Senior Pastor Larry Varvel was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1959. His family moved to Tulsa in 1971 and Larry graduated from Tulsa Memorial High School in 1978. Larry then attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman as a National Merit Scholar where he was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in Letters in 1981 and a Master’s degree in Philosophy in 1983. He then moved to Pasadena, California to attend Fuller Theological Seminary. Larry graduated from Fuller with a Master’s degree in Divinity in 1986 and was ordained as a United Methodist pastor that same year.

Prior to his coming to Broken Arrow in 2003, Larry served as the Associate Pastor at Wesley UMC in Oklahoma City (1986-1988), pastor of the First UMC of Atoka, OK (1988-1990), OK; pastor of Quail Springs UMC in Oklahoma City (1990-1997), and Senior Pastor of the First UMC of Ada, OK (1997-2003). While serving in Ada, Larry was awarded the Denman Award for Excellence in Evangelism by the United Methodist Foundation for Evangelism.

Larry and Jeanine have three children: Patty Deras and her husband, Andrew and their son, Leo and daughter, Essie; Lainie Schick, and her husband Taylor and their daughter Charlotte; and Andrew Varvel and his wife Elyssa. Larry and Jeanine enjoy traveling, movies, and spending time with family.