Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1953, Douglas Byron Skinner graduated with honors from Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Oregon, with a degree in Biblical Studies in 1975 where he was the Student Body President. After a semester at the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological, Doug earned his Master of Divinity degree from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in 1979 where he was the Moderator of the Student Body. In 1995 Doug earned his Doctor of Ministry degree from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. His doctoral integrative project was on the theology of obedience and ordinance in the thinking of Alexander Campbell, one of the founders of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In 2006 Doug completed the School for Spiritual Direction at the Pecos Benedictine Monastery in New Mexico and has now become an oblate of that community.
Ordained to the ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) at the Central Christian Church of Melissa, Texas, in 1979, Doug has served Texas congregations in Lubbock, Plainview, Houston and Amarillo over the past 25 years. Doug has been the Senior Minister of the Northway Christian Church in Dallas, Texas, since 1997.
Doug has served on the General Board, the Administrative Committee and the Executive Committee of the Disciples of Christ denomination. He was a member of the denominational Visioning Panel in 1993, and a member of the denominational Task Force on the Question of the Participation of Gay and Lesbian Persons in the life of the Church from 1999 – 2001 representing the traditional perspective . Doug served as Moderator of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest (Texas and New Mexico) from 1996-1998. He has also served as the Moderator of the Coastal Plains Area (Houston) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest (1985-87). Twice he has served on the search committee for the Regional Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the Southwest, chairing it in 1997. Doug chaired the Regional Task Force on Mission and Structure in 1995, and again in 2003. And at the October 2003 General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, Doug was elected a Vice Moderator of the denomination for a two year term.
Doug has published articles in the Lexington Theological Quarterly, Net Results, and the Biblical Preaching Journal. He was one of the authors of the Bible Study materials for Listening to the Spirit: A Handbook for Discernment, the Disciples resource created for congregations wrestling with the question of the participation of gay and lesbian persons in the life of the church. An article on “Restoration Church History and A Theology of Suffering” was published in the September 2002 issue of Leaven, a publication for Ministry by Pepperdine University for Churches of the Stone/Campbell Heritage. And Doug was a regularly featured columnist in the new periodical for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), DisciplesWorld in its first two years of publication. In 2006 Doug’s first book, At the Lord’s Table: Communion Prayers for all Seasons was published by Chalice Press. In the summer of 2007 Doug was the Disciples Preacher at the Oregon Christian Convention, a gathering of the three branches of the Stone/Campbell family of churches for a week of spiritual bridge-building.
Doug has been involved in Hospice ministry since he went through volunteer training with Houston Hospice. That led to a nine-year association with that organization. Doug was the co-founder of the Spiritual Care Committee of Houston Hospice which established spiritual policies, procedures and structures for the organization and presented annual spiritual care seminars for the community on such varied topics as “Death and Dying in the World‘s Religions,” “Afterlife Perspectives,” “The Significance of the Near Death Experience” and “Death and the Spiritual Needs of Children.” Doug served for several years as the volunteer chaplain for the organization, and he presented the training module on “Spirituality and Death” for every volunteer class. While in Amarillo (1993-1997) Doug developed a working relationship with the Crown of Texas Hospice where he helped to teach the volunteer training classes and spoke on several special occasions. He was their tenth anniversary featured speaker in 2001, and his address was “A Good Death: Spiritual Perspectives on Dying.”
Doug was an original member of the steering committee of the Houston Campaign for the Homeless, chairing the allocations committee in 1992-93. This was a collaborative effort between the United Way and the Religious Community of Houston to address the needs of the homeless. In Amarillo, Doug was the co-founder of a similar effort, The Christian Campaign for the Homeless. This effort to raise the community’s awareness of the homeless in their midst and to network resources, both financial and volunteer, with effective ministries meeting the needs of the homeless, continues to grow in Amarillo each year.
Doug is active in the Walk to Emmaus Community. He took his walk in Houston in the early 1990’s, and has served as a spiritual director on six walks in Houston, Amarillo and Dallas. Doug has been a board member of the Greater Dallas Community of Churches since 1998, serving in 2000 and 2001 as the Vice President of Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs. In 2002 he served as the President of the organization. He has also been very active in the leadership of the Dallas Friendship Among Faiths organization, a Jewish, Christian and Muslim trialogue.
Doug is married to Mary Lynn (Jones) Skinner, a secondary school librarian in the Plano Independent School District, and they have two children, Anna, an oncology nurse in Ft. Worth married to John Bowers, a seminarian at Brite, and Danny, a Sophomore in the Drama Program at Syracuse University. Their first grandchild was born in August 2007, a boy named Andrew Harold Bowers.