Meet Our Pastor
Rev. Dr. Frederick K. Gaddy
Mrs. Pamela Gaddy
Itinerant Elder & First Lady
Rev. Dr. Frederick K. Gaddy is a native of Detroit, Michigan who spent many years in the corporate world before accepting his call to Christian ministry in 1995. He was ordained an Itinerant Deacon in 1997 and ordained an Itinerant Elder in the Michigan Annual Conference of the AME Church by Bishop Robert Thomas, Jr. in 1999.
He served as the Youth Minister at St. Stephen AME Church in Detroit, Michigan before accepting an appointment from Bishop Philip R. Cousin, Sr. to Pastor Bethel AME
Church in Adrian, Michigan in August of 2000. In just Eight months after his first appointment, Bishop Cousin transferred Rev. Gaddy to the Illinois Annual Conference to be the first Pastor of Trinity AMEChurch in Alton, Illinois. Trinity was the result of a merger of three AME churches in the city of Alton. Under Rev. Gaddy’s leadership Trinity became one of the leading churches in the South District of the Illinois Annual Conference. In October 2007, Bishop Bryant appointed Rev. Gaddy to serve as Pastor of St. Paul AME Church in Des Moines, Iowa.
Rev. Gaddy is a graduate of Michigan State University (BA), Clark Atlanta University (MBA), Eden Theological Seminary (MDiv) and in May of 2017, he earned his Doctor of Ministry degree from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University.
Rev. Gaddy believes that the church should be a place for the development and formation of families. The church is and must always be intergenerational. There must be room at the table for the young adults and senior adults. The church must also be a place where children come to know and love God and where they are nurtured and encouraged to become faithful adults. He also believes that worship must be authentic and praiseworthy and the teaching ministries should encourage members to think about what it means to be a faithful child of God in any and all circumstances.
Rev. Dr. Gaddy serves the greater Des Moines community as a part of AMOS (A Mid Iowa Organizing Strategy) where he works with the Juvenile Justice team which is implementing a number of restorative justice initiatives in the Des Moines Public School with the goal to eliminate disproportionality in school suspensions and to end the school to prison pipeline. Rev. Gaddy is also a member of the Board of Directors of Project Iowa, a non-profit dedicated to training developing the unemployed and underemployed for living wage jobs in Central Iowa.
Rev. Gaddy is a devoted husband, father and grandfather. He is wonderfully married to his college sweetheart Pamela Gaddy and they are the proud parents of Jennifer (Cory) Davis and Frederick Gaddy, Jr. They are blessed with wonderful granddaughters, Zöe and Zuri Davis.