|
September 2003 Interveiw with Pastor Bud |
Pastor Roland "Bud"
Brown has been the Senior Pastor at St. Paul's and Gaither churches since 1987. On March 21, 2002, the Sykesville Parish Church Historian
met with Pastor Brown in the church office to discuss his career as a minister and his experiences as the pastor of the Sykesville
Parish.
Church Historian: Can you tell me a little bit about your background, such as when and where you were born?
Pastor Brown: I was born on September 12, 1947, in Washington, D.C., at the old Garfield Hospital. I was one of the last kids born there. They tore it down shortly after I was born. I was raised in Washington, D.C., until I was six. My parents divorced when I was three, and my mom remarried an Air Force officer, and we moved to Alaska, and since then I traveled all over the country as an Air Force brat.
CH: In general, what was you childhood like? You just mentioned moving around quite a bit. What else do you remember about your childhood?
PB: I really don't remember much about my (biological) dad at all. When my parents divorced, I was so young. I was just about three, so I don't remember him too much from my childhood. I remember living on Fort Davis Street, South East (Washington D.C.). It was 1776 Fort Davis Street; that's how I remember it -- the same year as the American Revolution -- and I remember going to Anne Beers Elementary School. Then we went to Alaska, and to a kid in the first or second grade, it was a great adventure. We had all kinds of fun there. We had snow 9 to 10 months of the year, we built forts, and we had an ice rink in our back yard. Going to school in the dark was the thing I remember most. In the wintertime, you only had a couple hours of daylight, and most of that was dusky daylight -- it really wasn't bright sunshine. But I think the thing that surprised me most about Alaska was that in the summertime, it could get really warm. It got into the eighties sometimes. I remember my stepfather playing in a midnight golf tournament, and I was his caddy.
CH: Of all the places you lived when you were young, was Alaska your favorite?
PB: No. We lived in Colorado twice. We moved back from Alaska to Washington, D.C., and then moved to Colorado, and then went back to Washington, D.C., and moved back to Colorado a second time when my stepfather retired from the Air Force. We were the short stint in San Diego when I was a sophomore in high school; we went there for a couple of years. He worked for the Scripps Institute out there. So Colorado was my favorite; it's kind of what I used to call home for many years.
CH: Do you have any siblings?
PB: I have two sisters and a brother. My brother still lives in Alaska. My youngest sister, Donna, lives in Woodbine on Daisy Road, not far from here. My oldest sister lives in Virginia with her husband. Both sisters are married, and my brother was married and is now divorced.
CH: You mentioned an older sister. Are you the second oldest or the youngest?: You mentioned an older sister. Are you the second oldest or the youngest?
PB: I'm the second child. My sister in Virginia is older than I am by a couple of years, but no one believes that when they see us together.
CH: During your childhood, was your family actively involved in a church, and if they were, what type of a church was it?
PB: Well, my mom was raised Roman Catholic, and my (biological) dad was raised as a Methodist. Like I said, they were divorced when I was young, and I remember as a very young child going to Rylan Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. My going to church consisted of my mother dropping me off at Sunday school. I would go in the front door; go out the back, and play in the woods until I heard the bells ringing at the end of the service. The only exception to that is when I looked and saw they had the felt board up -- I'd stay for the felt board stories. I knew when church was letting out because they would always ring the bells, so I would run back in and come back out the Sunday school door, and my mother would pick me up. Being in the Air Force, we went to chapel occasionally, but we didn't really go to church regularly, and I didn't go after I was five or six until I was in my twenties.
CH: So, the Air Force chapels were non-denominational?
PB: Yeah; they were non-denominational chapels.
CH: How old were you when you were baptized?
PB: I was baptized as an infant.
CH: So overall, you could say that Christianity was not that important in your upbringing. It was there on the surface, but it was not instrumental in your family's life.
PB: No. It wasn't at all.
CH: To the best of your recollection, what was the church like when you were growing up? What do you remember most about it?
PB: What I remember is that my grandparents were very devout Methodists. They were members of the Metropolitan Church in D.C., which is the National United Methodist Church. My grandfather was a trustee of the church, for I don't know how many years, and an usher for fifty years probably. So when I went to stay with them, which was as often as we were in the area, we would go spend weekends with them. On Sundays we would go to church, and my memory of that is being a frightened little child. This was, and still is, a huge church for a Methodist Church. I remember the minister was Dr. Ed Latch, who was later the chaplain for the House of Representatives. He would stand in a black robe and wave his arms in the air and shout and scream. It really frightened the living daylights out of me. He was a nice man, because when you met him personally as a child, he was very personable -- very engaging to children. But standing in the pulpit, he scared me, and I think I still carry that with me today -- of being careful about how I preach so that you don't frighten children into running away from the church.
CH: Was there ever a time when you strayed away from the church, and if so, at what age did it happen?
PB: Oh yeah. From about high school through my first year of college, I wouldn't have known a church if it had hit me in the face, and I didn't care -- I didn't go to church at all. When I went to college, I was the typical fraternity guy. If you ever saw the movie Animal House, and the character John Belushi played; that was me. But I always seemed to date religious girls, and I don't understand why. All the girls I used to be attracted to were very religious, and most of the time Catholic.
CH: As you were preparing to graduate from high school, what type of career did you want to pursue?
PB: I was going to be a mathematician. I had been tested during the Sputnik craze. They tested all the kids, and I was one of the 99th percentile of kids that the Federal Government put in a special program in mathematics. They had to ask the parents, and the parents had to agree. This was in the late 50s and early 60s, so I was identified from about the fourth or fifth grade as this mathematical prodigy that had to be a mathematician. That was my first mistake. I went into college and exempted freshman and sophomore mathematics, so I started at junior level mathematics. Differential calculus was my downfall, and I decided not to be a mathematician anymore.
CH: So what did you end up doing for a career?
PB: I ended up as a systems analyst. I flunked out of college the first time, because I enjoyed fraternities more than I did classes. I went to Colorado State University and was able to stay the whole year, but flunked out. Fortunately, I had a summer job in D.C., where my aunt worked; Perpetual Building Association Savings and Loan. I worked there in the summer. A job opened when I found out I wasn't going to be allowed to go back to school -- a job opened in the computer department as a computer operator at night. So I started that job, and then they tested me to see if I would make a competent programmer, and I did really well on that test, so I ended up being a programmer/systems analyst for about 5 or 6 years.
CH: Were you happy in your career?
PB: Loved it; absolutely loved it.
CH: Since you were very satisfied with your career, what event or events made you take an interest in ministry?
PB: On Easter Sunday, when I was about 24 or 25 years old, my grandparents, who I had mentioned earlier, asked me to take them to an Easter sunrise service at Arlington Cemetery. That was the last thing I wanted to do until my grandfather mentioned that if I took them, he would take me to the champagne brunch that followed. So I agreed to do it. To make a long story short, as I stood outside with contempt, and waiting for the champagne brunch, and we're listening to the service over speakers, I heard myself listening to this preacher who was absolutely horrible. I mean just the worst sermon I had ever heard in my life, and I said to myself, "Even I, who haven't been in a church forever could do a better job than that," and I tell people, "Do not ever tell God that, do not ever say that out loud, do not ever think it," because that thought stuck with me and became kind of a nagging in the back of my mind and in my soul for about a year and a half.
CH: So you started going to church after that experience on Easter Sunday?
PB: After about a year, I couldn't take it any more. I had lost about 40 or 50 pounds. I couldn't sleep at night because it just kept haunting me, and I went and joined a church. I figured that was going to be enough, and it wasn't. I started running the youth group as a volunteer, figuring that would satisfy God, and it didn't. Finally, I went and talked to the pastor of the church. I really didn't like him all that much. I thought he was a goody-two-shoes and he wouldn't understand a person like me. I told him what had happened, and I figured he would run out of the room screaming or fall down laughing when I told him that I thought I was supposed to be a pastor. But he gave me the best advice of my life, which was if you think that's what you're being called to do, than you have to focus all your energy into doing that -- all your life and your focus. That's what I did. I went back to college, and the rest is history, as they say.
CH: Was it the conversation with your pastor that made you realize that this was not some fantasy on your part, but an actual calling from God?
PB: Yes. That was the pivotal point. When he didn't look at me and say you're nuts, or you are deluding yourself, or something like that. Instead he gave me some very specific instructions, like go home and change everything so that you can go to school again. I had to go back to college, and then of course, to graduate school.
CH: How old were you when this happened?
PB: About 25.
CH: And you were still single at this time?
PB: Yes.
CH: Of all the Christian churches from which to choose, why did you want to become a pastor in a Methodist church?
PB: Because it has an emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but at the same time, it combines the intellectual freedom and openness to different perspectives that I find essential to deal with my faith and the faith of other people. The old John Wesley phrase, "Let us unite those two so long it is to join knowledge and vital piety." It combines both -- a pietistic approach to an understanding of our relationship to God and Jesus Christ, and an acceptance that knowledge and education is not something to be feared, to drive you away from God, but as a way of enriching your understanding of God. I had been exposed to the Catholic Church as a child, and some of the girls I dated. I would go to church with them. I loved the liturgy of that, and I loved the ceremony and the focus. I still admire and respect the liturgy and some of the ideas of the Catholic Church, but it doesn't give me the intellectual, ethical, or moral freedom that I need, and think that God requires of me, to do my job. So, I didn't consider any other church.
CH: Were most people supportive of your decision to enter the ministry, or did some people try to discourage you?
PB: When I called my mother to tell her I was going into the pastorate, she said, "Oh, Bud, don't give up. You'll get married some day." She thought I meant the priesthood. Most people were encouraging, except two of the ones I really expected to be encouraging. One was my father. He simply could not understand why I would give up a job making as much money I was making to go back to school and become a pastor. It was only a few years before he died, he turned to me one Palm Sunday and said, "You know, Bud, I'm really proud of you." He really had a hard time with understanding why I would do that. He was a wonderful man, but very materially oriented. The other person was Dr. Latch, the preacher I told you about in the beginning. He at the time was the chaplain for the House of Representatives, and I went to him to tell him what I was going to do because I wanted, and needed, his affirmation. He said, "I don't think you should do it. I think it's a mistake." Years later, when I was in my first year of seminary, he invited me to dinner at his house, he and his wife, because they've known my family for years. I asked him, "When I came to you, I was looking for support. Why did you say not to do it?" And he said, "Because I figured if you went ahead and did it anyhow, it was really of God. That's why I said don't do it. I figured that if you bucked me, this was something that God had called you to do, not something you dreamed up."
CH: Where did you attend seminary?
PB: I went to Wesley Theological Seminary. It's a graduate school at American University.
CH: What was the seminary like when you attended?
PB: That's a good question. It was not what I expected; it was a very different experience than what I expected. There was even more diversity in the seminary than I had anticipated encountering. I don't know why, because the Methodist Church is so diverse, but it was even broader. I was really worried I wasn't going to fit in, because I expected a bunch of people who were holier than holy and very prayerful -- very serious -- you know, the way it is depicted in the movies in seminary -- very quiet. It was a place with all kinds of people with all kinds of opinions who argued with each other, ate dinner together, and did all kinds of things together. It was a great experience; much better experience than some of the others I heard of.
CH: What do you remember most about your experience at seminary?
PB: I think the thing I remember the most was taking a summer one year and studying Hebrew. I had never been very good at languages. My brain works in math, but not in languages. I took Hebrew because I knew it was going to be hard. I took it in the summer because I wanted to have the focus just on that, because I knew I would have trouble with it. But I ended up doing okay, thanks to the professor, who never let me give up. I felt for the first time as I read the scriptures in Hebrew that I began to understand not only the words, but the sense behind the words. When you study another language, you have to understand the culture. It was probably the best thing I did in seminary.
CH: Was there ever a time when you were in seminary that you thought that you made the wrong decision and you asked yourself, "What am I doing here?"
PB: There was one time; not that I made the wrong decision, but when I questioned whether I was in the right church or not. I had a series of problems dealing with the attitude that seminary had -- that everything had to be done in groups. I tend to be a bit of a loner and tend to value the time I have to myself in order to think and pray, and there didn't seem to be enough time to do that. You were always thrown into this group or that group for Bible study or for something else, and I thought, you know, maybe I really belong in a more esoteric theological environment and not so much the touchy feely. I'm a touchy feely person, but not when it comes to my faith. I tend to intellectualize it. And eventually it hit me that this was probably the best place for me to be, because they wouldn't let me do that. But yeah, there was a question at a time whether I wanted to continue.
CH: When did you graduate from seminary?
PB: 1977.
CH: Where was your first appointment?
PB: I was assigned to Piney Grove United Methodist Church at Bowley's Quarters.
CH: Where is it located?
PB: The eastern part of Baltimore County near the Martin Aircraft Company -- Bowley's Point; Middle River -- that area. I went there in June of 1977.
CH: What type of church was it?
PB: A small congregation of maybe 150 members. They had a lay pastor who had been there for 23 years and retired, so I followed someone who had been there for 23 years. I wasn't real sure how that was going to go, but it was a really great experience. It was mostly middle class, -- a lot of steel workers, a lot of laborers, a few crabbers and watermen; farmers, -- a real good mixture with a few professional people, a couple of doctors, a few others who were professionally trained, but wonderful people.
CH: What was your biggest surprise, or what was the biggest adjustment you had to make?
PB: Although I had been in business, and been on my own for a while, I think the biggest adjustment I had to make was to realize how much people hurt, and how much more demanding the job is than I thought it would be. I knew it was going to be a demanding job -- but emotionally demanding. They try to teach doctors and pastors not to become emotionally involved, but for a pastor it's almost impossible. If you are doing the job right, you can't do it right without becoming emotionally involved with your people. I think that's what surprised me -- how intensely emotional and draining the job can be.
CH: How long were you at Piney Grove?
PB: Four years.
CH: So you left there around 1980 or so?
PB: 1981.
CH: What is your most memorable moment while at Piney Grove?
PB: I remember, after so many years of preparing to be a pastor, getting up one morning and saying to myself, "Man, I really love this. This is great." I couldn't wait to get up in the morning. Being younger than I am now, I could go from dawn to dusk, and I did. I loved to get in my car and drive around Bowley's Point and stop and visit that person and the other person. They'd feed me, and I would talk to them. It was just a wonderful experience, and I think that's what I remember more than anything else -- the people that were there.
CH: Where was your next church assignment?
PB: The next assignment was Rodger's Forge United Methodist Church near Towson
CH: Was there anything different about this church, or was it like Piney Grove
PB: Very different.
CH: How so?
PB: Well, Rodger's Forge Church was a formal Evangelical United Brethren Church that had moved out from the city to the Towson area in about 1960 or 1957 -- somewhere in that area. They had moved an entire congregation of Evangelical United Brethren. They were very well to do, and they were growing. They were a fairly good size and had built a new church out there. The first Sunday I was there, we had 13 people in the pews under the age of 70, and the rest of the congregation of about 50 was 70 and much older. So, I went from a very young working class congregation to a very elderly congregation, and a congregation that had been hurt very badly by a former pastor who had gotten them involved in a lawsuit. So it was a very different experience and very intense -- and very hard.
CH: How long were you at this church?
PB: Six years.
CH: Other than the lawsuit, is there one event you remember most?
PB: Well, the lawsuit took about a year to resolve. That was being handled as I got there. That was pretty much done. Actually, the thing I remember most was when I first went there, we had maybe 70 people there, which was a large crowd for Rodger's Forge at that time. And I had told them that the first time they had 200 people there, I would sing a solo. There was a couple named Rick and Sandy Jenks, who came in and kind of began the trend of bringing in other people. It took a lot of years to get to that point. Well, Easter Sunday, about three years later, in 1984, we had 200 people, and I had to sing a solo. It was a great experience because, to be candid, when I told them that, I figured there was no possibility, knowing this congregation, that would ever happen. But God had a different plan. It almost gives me goose bumps to think about it.
CH: What song did you sing?
PB: I can't remember the name of it. I can't even remember how it sounds. So don't ask me to sing it. Carolyn can tell you.
CH: Now you just mentioned your wife, Carolyn. Were you married at this point?
PB: Yes. That's why we left Piney Grove. Carolyn and I got married. Carolyn was a member of Piney Grove.
CH: When did you get married?
PB: 1981. It was kind of hard for her to make the transition from parishioner to pastor's wife. She had grown up in that church, and she had just graduated from college, so the Bishop moved us so she wouldn't have to go through that.
CH: When did you leave Rodger's Forge United Methodist Church?
PB: In 1987.
CH: This now brings us to St. Paul's and Gaither churches. You arrived here in 1987. What were your impressions of St. Paul's and Gaither when you arrived?
PB: I'll tell you what I told the D.S. (District Superintendent) when they appointed me here. It was as it is now, two churches. I said, "I'll go because that's where you want me to go, but I'm going to warn you, I'm sure one of the churches at the end of a few months will want to lynch me from the steeple, and the other one will love me," because I wasn't sure I could divide my loyalties like that. But what I found was two really unbelievably welcoming and warm people. To give you an example, when Carolyn and I went to Rodger's Forge and the day we moved into the parsonage, only one person stopped by to greet us, and that was the paid organist, who was a former Lutheran pastor. No one from the church came by to greet us at all -- ever; never even came to the parsonage without my specifically asking them to come. When we moved here, we had so many people come to the house with so much food, we couldn't get it all in the refrigerator. I was overwhelmed by the friendliness of the people when we came here.
CH: How many people were attending church services when you arrived?
PB: About 75 to 85; somewhere in that range, and at Gaither, maybe 12
CH: What did you view as your biggest challenge upon arriving? You mentioned the concern over dividing loyalties. What else did you view as a big concern?
PB: The thing that went through my mind after just a few weeks here was that both churches needed to find the direction where God was leading them, and to search that out. They needed some healing. Their pastor, Keith and [his wife] Charlotte Day, had been killed in an automobile accident in December of 1986. The churches had interim pastors since then. One of them was Paul Jones, a retired pastor who did a wonderful job of healing people. So there was a lot of that to do -- healing people again to get them past some of the issues and trials that had been here before. We had a lawsuit here, too, and one of the tasks I had was to resolve that lawsuit as quickly as possible so that we could move emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually beyond that lawsuit involving the parsonage. In about a year and a half we resolved that lawsuit.
CH: When you look at St. Paul's when you first got here and you look at the church now, what are the biggest changes you've seen?
PB: In what way?
CH: Well, obviously the church has grown in size. Has there been any other type of change?
PB: Yeah. The biggest change that I see is that because it has grown in size, and the way it has grown, we have a lot of people for whom St. Paul's and Gaither is their first real church experience -- where they're really part of a church family. A lot of people are marginally Lutheran, or marginally Catholic, or marginally something else. We have people who are really trying to link up with the central values of Christianity, and there is a huge gap of knowledge that needs to be bridged. I think that's the biggest change I see. When I first came here, we had a whole group of mainline United Methodists who had been at either church forever or their families had. As a matter of fact, we still have families that are generations of members of St. Paul's or Gaither; not just one or two, but four or five generations. When you had a meeting, you didn't have to explain how the Methodist Church worked when you needed to make a decision. Now, because of all the various backgrounds that come here, a lot of times the process isn't understood of how we make decisions as United Methodists. Some of the things we do in worship are foreign to people. If they come from a Baptist background, they may not be comfortable with some of the liturgy. If they come from a more formal structured background, they might be a little uncomfortable with the style of the preaching Chris (Guyer) and I do, or the laughing in church. We have a much broader and diverse congregation, and trying to educate everybody, not only scripturally, but also theologically and under the polity of the church has been very difficult.
CH: Let's talk about some of the difficult times at St. Paul's. What sticks out in my mind is when we were renovating the church in 1995, and we had to move into Sykesville Middle School. Looking back on it, can you tell me the feelings you had as the old church was demolished, your concerns about finding a place to worship, and what you thought would happen to the church after we moved.
PB: Well, I remember when the decision was made that we would do this and we would have to move. The first thing that went through my mind was, "How do we hold this congregation together over a period of a year," because we expected it would take a year or more to tear down this building and rebuild it, which is essentially what we did. So I prayed about that a lot -- how do we keep the congregation together? Of course, God already had a plan, so I didn't have to do too much. We had people in place who really wanted to see this work and put a lot of effort in it; and God kind of led people to do what needed to be done. So, the planning for the transition, after we decided where we would meet, was not nearly as difficult as standing outside the day they tore this building down. I remember Chris had just started with us in January of that year, and our offices had been moved to the old tin building, and I walked outside and looked up, and, except for the stair tower, everything was gone. I looked at Chris and said, "Gee, I hope we haven't made a mistake." And Chris said, "It will be all right." And it has been all right, but it was very scary to lead a congregation into basically destroying a building that had meant so much to all of them without the immediacy of something to replace it. I was really frightened how some of the older members might react to the new building, and whether they would react so negatively to the new building that we would lose them, or we would challenge them in some way where they were really unhappy. So that concerned me all during the building process.
CH: What was the last service like in the old building before the construction project started?
PB: The service was extremely emotional, especially for the older members and the people who had been here a long time. And it was hard for me because if you do this job right as a pastor, you always take the blame and you never take the credit. If this went wrong, the only person to blame was me, not anyone else, even though it was a decision made by the Council and the Charge Conference, and the Conference itself, and everybody else. Ultimately, in my mind, and I think in any pastor's mind, the responsibility is yours; you're the leader. If I had said, "No. You're not going to do this," it probably would not have happened under my watch. They would have gotten rid of me and gotten somebody else, because they needed to do it. But it was happening under my watch, and I wanted to make sure everything went right. You see, I have been assigned to churches where building projects had gone wrong. Piney Grove had a lawsuit, too, and I didn't mention that when I was sent there to straighten that out. So, every church I've been assigned to has been involved in a lawsuit, and I didn't want this church to end up in that place under my watch, so I put a lot of pressure on myself, too. It was frightening.
CH: What was the first service like at the Sykesville Middle School?
PB: Hot!
CH: Saturday night, the night prior to the first service, what is going through your mind?
PB: "I wonder if anybody is going to show up" is what was going through my mind. Candidly, I wondered if anyone was going to show up at all and whether financially we would make it through the summer time, because all the bills don't stop. The salaries still have to be paid; everything has to be paid. And I was really concerned that people would just stop coming until we got the new building built, and if they did that, we would be in deep trouble. So I'm thinking, "Gee, nobody's going to show up. It's going to be me and Chris and that's it. They're going to forget to set up the chairs. After two weeks of this, they're going to say the heck with it -- we're not doing this anymore." Well, none of that happened. I've got to learn to trust God a lot more, because none of that happened. Attendance did drop, but not nearly what we had been told it would from the church growth experts. That whole year, when you combine everything together, I think attendance dropped less than two percent, which is remarkable.
CH: What are some of your fondest memories of St. Paul's and Gaither churches?
PB: One of them is very personal, and that's when my daughter was born. And the other is just before she was born.
CH: What year did that happen?
PB: In 1992. Of course, I was 45 when she was born. And just before she was born, they threw a baby shower for me, and people from both churches came and just overwhelmed us with presents and gifts. No child could possibly use everything this child got. The second memory I have along that same line is the day of her baptism. We had a baptism in the afternoon so both congregations could come. And the choir sang, and Don Coburn from St. Paul's and Janet Boyd from Gaither did a duet. And our best friends were here, Rich and Sandy Jenks. He's a pastor in Florida now, and they were her godparents. And Doctor Posey, who was our District Superintendent, preached a sermon. Everybody showed up. We had a lot of people here for that, and it was really one of the most personally gratifying things that happened since I've been here. Now, if you're looking for things professionally, there's the completion of this building, the completion of the Sunday school building, watching the church grow, Chris being appointed here, and having three assistants -- Linda Paterson, Ken Haus, and Chris Guyer -- come in and watch them grow, develop, and go out and be good, competent pastors on their own. Chris really didn't need me to learn much of anything. He was pretty capable when he got here. But providing a place for these young people to become Christian pastors has been one of the most rewarding things.
CH: Did you think you would be at the Sykesville Parish this long? How long did you think this appointment would last?
PB: I thought if I was lucky, 5 or 6 years. There was part of me that was convinced that once the lawsuit was resolved, I would be moved. But when that didn't happen, I figured 5 or 6 years at the most. No way did I anticipate being here as long as I have.
CH: What do you think has been the success of St. Paul's and Gaither churches? By success I mean its growth.
PB: Two things. One, the friendliness and openness of the people in the way they represent their faith to others in the community and welcome people who are exploring. A lot of churches will not welcome a person who isn't fully convicted with Jesus Christ in their heart. Our congregation welcomes people to explore and travel with us, and find their faith and develop their faith, and I think that's one of the strengths of both congregations. And the other, candidly, is the same thing as in any business -- location, location, location. Because we are not a charismatically leader-oriented church, the Methodist Church doesn't have, as some churches do, charismatic preachers to develop churches. The only way a Methodist Church grows is being an open, welcoming, Christ-centered church, and being in a community where there are people.
CH: What direction would you like to see St. Paul's and Gaither churches go in the future?
PB: Well, I'll answer that with the understanding that what I want is not necessarily what the congregation wants, or should do, and what God wants. But my vision now for both of the churches is to continue to grow and welcome people, but also to begin to focus on outreach and ministry to the community, to the nation, and to the world. Both churches are exceedingly blessed with resources. Not only just people, but money and facilities and everything else. And my feeling is that it's time for us now to come together once more and envision where God is leading us. God has given us a tremendous base with which to work both in people and in facility, and how do we use what God has given us to witness for Christ in an even larger way than we have. It's important to do the inward journey, to be prepared to get your feet together on the ground and decide what you need at home. But then you need to take that, in my opinion, and use it in a broader vision once you have it.
CH: You mentioned the surrounding community earlier. What is your biggest concern about the Sykesville community? What troubles you when you look at the surrounding area?
PB: Too homogenous. There is not enough diversity, not enough racial diversity or economic diversity. We're really lucky people. We're blessed beyond measure. We're not the wealthiest community in the area, but we're not too far away either. It seems to me that we live in enclaves; white folk here, Asian folk over here, black folk over here, and we even do it in our churches. We got St. Luke's (United Methodist Church) down the road just across the street here, and there is also White Rock (United Methodist Church). There's very little contact even within denominations between the various cultures and ethnicities that are here. There aren't that many different ethnicities here. Basically, Carroll County and Howard County are white, upper to middle class folk. That's my concern for the area - that we can become very narrow and very "us and them oriented," and we need to find a way to break that.
CH: Let's talk about you again. What is your favorite book in the Bible and why?
PB: Amos. I love the Old Testament. Number one, Amos really lays it on the line. As a prophet, Amos chastises Israel, and hence all people of faith that have misunderstood being chosen as being privileged -- that God loves them best. He says, "Are you not like the Ethiopians to me." All of these other people are God's children as well, and he just lays them out and says, "You're not chosen because you're more loved by God. You're chosen as an obligation to serve God." That's what you do to be a light to other nations. It's not that you're going to get better treatment or anything else, but that you must understand that you're here to represent the faith and the one God. That's your responsibility. It's a calling to serve, not a calling to privilege.
CH: Is there a particular verse in the Bible that is your favorite?
PB: Oh my, there are so many. There's not one that rattles in my brain, but the one I just cited from Amos, where he talks about God's love and devotion for all people. He challenges Israel and says you're no different than the Ethiopians or the Kurds or anyone else. But I guess if I have to say my favorite passage I believe is in Malachi; it might be Micah. "What does the Lord require of you but to seek justice, love, kindness, and walk humbly before God." If there is one passage that is kind of my call, that is it.
CH: What is you favorite hymn and why?
PB: "To God Be the Glory." The reason why is when Jean Smith Turner, who was the person who helped us raise the money for the renovation for this building, picked that hymn to celebrate the night we made our goal, and I had never heard the hymn before, I said, "Let's pick something else." She said, "No. This is the hymn." That hymn for me reminds me that nothing we do is because of us. That when we're finished with something, when we accomplish something, it wasn't because we accomplished it, but it's to God's glory; that God did it through us.
CH: What is your favorite part of ministry?
PB: People. I love dealing with people. Counseling and visiting; that's what I really enjoy
CH: When given the opportunity to relax, if you're able to, what do you like to do?
PB: Computers. That used to be my profession, but now it's become my hobby. I like to spend time with my daughter and my wife. I really like to do that by going away. We love to go to the mountains, somewhere where there are no people, where it's just us and we can focus on each other as a family. You know, go explore the caves, or go up to Skyline Drive, or some place where we can just get away and be Bud, Carolyn, and Lorilyn.
CH: Who have been the most influential people in your life?
PB: My parents. I guess a person whom I've never met, but who influenced me greatly, was a guy named John Cobb, who was a processed theologian, who wrote A Natural Christian Theology - probably the one book other than the Bible and the one person other than Christ who shaped me more than anything else.
CH: Now that you've been a pastor for many years, would you say that most people who knew you from your childhood, high school, and college would be surprised by how long you lasted as a minister, or would it be something they would have expected?
PB: They would be astounded and shocked that I even went into it. Most of the people I grew up with would be absolutely aghast that someone like me would end up as a pastor.
CH: How would you characterize the life of a pastor?
PB: As a privilege. You become part of people's families who were strangers ten minutes ago. You are welcomed into the most intimate, distressing, and joyful moments of a person's life; when their baby is born, when their child dies, when their father dies, when their kid graduates from high school, when their baby is baptized. As a pastor, you are privileged to be a part of people's lives in a way that no one else can be. You are not really a family member, but in some ways you are more than that and you represent Christ to some people; they can't get by that. That's something you have to keep in mind all the time. If you represent yourself as a pastor, you have a responsibility to remember that for some people you are the church, you are religion, you are faith, and you have to make it clear to them that you're not. But you have to do it in a way that doesn't destroy them at the same time.
CH: When you look back at who you were when you first became a pastor, and you compare it to the type of pastor you are today, what would you say is the biggest difference?
PB: Oh, that's easy. I learned that it's not all up to me. When I first went into the pastorate, I figured that success or failure of the church was my responsibility. And I've learned that's not true. I can contribute to the tone and tenor of a ministry that a church provides, but I'm not in control -- God's in control. God's going to do whatever God wants to do with that congregation. That's been very freeing, but that's only happened within the past 10 years or so.
CH: Here's the biggest question of the interview. How would you like to be remembered by the people of St. Paul's and Gaither?
PB: As a man of faith, who loved them the best he knew how to do, and served them the only way he knew how to do. That's how I would like to be remembered.