{"id":78201,"date":"2026-09-04T06:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=78201"},"modified":"2026-09-04T06:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:14:23","slug":"first-umc-lakeland-welcomes-rev-marcus-zillman-as-senior-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/09\/04\/first-umc-lakeland-welcomes-rev-marcus-zillman-as-senior-pastor\/","title":{"rendered":"First UMC Lakeland Welcomes Rev. Marcus Zillman as Senior Pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Staff-Parish Relations Committee at First United Methodist Church of Lakeland appointed Rev. Marcus Zillman<\/strong> as the church’s Senior Pastor, following the retirement of Pastor Charley.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Rev. Zillman comes to First UMC Lakeland after serving five years as the Senior Pastor at Cypress Lake United Methodist Church in Fort Myers, Florida.<\/sup> His appointment reflects a homecoming to the local community, as he is a 1994 graduate of Florida Southern College in Lakeland.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key details regarding Pastor Zillman’s leadership transition include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Educational & Professional Background:<\/strong> Earned a Bachelor\u2019s in Business Administration from Florida Southern College and a Master of Divinity from Emory University\u2019s Candler School of Theology (1997). He brings nearly three decades of pastoral experience serving Methodist congregations across Florida.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Focus on Multi-Generational Ministry:<\/strong> Rev. Zillman emphasizes fostering a church body that engages all generations\u2014from young families and children to long-standing senior congregants\u2014strengthening modern and traditional worship settings and local community missions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Personal & Family Life:<\/strong> He and his wife, Rebecca, have two young daughters, Marilyn and Marissa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    First UMC Lakeland continues to operate out of its campus at 72 Lake Morton Drive in downtown Lakeland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Staff-Parish Relations Committee at First United Methodist Church of Lakeland appointed Rev. Marcus Zillman as the church’s Senior Pastor, following the retirement of Pastor Charley. Rev. Zillman comes to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDlcL3VubmFtZWQud2VicD9maXQ9MTAyNCUyQzU3NiZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkZpcnN0IFVNQyBMYWtlbGFuZCBXZWxjb21lcyBSZXYuIE1hcmN1cyBaaWxsbWFuIGFzIFNlbmlvciBQYXN0b3IiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.WhnDdMsuGpbmy7dAt7TqPzlxwkoeRAbtzS5qcaV1r3gMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDlcL3VubmFtZWQud2VicD9maXQ9MTAyNCUyQzU3NiZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkZpcnN0IFVNQyBMYWtlbGFuZCBXZWxjb21lcyBSZXYuIE1hcmN1cyBaaWxsbWFuIGFzIFNlbmlvciBQYXN0b3IiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.WhnDdMsuGpbmy7dAt7TqPzlxwkoeRAbtzS5qcaV1r3gMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78203,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78201\/revisions\/78203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}