Church in transition

During the 1980s, many people who had been diagnosed with HIV fled to Hawaii from the mainland United States. Many of these patients ended up at The Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu. Cary Speaker was hired as the hospital’s first chaplain in 1981, and he found himself making many phone calls to families to tell them the whereabouts of their relatives.

Speaker is most certainly a man of firsts, as he was the first pastor to retire from Mountain Brook Presbyterian Church in their 150-year history. He served as pastor for 12 and a half years, longer than any other pastor at the church.

Now the church has found itself in a time of transition. Presbyterian churches use the period between pastors as an opportunity to reevaluate the goals and values of the congregation. As a result, finding a new pastor can take well over a year.

After surveying the congregation, the MBPC transition team has determined that they are looking for a pastor who is younger and can appeal to the people who feel that they are too busy for church.

“I think Carey did a great job,” said Margaret Nichols, chair of the transition team. “I just think that he retired, and we’ve never done that before. I think it’s time for us to move on and look for somebody younger.”

Nichols said she feels as though the church is invisible to the community surrounding it because of a lack of marketing. They are viewed as “a bunch of old kooks with gray hair,” she said.

“But I don’t have gray hair,” Nichols said. “Mine’s colored.”

The hope, according to Nichols, is that a new, younger pastor will bring in the younger community that is already nearby.

“You’ll have a bazillion people down in [the church] parking lot that teach their kids ride tricycles, bicycles and teach them how to drive their cars, but they don’t come inside,” Nichols said. “They live right there, but they don’t come inside. And we’re not different from anyone else.”

In the meantime, the church has appointed a transition pastor, Lydia Casey, to fulfill Speaker’s former duties until a new pastor is found. While she preaches on Sundays, her role also entails working the congregation through any grief they may be experiencing with the previous pastor leaving, helping the church evaluate its identity, establishing new goals for the church and determining what qualities they need in the new pastor, according to Casey.

Casey has been a transitional pastor twice before and is contracted as MBPC’s transitional pastor for one year. If the church does not find a new pastor by then, her contract will be extended.

“I am really hopeful for next year to come,” Casey said. “I think Cary did a wonderful job in his time here, and he has a lot of great partnerships with this congregation and helped them have a sense of identity. I think they have a really positive direction. They’re not working through any kinds of major conflict like some other churches might. So I think they are really future-oriented at this point, which is really exciting.”

For more information on MBPC, visit mbpcusa.org.