Todd Seifert loves to tell stories. His feels blessed to have been put in position to pursue that passion in six states and in two careers.
He serves as communications director for the Great Plains Conference of The United Methodist Church and is a Certified Lay Minister. He has served in his current role since February 2015. In that role, he leads the team that tells stories of the more than 800 United Methodist Churches in Kansas and Nebraska. It’s important to note that the thoughts, reflections and observations he shares on this site are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the church or its officials.
Prior to joining the Great Plains team, Todd served as a journalist for 20 years in Minnesota, Missouri and Utah, with the last 14 years as executive editor of the Gannett (USA Today-affiliated) newspaper in St. George, Utah. His job provided him with the opportunity to tell investigative stories about government waste or inaction, as well as numerous tales of people overcoming obstacles and who served as inspiration to others. He has had the opportunity to interview U.S. senators, presidential candidates, sports heroes, musicians, educators, first responders, military veterans and even the school crossing guard — all with great stories to tell.
His background includes daily and weekly newspapers, the launch and redesign of websites, the introduction of video to document breaking news, social media integration into news gathering and dissemination, as well as magazine publishing.
Todd has served in various leadership roles in growing local churches, including church council chair, finance chair and education chair. He has taught Bible studies for teenagers on up to 90-somethings for more than 20 years. And he considers it a privilege to have served as facilitator for Disciple Bible Study on multiple occasions. Leading Disciple 1 is still his favorite activity to be part of in the local church.
In his free time, he enjoys photography, which is why you see some of those images in galleries on this website. He enjoys reading and serving in his community. He served in the St. George (Utah) Kiwanis Club for more than 10 years before a call to ministry led him back to the Midwest.
Todd is married to his high school sweetheart, the Rev. Amy Seifert, who currently serves at Central United Methodist Church in Lawrence, Kansas. They have a daughter, Emily, who played basketball while earning her business degree at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, and a son, Josh, who played baseball at Nebraska Wesleyan University and who is now a seminary student at St. Paul School of Theology.
Contact Todd at tseifert@greatplainsumc.org. Follow him on Twitter, @ToddSeifert
In Layman's Terms 