Pastor Will Meachum was ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church in June 2025. He has been in a pulpit (or two or six) since 2015. He comes to us from the Prairie River Parish, a six church cooperative parish (Henry, Lacon/Sparland, Minonk, Varna, Washburn, Wenona St. John's UMC) he helped form with co-pastor Cathy Duffy. Before that he served at Green Valley United Methodist Church while completing his seminary degree at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, graduating with honors. Before becoming a pastor, he worked as the Director of Faith Development at Pontiac UMC, and before that he worked as Worship Coordinator and Director of Music Ministries at Crossroads UMC. At our conference and district level, he also serves as the mentor coordinator for North District Committee on Ordained Ministry. He is a member of the Conference Congregational Development Team.  

Pastor Will got his undergrad at the University of Illinois in 2002, majoring in Choral Music Education, and he taught high school choir and middle school general music for 4 years. He has also enjoyed being a coach at the Junior high and high school level. While living and serving as pastor in Henry, IL for 9 years, he also coached 5th and 6th grade boys and girls basketball, travel baseball and softball at different age levels, and was on staff at Henry-Senachwine High School as the Freshmen/JV Boys Basketball coach, and as volunteer assistant coach for Golf and Varsity Boys baseball. One of his great passions is using his voice to advocate for the poor and marginalized. He works with the non-profit advocacy group Bread for the World and has gone to Washington DC multiple times to advocate for increased funding for food based programs like SNAP, WIC and USAID to members of Congress and the US Senate. 

His wife Joy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with OSF. Son Ben just graduated high school and will begin his studies in Sports Communication at Bradley in the fall of 2026. Daughter Hayden is a high school student, artist and musician, and will attend Washington High School.