ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170092
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
Looking back over his 35 years as pastor of Williamson Road Church of the Brethren, Harold Moyer says he hopes he is remembered for leading a congregation in which all people are welcomed.
"In '61, the issue was black worshipers. We welcomed their visits, and I'm sorry none became our members. Now it's openly gay people."
Moyer, who just turned 67, left his pulpit at the end of September. A committee to find an interim pastor is at work. Moyer, who earned a doctor of ministry degree 20 years ago in addition to his basic divinity diploma from Bethany Theological Seminary, plans to remain in Roanoke. His wife, Hazel, is a licensed practical nurse in the rehabilitation center of Columbia Lewis-Gale Medical Center.
For the first few months after his departure - Moyer doesn't call it a retirement because he expects to continue to be active in some type of church leadership - he will catch up on long-deferred projects like cleaning up his office and evaluating his library. Next summer he and Hazel will attend the annual conference of the denomination in California, and they'll take their time going and coming. He has only missed one such meeting in his 42 years in ordained ministry.
In a day when pastorates usually last no more than a decade in one church, how and why has the native of the Waynesboro area remained for so long in a middle-size, middle-class congregation?
It was just a good fit, he says. He knows the character of his people and has grown with them through 31/2 decades.
He's been a good pastor, a caring man, says Robert Coffman, a retired American Electric Power Co. land acquisition employee, who came to Williamson Road Church six years before Moyer. On visits to the sick, at funerals and weddings, he has shown his warmth as a human being, Coffman said as he volunteered time to help start a new and innovative Church of the Brethren at Smith Mountain Lake.
That new church is being organized by the Rev. Judy Mills Reimer, who has said she owes a lot to Moyer's leadership as she moved in midlife from the business world to theological seminary and now to preaching at her own church.
Moyer in turn is proud of Reimer as a woman in church leadership. She is one of three members of Williamson Road Church who have served as national moderators of the denomination, perhaps a record for one congregation. The others were Edward K. Ziegler and Ira Peters. The moderator, elected for a year-long term at the Annual Conference of the denomination, presides over conventions and travels throughout the nation helping to interpret the church's role in current issues. Moyer himself has twice been nominated for national moderator, as have several others from the church.
Like Coffman, Betty Humbert, administrative assistant at the church for the past 30 years, will be sorry to see the pastor go.
"A lot of ministers are kind and like to work with people," Humbert observed, "but Harold knows how to delegate and get things done. He's let me do my job. I admire, too, the way he can relate to people of all types."
Moyer said he enjoyed getting out of the church atmosphere in the 14 years he was a volunteer chaplain for the Institute of Industrial and Commercial Ministries. That is an ecumenical agency that trains both lay and ordained people to regularly visit factories, public service centers and office buildings on invitation to listen to workers' personal problems.
There, he said, he encountered the kind of folk who often are not part of a church. Following the guidelines of ICM, he said he tried to present Christ as the working carpenter.
Though Sunday school enrollment has fallen over his 35 years, about 70 neighborhood children now participate in after-school activities and a Christian education program. The 19-year music leadership of Garnett Carroll has been important, the pastor said.
Many adults prefer a weeknight spiritual growth class also.
Years ago Moyer encouraged his people to allocate for outreach half of any money given to the church. He regrets that goal has not been reached, though about one-third to outreach is normal now. When a $950,000 church addition resulted in a big debt, it was paid off in only five years, he said, pointing out that getting the debt out of the way quickly freed members to donate more money to help the needy directly.
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Philip Holman. Harold Moyer left the pulpit atby CNBWilliamson Road Church of the Brethren at the end of September, but
he expects to continue to be active in some type of church
leadership for a little while longer.