Our pastor, Dave Marnell, was born into a large and loud Catholic family in Cincinnati. He spent the first forty years of his life seeking adventure all over the world. He traveled, working in restaurants, teaching scuba and sailing, and in construction.  He also owned two businesses, and lived on a sailboat for 5 years. His wanderings led him to Pensacola where his life started to settle and change in response to his desire to reacquaint himself with the God of his childhood. A friend invited him to Perdido Bay UMC and it was there he found the community that would show him the love of Christ as he leaned back into the call to ministry he had heard as a child. In 2014 Dave began the journey to become an Elder in the United Methodist Church, attending the Candler School of Theology and became a student pastor at his first church in Seale, Alabama. Dave graduated from Candler in 2016 with an MDiv and was appointed pastor of the Brantley Charge in Brantley, Alabama. In 2019 he was appointed as Senior Pastor at Jubilee Shores UMC in Fairhope.

Dave is a ‘hands-on, heart-to-heart, shoulder-to-shoulder’ pastor. While he loves preaching, he is happiest out in the community, taking the love of Christ to our neighbors. He often says that the depth of our love of God is exactly equal to the depth of our love for our neighbor.  To this end, his desire and intention is to help lead Jubilee Shores grow more fully into that: loving and serving our neighbors and each other. Dave lives in Fairhope with his wife, Mona.