A Conversation with John Palmer: Life and Leadership

Meet John Palmer. He leads our Missions Ministry at First UMC and we recently captured his thoughts on a variety of topics including his leadership role.

Can you tell us where you are from and what your childhood was like?

I was born in Kansas City, Missouri but grew up in New York and Florida. My dad was a medic in the army and served in WW2. My mom was a stay-at-home mother who also volunteered a lot in our community. In Florida, my dad started a food brokerage business. The business was to sell products to the corporate offices of grocery stores but also work to co-market the products to include product placement in that grocery store chain.

I went to college at Florida State University, where I majored in Political & Science Economics.

After graduation, I moved to Chicago, Indianapolis, In, NJ and then to CT. I have lived in CT for about 35 years.

How did you meet your wife?

I met my wife Stephany while living in NJ and she was living in Texas. We met on a blind date, and we’ve been married for 37 yrs. We have 3 children, Daniel 31, Sam 30, and Johnathan 28.

What is your personal story of how you came to Christianity?

Growing up, my mom and my grandfather took me to church in New York. After college, I started to attend church again in Indianapolis, NJ and in Avon, Ct. When we moved to Stamford, I found First United Methodist and felt a home immediately. Loved the warmth and diversity of the church. When we had our children, they also felt at home and made friends with the other kids who also regularly attended.

How do you personally cultivate and maintain your spiritual growth?

I try to give back and set an example for others. I look for opportunities to help others either by myself or through our missions committee. I believe it is Important to be grateful and support people who don’t have what we have without judgement.

What leadership skills have helped collaborate with staff and volunteers to achieve common goals?

Everyone has their own style of leadership. I try to be a coach, organize the team and create clear goals so we work together to achieve them. I am not a big fan of being a micromanager, I prefer to encourage and empower others to achieve the desired outcome or goal.

How do you handle conflict with others?

The true art of managing conflict is figuring out how to take the energy out of the conflict. Most people make conflicts bigger, not smaller. I love to watch conflicts and observe how people handle them. Really talented people take a stressful situation and downgrade it as opposed to putting fuel on the fire. It is interesting what moves people to bring a conflict to an end. Most people make conflicts worse because they ramp up the energy.

Describe a situation where you faced a significant challenge or setback in ministry. How did you handle it?

Was asked to “temporarily lead” the Missions Committee about 4 years ago. During that time no one at FUMC felt comfortable taking on the responsibility so I remain the committee chair. Consequently, having the responsibility of committee chair has been much longer than anticipated but blessed that I am a part of team who makes the task very enjoyable and doable!

What has been the most successful ministry initiative or program that you implemented?

I am proud of the Adopt-a-Social Worker program we started 20 years ago. We work with a social worker to help her clients by donating the following: Thanksgiving food baskets, back to school backpacks, Christmas gifts plus food baskets and Easter food baskets. Our social work is also comfortable reaching out to us if a client has a need outside of the drives. For example, she had a client from El Salvador staying in a hotel with no food. She reached out to us to fill that need and FUMC brought food and toiletry items to the hotel.

What is your vision for the future of the mission’s ministry?

With the current peoplepower, there is not much more we can take on. If we had more people involved, we would look for opportunities in the community especially where FUMC members are already involved. With more people participating, we could also serve at the soup kitchen more frequently and donate more food.

What do you do in your free time?

I ride my bike every morning as I am training for a cancer ride to honor a friend’s wife who lost her battle with colon cancer. Our goal is to raise 50K for cancer research.

Who are your heroes? Who do you look up to the most and why?

I look up to everyday people who always seem to do the right thing, like Dan McDougal. Those are the people I look up tp. It seems so many people don’t’ do the right thing anymore.