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Cindy Watson is the senior pastor at First United Methodist Church in downtown Wichita, Ks. She spent her formative years and was confirmed in that church. She considers it an honor to now serve there as their pastor. She is a graduate of Friends University where she received a B.A. in Theatre Arts with concentrations in Music and English. She received her Master’s of Divinity from St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City. She received her call to ministry in her teens when there were not many women clergy and wanted to figure out how faith made a difference in her life and the lives of others.

Her call took her to very rural areas in Kansas as an untrained and inexperienced pastor. The churches she served nurtured her and helped her hone her ministry and preaching skills. She has had the privilege to serve on the Board of Ordained Ministry in the former Kansas West Conference, on the South Central Jurisdictional Conference Mission Council for eight years, six of which she was the chair. She served on the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious concerns for eight years.

She has a passion for preaching and ministry in a downtown setting. She and her husband Andrew Stover have a blended family of eight children and a dozen grandchildren. They enjoy life in their historic house in the Fairview/Park Place district. She enjoys cooking, bicycling, walking, entertaining, reading and traveling when she can.