A bittersweet farewell

With increasing UGA duties, Lemons says he’ll ‘retire’ as pastor of Temple Methodist in June

  • Derrick Lemons gives a sermon at Temple United Methodist Church on Sunday. He plans to retire as the church’s pastor in June after 16 years because of his increasing responsibilities at the University of Georgia. (SARAH OWENS/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO)
    Derrick Lemons gives a sermon at Temple United Methodist Church on Sunday. He plans to retire as the church’s pastor in June after 16 years because of his increasing responsibilities at the University of Georgia. (SARAH OWENS/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO)
  • Judy and Gary Mathews, longtime members of Temple United Methodist, don’t look forward to Derrick Lemons retiring as the church pastor. “It’s like grace. God gives you something you don’t deserve,” Gary said. (SARAH OWENS/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO)
    Judy and Gary Mathews, longtime members of Temple United Methodist, don’t look forward to Derrick Lemons retiring as the church pastor. “It’s like grace. God gives you something you don’t deserve,” Gary said. (SARAH OWENS/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO)

    Pastor Derrick Lemons stood at the altar on Sunday, delivering his sermon at Arnoldsville’s Temple United Methodist Church as he has nearly every week for the past 16 years.

     

    In the pews, Gary Mathews sat beside his wife, Judy, scribbling in a notebook filled mostly with notes on over 300 of Lemons’ sermons, and a few thoughts on football. Gary and Judy, Arnoldsville natives, have attended Temple United Methodist, which is on Wire Bridge Road, their entire lives. They were even married there in 1968.

     

    Now, the couple is savoring each remaining Sunday with Lemons before he retires as pastor in June. 

     

    “It’s like grace. God gives you something you don’t deserve,” Gary said, motioning to Lemons.

     

    “It’s reciprocal,” Lemons said. “They’re the best kept secret in the country. Churches can be tricky places to navigate life, and Temple is such a grace-filled community.”

     

    Lemons’ main job is professor and department head of religion at the University of Georgia, but that’s just the start of his responsibilities.

     

    He’s also the Religion Fellow for the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, the director of the Center for Theologically Engaged Anthropology, represents UGA on the University System of Georgia's faculty council, chairs UGA’s University Council Executive Committee and the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics, and is an elected member to the University of Georgia Athletic Association Board.

     

    Lemons took over as head of the religion department in August 2024, and the increased administrative demands helped lead to his decision to retire from Temple.

     

    “In administration, everyone else’s problems become my problems, and I’m thinking of the whole, not just me,” Lemons said. “It was hard to think of the whole of this (Temple) community and think of the whole of that (UGA) community.”

     

    His responsibilities at UGA are also part of the reason he’s calling this change a retirement, since he doesn’t plan to become pastor of another church.

     

    Lemons will step down in June, with a celebratory barbecue planned for Sunday, June 14. John Mattox will become pastor in July.

     

    “I’ve just really enjoyed kind of growing in my faith with them,” Lemons said, “just seeing how the community can come together and really be what a lot of people kind of assume church is, something that’s here for the good of the community. It’s been so great to grow with, and really grow up with, them.”

     

    He was introduced to the Arnoldsville church just a year after moving to Georgia, when the district superintendent of the Methodist Church reached out.

     

    “He told me he had a special church he wanted me to think about pastoring,” Lemons said. “My response was, ‘Well, I don’t have time. I have a full-time job.”

     

    The superintendent asked him to pray about it. He did, and eventually decided to take on the role.

     

    “I would have never expected to just be so fulfilled at one of these beautiful white-clapboard churches in the middle of the country,” Lemons said. “But I absolutely loved it. It’s been an honor to serve here.”

     

    As Lemons prepares to retire, he does so with 16 years of “wonderful memories” and a congregation he describes as not just friends, but family. 

     

    The Mathewses recalled one of those memories: the baptism of one of Lemons’ sons in a cattle trough. Lemons and his wife Paula moved to the area in 2007, when their sons Nathaniel and Zach were just 7 and 2 years old. 

     

    Now, Nathaniel is engaged, and Zach is about to graduate high school.

     

    “They came here as little ones,” Judy said. “We watched them grow up.”

     

    Lemons, a North Carolina native, began considering ministry as a career after being inspired by his grandfather, who used to serve at a small church. 

     

    “I was one of those odd teenagers who kind of rebelled into my faith,” Lemons said. “I just became really involved in my church.”

     

    As a junior in high school, Lemons said he realized he needed to start thinking about his future and felt called to pastoral ministry.

     

    He earned a bachelor's degree in religion from Southern Wesleyan University and began in full-time ministry in 1997 in Lexington, Kentucky. He later served at a church in Raleigh, North Carolina, then earned a master’s and doctorate of divinity at Asbury Theological Seminary. 

     

    After serving at another church in North Carolina, he relocated to Georgia. His wife also works at UGA. 

     

    “UGA, and just Georgia, is my new home,” Lemons said. “I’m a North Carolinian by birth, but I bleed Georgia.”

     

    Sarah Owens is a master’s student in journalism at the University of Georgia.