Williams, Douglas
The Rev. Douglas E. Williams is a missionary with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, serving as pastor and Volunteer in Mission promoter of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina, based in Buenos Aires. He was commissioned in October 2015.
The Argentine church has 100 congregations spread across the country. Doug coordinates lay-pastor teams in the northern districts of Tucuman, Salta, Jujuy and Santiago de Estero, and assists with hosting UMVIM teams, mostly from the United States. His current ministry sites include ministry with natives, housing and food insecurity, and university student outreach.
Born in Virginia, Doug is an elder of the Iowa Annual Conference. Immediately prior to his missionary service, he was lead pastor of the Coralville United Methodist Church and an adjunct professor at Kirkwood Community College, Iowa City, Iowa. Earlier, he served churches in the Iowa and Tennessee annual conferences. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri, and a Master of Divinity degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Dubuque [Iowa] Theological Seminary.
“I grew up loving Jesus but not going to church much,” Doug recalls, but he attended often enough to be baptized at age 16 in a Baptist congregation. He experienced a call to ministry while on a mission trip to Haiti during his college years and enrolled in seminary after college graduation. He transitioned to The United Methodist Church after seminary and served as a pastor in the U.S. for 25 years. He said that the faith communities he has served have been concerned with innovative ministries such as the Common Grounds coffee house and the Coralville ecumenical food pantry. He has been a pastor in Argentina for nine years.
Mission trips have played a key role in Doug’s ministry, including service in Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Native American reservations, and storm/flooding cleanup in the United States. A major building project at the Coralville church made it impossible for him to participate in mission trips for several years. God planted in him a call to full-time mission service during that period.
“I recognized that God was growing a deep longing to serve outside of the country,” Doug recalled. “God seemed to be saying, ‘Now is the time.’”
He continued, “Our world is becoming a global community, and God wells up in me the desire to be part of building international bridges of relationship to see God’s peace expand and restorative justice take place. So many challenges … face us, and time and time again, God reveals in every challenge an opportunity for growth and healing.”
Doug has two adult children, Samantha in Anchorage, Alaska, and Jonathan in Lander, Wyoming. He lives with Shake, his cat, and Toro Sentado, his dog, in San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina.