Mollie Rose Landers, the daughter of Gail and Philip Landers, of Williamsport, will be ordained into the ministry of the United Church of Christ at 3 p.m. Sept. 15 at New Covenant United Church of Christ, 202 E. Third St. Landers was approved for ordination on March 11. She has accepted a call as associate director of outdoor ministries for the Maine and New Hampshire Conferences of the United Church of Christ.
One of five children in her family, Landers grew up camping, canoeing and enjoying the outdoors. She has been involved in outdoor ministries since she was 8 years old, when she went to Hartman Center (a ministry of the Penn Central Conference) and instantly was hooked on church camp. She worked as part of the summer service team at Hartman Center for three years, and it was during this time she first felt God may be calling her to ministry.
Originally shooting for Broadway, Landers attended Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., as a theater major but eventually switched to religion and philosophy. During that time she served as the youth director at Gay's Chapel United Methodist Church and spent a semester abroad in the Patagonia region of Chile on a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) trip.
She was granted in-care status in the Central Association of the Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ in May 2008. After graduating from Catawba in 2008, she served as the program director for the summer at Pilgrim Lodge in West Gardiner, Maine.
She then attended Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C., and served as the youth pastor at St. Stephen's United Methodist Church, a pastoral intern at Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ and completed a unit of clinical pastoral education at Sibley Memorial Hospital.
After completing her master's of divinity degree, she spent a year at Andover Newton Theological School where she earned her master's degree in theological studies.
