The Rev. Jaci Smith Patman
You can’t know Pastor Jaci well without knowing that she loves the Lord and loves God’s word. That love is at the heart of her calling as a pastor and as a person. Raised in the church in her hometown of Seattle, it wasn’t until she was an adult that it all “clicked.” Spending her “young adult” years in Washington, DC, Jaci was a member of National Presbyterian Church where she served as a Deacon, an Elder, and an avid volunteer adult Bible teacher. She left the area to serve as a missionary in Russia for five years, after which she returned to her hometown of Seattle in December 1999. Over the next ten years, she served in the missions office of a large Presbyterian church in Seattle, completed a degree in Russian studies, and earned her M.Div. A new phase of life began: she was hired at another church in nearby Bellevue, WA in 2010, married Keith Patman in 2011, and was ordained by the Bellevue church in 2013. A call to serve as an Associate Pastor landed Pastor Jaci and Keith in Naples, FL for six years (2015-2021). In that role she was involved in just about every area of pastoral leadership, from administration to management to preaching, teaching, and pastoral counseling. Feeling led to move on, Jaci responded favorably to an invitation to serve a brief stint as a Bridge Pastor an hour up the road in Fort Myers, FL, assisting a congregation in crisis mode until they could call an Interim Pastor. Trained in interim/transitional ministry, desiring to apply all she had learned in recent years, and hoping to move nearer to grandchildren, she moved into to full-time transitional ministry first in Waynesboro, VA (2022-2024), and subsequently in Front Royal, VA (2024-2026). Pastor Jaci possesses an ongoing deep conviction that Christ calls each believer to grow in him, that the Spirit equips each believer to serve in Christ’s name, that there is no cookie-cutter profile of a Christian, that the marks of a Christian are well-defined in Scripture, and that God has a plan for each of us, for his Church, and for the world. These transitional times for congregations are holy times, when we all have the opportunity to grow and hone our gifts and skills as we seek to be Christ’s constant witness in a world filled with fears, distractions, and seemingly incessant change. Keith Patman, Jaci’s husband, has worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators as a linguist for over 40 years. He continues to act as a consultant to African nationals in various countries as they translate the Bible into their mother tongues. He lived in Cameroon for several years, and now does most of his work stateside. He will, however, be traveling to Central Africa in November/December, something he is welcoming as a return to normal. Keith has two grown children and six grandchildren whom he wholeheartedly shares with Jaci, who has embraced them as her own family from the Lord. (They all live in Maryland.) Pastor Jaci’s maternal grandfather, a veteran of WWI, was born in Huntington, WV in 1890, and she marvels that she will be serving in his home state over a century-and-a-quarter later here at Gerrardstown. Keith and Jaci just celebrated their 15 th anniversary and reside in Winchester.
