Senior Pastor Larry Varvel was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and then moved to Tulsa for Junior High and High School. He graduated from Tulsa Memorial HS in 1978, and then attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman as a National Merit Scholar where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Letters and a Master’s degree in Philosophy. He then attended Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, earning a Master’s Degree in Divinity in 1986.  He was ordained as a Methodist Pastor that same year.

While in California, he met his wife, Jeanine, who graduated from California State University Los Angeles with a degree in Child Development.

Larry and Jeanine moved from California to Oklahoma in 1986, where Larry has previously served as the Senior Pastor of the First Methodist Church of Atoka, Quail Springs United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, and the First Methodist Church of Ada.

Larry became the Senior Pastor of our church in 2003, and has served in that role for over 22 years. Larry and Jeanine have 3 grown children: Patty Deras and her husband Andrew; Lainie Schick and her husband Taylor, and Andrew Varvel and his wife Elyssa.  Larry and Jeanine have five grandchildren: Leo and Essie Deras, Charlotte and Wesley Schick, and Hazel Varvel.