves maps, smoothies, ancient languages, games of all kinds, and a good cup of hot tea. 

In the Presbyterian system, leadership in the church is shared among three ordered ministries: Teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacons.  Teaching elders, also called pastors or Ministers of the Word and Sacrament, are charged with "teaching the faith in word and deed and equipping the saints for the work of ministry."  While they are responsible for certain day-to-day tasks in the management of the church, they are responsible to the Presbytery as well as the church Session.  The Session is composed of the currently active ruling elders of the church, and meets at least monthly to share in the discernment of God's Spirit and the governance of the people.  The board of deacons is composed of people responsible for the ministries of compassion, witness, and service. Deacons and ruling elders are laypeople elected by the congregation from among its members.