VIOLA ROUNDTREE PARKER was born to the late Reverend and Mrs. Frank A. Roundtree in Coffee County, Douglas, Georgia. Her father was an (AME) African Methodist Episcopal Preacher and Presiding Elder. She is the youngest of four children. Two of her siblings are deceased. She pioneered integration and was the first black person to graduate from Coffee High School in 1966. She has one daughter and six grandchildren. In 2004, she united in holy matrimony with Terry Parker of Saint Louis, Missouri. They are now full time parents to four of her grandchildren, ages 17, 16, 13 and 10.
PASTOR PARKER lived in Alabama for twenty years after going to undergraduate school at Tuskegee University, where in 1974 she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Work. She completed 1-1/2 years in graduate school at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Her professional career began in Child Welfare and Mental Health Services during that time.
She became a licensed minister in 1988 in the Ole Georgia Conference and was subsequently ordained in 1993, in the Atlanta-North Georgia Annual Conference (Flipper Temple) as an Iterant Elder. She attended (ITC) Interdenominational Theological Seminary, the Erskine Theological Seminary, and the Emmanuel Bible College/Seminary, before receiving a Masters Degree in 1996. She has pastored in Atlanta, Waycross, Saint Simons Islands, and Carrollton, Georgia. She serves on the Ministerial Efficiency Committee, Trustee Board and teaches first year Church Administration for the Board of Examiners in the Atlanta North Georgia Conference. She was the only female clergy elected, as a delegate, in the Atlanta North Georgia Conference, to the General Conference in 2008, in St. Louis, Missouri. She also served as a delegate in 2012, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the General Conference. Currently, she is the senior pastor of Saint John African Methodist Episcopal, East Point, Georgia, since 2004.
PASTOR PARKER has over thirty years of work experience in Clinical Social Work. Her professional work experiences has yielded skills in completing psychiatric assessments, providing education, consultation, counseling and care to individuals, groups, families, and multi-family groups. She possesses skills in psycho drama, social drama, and family sculpting. These services have been provided directly and indirectly through clinical management in metropolitan and rural settings (i.e. adolescent substance abuse treatment, severely emotionally disturbed residential care, in-home and outpatient behavioral health services). With her leadership and skills in psycho therapy, individual family and multifamily groups, program planning, implementation, and evaluation, two organizations for behavioral health gained major accreditations during her tenure.
She was bi-vocational until she faced health challenges such as cancer (in 2001) and a complete hip replacement (in 2003). She became a full-time pastor in 2003. Her life experiences and dedication to the work the Lord has called her to do keep her steadfast, unmovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord. Pastor Parker often says “Now to him who is able to do exceedingly/ immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory, throughout all generations, forever and ever!”
This is truly a testament in her life.
About Post Author
