While I was in Campus Ministry at Western New Mexico University from 1998 to 2003 there were a lot of pastorless churches in Southwestern Baptist Association. As I preached in these churches I became concerned about the relatively short term of their pastors. So, I began to look for ways to increase the tenure of these pastors. The Intentional Interim Minister ministry caught my attention. In short, this was a ministry where a church would call a specially trained interim minister who would lead the church through a study to help deal with issues from the church’s past that might cause a pastor to struggle and to help the church find a pastor who would be a good fit for them.
I received training in this ministry and began to work as the Intentional Interim Minister at First Baptist Church of Santa Clara. I had not anticipated that God would use this time to call me back into the pastoral ministry. But He did just that and in the summer of 2003 my résumé began to be sent around to churches that were seeking a pastor.
During this time, Deanna and I began to talk about the kind of place we would like to go to and we came up with a list of what we thought this place would look like.
1. in a major metropolitan location
2. a nearby Wal-Mart
3. lots of places to eat out
4. lots of places to go and things to see
5. a church of over 200 people (at least as large as my last church – preferably larger)
6. a church that provided insurance and paid the same or more than I was making
7. connected to roads so we could drive lots of places
8. preferably in the western United States
We were soon contacted by a church in Port Angeles, Washington. It fit our criteria and we were very excited about them and the possibilities of going there. I spoke for over an hour with their pastor search committee chairman, Bill Branch and was very encouraged. A couple of weeks later I received a call from a lady in the First Baptist Church of Sitka, Alaska. She was with their pastor search committee and was wondering if I would consider coming to Sitka. I of course, told her that I would pray about it – which I did. There was nothing about Sitka that fit what we where looking for so within a week I told her that I was not interested.
This began a period with no peace for me. I had trouble sleeping at night. I could not get Sitka off my mind. My son didn’t help matters either. He would ask me questions like, “why do you not want to go to Sitka dad – it Alaska, dad!” One time he came into my office and asked his, “why don’t you want to go to Sitka,” question. There were so many answers to this question but the biggest reason was that it was isolated. So, once again I explained to my son how isolated Sitka was and that we would not be able to just take off and go to all the places that we were always taking off and going to. So my son pulls this map from behind his back and says, “look at this dad!” (he has a map of Alaska showing Sitka). He lays it on the table and says, “Look at this dad. Do you see this blue stuff? It’s water dad. All you need is a boat and you can go anywhere you want.”
During this same period of time my dad had given me a book by Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church. The first words in the book were, “it’s not about you.” God convicted me that all the reasons that we had come up with for not wanting to go to Sitka were about us and not about what God wanted. He also said that, “this earth is not our home,’ and that we are aliens here.
Knowing something and teaching it to others is not the same thing as really believing something to the point that you live it. I found that although I had taught these principles that Rick Warren presents in his book that I was not living them out in my own life. So, we began to really pray about our decision, asking God to reveal to us what He wanted us to do and not what we wanted. We began to believe that God wanted us to be open to going anywhere.
Three months after I told the church in Sitka that I was not interested, I called and asked if they had found a pastor yet and if not, would they be willing to still consider me. At this point I still did not want to go to Sitka but I was welling to do whatever God wanted me to do even if it was something that I did not want to do.
Within a few weeks both Deanna and I were convinced that Sitka was where God wanted us to go so we began to pack up our belongings for a move. The week before Thanksgiving we went to Sitka for a visit. By this time we had no doubts that this was God’s plan for us. We had put our house on the market and we moved out over the Thanksgiving holiday. In fact we had moved out of our house before the church voted unanimously to call me as their new pastor.
We packed all our belongings into a Uhaul truck and drove from Silver City, New Mexico to Bellingham, Washington where we loaded our truck, our Uhaul, and us, onto an Alaska Marine Line ferry bound for Sitka. The ferry left Bellingham on a Friday, December 19, 2003 and arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska on Sunday morning, December 21.
In Ketchikan we changed ferrys. We arrived at 6:00 am and our next ferry was to leave at 4:00 pm in the afternoon. So, after breakfast we went to the First Baptist Church for their services. After the service the pastor, Doug Edwards and his wife Debbie took us to lunch with some of their church people. It was incredible that he bought us lunch – he was so friendly and welcoming. This was our first taste of Alaskan hospitality and we loved it.
We arrived in Sitka on Monday, evening December 22. As we drove off the ferry in the pouring rain, we see our new church members standing in the rain holding up a sign that says, “Welcome to your New Sitka Home.” At the time we thought that this was a big sacrifice for them but since we have lived here for several years, we have learned that if you want to do something you have to do it in the rain. We get over a hundred inches of rain a year here in Sitka. When we arrived at the parsonage there was a large Christmas tree with presents under it - hot stew on the stove top and pie in the oven. We felt like we had come home.
There is a wonderful peace in knowing that you are in God’s will.
In closing here are some new thoughts about our criteria:
1. in a major metropolitan location
* We live in a place where we personally know people like: the town mayor (he’s on my facebook), the chief of police, the family that owns the grocery store, our doctors wife and children . . .
2. a nearby Wal-Mart
* we get to take a ferry or airplane and travel to another town to go to Wal-Mart – on the way we see whales, porpoises, eagles, etc.
3. lots of places to eat out
* we know the owners and servers at everyplace we eat out at – they know our names and what we like and joke with us.
4. lots of places to go and things to see
* we see things everyday that most people only dream about – like over a hundred bald eagles feeding on the beach
5. a church of over 200 people (at least as large as my last church – preferably larger)
* we have room in our church for over 200 people – so our twenty regulars have lots of opportunity for growth
* Sitka is a very un-churched community of 8500
6. a church that provided insurance and paid the same or more than I was making
* Deanna’s job provides insurance that is better than we had and she now makes more money than she did in New Mexico. Since Abigail delivers the paper to the local dentist who also does orthodontia work, we are getting braces for both our children for half price.
7. connected to roads so we could drive lots of places
* We have traveled more places and seen more things than we ever did before we moved here thanks to the PFD (Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend – paid to every Alaskan resident for living here)
8. preferably in the western United States
* You cannot go any farther west than Alaska (Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain stretches further west than Hawaii
Is this what we had in mind? No, but God’s plan is always better than ours!
One last interesting tidbit: Bill Branch the chairman of the pastor search committee that I spoke to in Port Angeles,
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