Munger Place Pastors

Munger Place is a satellite campus of Highland Park United Methodist Church. Andrew Forrest is our Campus Pastor at Munger Place. We will also have our own Worship Leader, Kate Miner, and band.

Most Sundays, Munger Place will feature a video feed from the Cornerstone Service at HPUMC, led by Rev. Paul Rasmussen. 

Rev. Paul Rasmussen Cornerstone Pastor Room 383D at HPUMC Campus howardd@hpumc.org 214.523.2282 Bio & Questions Paul's Blog

Andrew Forrest Campus Pastor, Munger Place Room 339 at HPUMC Campus forresta@mungerplace.org 214-523-2263 Bio & Questions Andrew's Blog

Paul Rasmussen

A fourth generation Methodist Minister, Paul grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. After graduating from Centenary College and graduate school at the University of Richmond, Paul returned to Shreveport to coach college basketball for five years. He left coaching for a career in sports marketing and a move to Dallas. But all that was before the call. In 1999, Paul left the corporate world to answer God's call to ministry. Driven by a passion to "make the modern church relevant and meaningful," Paul entered seminary at SMU's Perkins School of Theology. He has been part of the Cornerstone worship team since 2001. Paul and his wife, Ashley, have three children.

Who were some of your influences/inspirations? Mom & dad and the craziest family on the planet. William Sloane Coffin, Gene Hamner of the Southfield Soaring Eagles, Tommy Vardeman of the not-so-polite Centenary Gentlemen, Mark Craig, Andy Stanley, Adam Hamilton.

My all time favorite movie is...Star Wars – We watched the trailer for Star Wars before watching Smokey and the Bandit. I told my brothers it would be a total bust – then I went to see it about 20 times at the mall.

My favorite food is...Cajun, no doubt about it.

My favorite sport is...Basketball.

What's on your Ipod? Piles and piles of Petty, Springsteen, Henley & Frey, Snider (Todd, not Dee), Jackson Browne, Dylan, Mercy Me, Crowder, and tons of other great poets of rock-n-roll.

My favorite scripture is...1 Corinthians 9:22 "Whatever a person is like, I try to find common ground with him so that he will let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him."

Andrew Forrest

I was born in Virginia.  When I was in first grade, my parents moved as missionaries to Sierra Leone, West Africa, where my dad taught in a Bible college for African pastors, and my mom worked in a maternity clinic.  We moved back to Virginia, where I attended middle and high school.  I went to college at Columbia University in New York City.  After college, I worked for five years as a youth director at a Methodist church in Richmond, VA.  In 2007, my wife and I moved to Dallas so I could attend seminary at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.  I'm currently finishing up my Masters of Divinity degree.  While in seminary and before I got involved at Munger, I worked part-time as associate pastor at Christ's Foundry, a small Spanish-language United Methodist mission congregation in Dallas.  I am married to Elaine, who is a counselor at the elementary level for the Plano ISD.  We have a baby son named Jack.

Who were some of your influences/inspirations? My dad is a Methodist minister, as was my grandfather, and with regard to what a pastor should be like, both of those men have been important influences for me.  And, my dad is a very good preacher, and I grew up listening to him preach.  I like to read and listen to pastors and leaders like Bill Hybels and Andy Stanley.  My favorite preacher in the English language is a South Africa pastor named Trevor Hudson.  He is the preacher I most want to be like.
 
My all time favorite movie is… I don't have one favorite, but here are some movies I like (in no particular order or grouping): To Save a Life, Harvey, The Sting, Facing the Giants, The Mission, High Noon, Casablanca, the Indiana Jones movies, Jean de Florette, Manon de Source, Hoosiers, The Great Escape, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Philadelphia Story, Cool Hand Luke, In the Name of the Father, The Royal Tenenbaums, Groundhog Day, You've Got Mail, Bringing Up Baby, Big, The Grand Illusion, It's a Wonderful Life, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lawrence of Arabia, and Forrest Gump.  I know that's a long list, but there are a lot of great movies out there, right?
 
My favorite East Dallas restaurant is…I love New England-style pizza, and my favorite local pizza joint is Scalini's, in Lakewood.
 
My favorite part of East Dallas is…Since I live there, I really like the whole Lakewood/Munger area.  I love being able to walk to the grocery store, the bank, the library, our pizza joint (see above), etc.  I also really enjoy being within walking distance of White Rock Lake.

My favorite sport is...soccer, to play and watch, although right now I'm really getting into running.  Also, my wife and I participate in one of those outdoor, military-style boot camp fitness programs, which we really enjoy.
 
What's on your Ipod?  Audiobooks!  Some of my recent favorites include The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens and the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian.  I also have a lot of music by Switchfoot, my favorite band.
 
What's one of the most important lessons you've learned in life?  Planning is invaluable.
 
My favorite quotation is... "The world is charged with the grandeur of God," from the poem "God's Grandeur" by the English Jesuit poet Gerald Manley Hopkins.

What most excites me about what we are trying to do at Munger is how we get a chance to create a certain type of culture in the church.  From day one, we will be able to share a vision about how we want Munger to be a place where people who don't feel comfortable in other churches can feel like they belong at Munger.  We'll also be able to hold ourselves to a high standard, that of allowing the Lord to help us love him and love our neighbors as ourselves.
 
My favorite scripture is…Romans 8:18-39.