About Our Minister in Residence Program
The Community Church does not have a permanent minister. Rather, it has developed a unique program whereby retired clergy from the US are typically invited for a period of two months to lead our worship service on Sundays and assist in the spiritual and other short term needs of the congregation during their stay. We provide round trip transportation between San Miguel and the minister and his/her spouse's closest to home international airport, and we provide an apartment for them to live in while they are here.
Currently we have several ministers who have returned one or more times. Our ministers are ordained in various denominations such as: Presbyterian, United Methodist, ELCA (Lutheran), United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Episcopalian and others.
We are currently accepting inquiries from potential minister-in-residence for 2027. If you are interested, please click on the Contact Tab to send an inquiry for more information.
Our Current & Future Ministers-in-Residence
Tim Poly
Residence for July and August.2026
Welcome to John and Jennifer Fanestil
Residence for September and October 2026
Tim Poly is a retired United Methodist minister and servant-focused small business owner whose work is shaped by years of listening, teaching, and preaching. His ministry has been marked by a commitment to Scripture that is deeply rooted and attentively lived—attentive to tradition while deeply engaged with lived experience.
Tim’s work explores the places where spiritual belief meets doubt; where silence teaches as much as speech; and where relationship matters more than resolution. Rather than offering answers to be mastered, he focuses on creating spaces where questions can be held honestly and where trust can grow.
Tim has also shared his photojournalism with nearly three dozen nonprofit organizations in the United States and Mexico, forming relationships with communities engaged in education, health care, and grassroots development. This work has deepened his conviction that faith is lived not only through words, but through presence, attention, and shared humanity.
He and his wife, Sara, an award-winning artist, are longtime visitors to San Miguel. They live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and are parents to Josh and Emily, and grandparents to Imogen and Paige.
While serving the Community Church, Tim will lead a book study on his new publication, In God — Walking, Listening, and Living with Presence, and will again volunteer his photography in support of local nonprofits.
John Fanestil is an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church from San Diego, California. John is married to Jennifer Leich, a retired university research administrator, who will join him in San Miguel. John and Jennifer are parents to two adult children, Ellen and Jacob, who also live in San Diego. They have one granddaughter, Asijah (age 8).
John's ministry -- half serving churches and half leading nonprofit organizations -- has been defined by his enduring commitment to the peoples of the US-Mexico borderlands. He is the founder of The Border Church, a weekly celebration of communion at Friendship Park, the historic cross-border meeting place at the western end of the border, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He recently retired as Executive Director of the Friends of International Friendship Park (https://internationalfriendshippark.org), a non-profit seeking to establish an international park at this iconic location.
John is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, the Claremont School of Theology, and the University of Southern California, where he earned his Ph.D. in History. He is also a writer, blending history, religion, memoir, and social commentary (www.johnfanestil.com). In Mrs. Hunter’s Happy Death (Doubleday, 2006), he shares "lessons on living from people preparing to die." In One Life to Give (Fortress Press, 2021), he details the role played by martyrdom in the making of the American Revolution. In American Heresy (Fortress Press, 2023), he explores the roots and reach of "white Christian nationalism.”
Brian Plaugher was educated at Pomona College and San Francisco Theological Seminary, two institutions more than a century removed from being located in the cities they are named for. He has served community churches affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian church. For slightly more than half of his career, he served as a senior chaplain for a hospice agency, a large acute care hospital, and a multi-level retirement community.
He and Pam Kruse have been married since 1989. Their older son, Joe, works for the Sonoma Land Trust, focusing on improving wildfire resilience for local parks and preserves. Son William and wife Ava practice dentistry and orthodontics, respectively, in nearby Santa Rosa. Not at all nearby, daughter Libby is in her second year helping teach English in Alicante, Spain, and will commence study for a Master’s degree in Madrid next Fall. Brian enjoys music, travel, and being out in nature. Pam enjoys fabric arts (particularly quilting), birding (particularly raptors), and being with friends and family. Both of them have been suspected of impatiently drumming their fingers on the tabletop in hopes that grandchildren will appear, with no apparent success so far.
Brian Plougher
Residence for May and June 2026
Community Church
San Miguel de Allende
An interdenominational English-speaking Christian church in San Miguel de Allende, México.
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