
DATE: Sunday, August 3, 1997                TAG: 9708020110

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS     PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Cover Story 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 
                                            LENGTH:  151 lines

40-YEAR MINISTRY, A FAMILY CALLING

FORTY YEARS AGO, a newcomer showed up in Portsmouth, pitched a tent in Cradock and preached his first sermon to eight people, including his own family.

Then he reached out to a few more.

Today, Dr. U.G. Robertson would need a much bigger tent.

During a special service tonight the 71-year-old pastor passes on the leadership of the 1,350-member Central Baptist Church to a new generation - his son.

The Rev. Timothy P. Robertson will be the new minister and the senior Robertson becomes pastor emeritus of the church he founded in 1957.

The service is the finale to the celebration of four decades that saw the independent Baptist church build a school, several bus routes and a deaf ministry.

The church is located on six and a half acres, the 1200 block of Hodges Ferry Road, but claims members from several cities.

Boundaries were never big with Robertson and his congregation.

That's why the church put ``central'' in its name.

That's why they run buses through several neighborhoods making sure children, the elderly and anyone else interested in hopping on can make it to services.

And that's how they ended up supporting about 115 missionaries in 40 mission fields around the world.

``I often said I could travel around the world and always have someone meet me at the airport,'' said Robertson.

The senior Robertson has visited his share of those missionaries, preaching in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, Hawaii and Spain.

``We give in excess of $120,000 every year,'' Tim Robertson said. ``A lot of churches won't do that in their lifetime.''

Several members of the church have been called to mission work and Central Baptist regularly brings mission-bound college students into church jobs that give them on-the-job training they need.

But all that reaching out started in 1952 in Charleston, W.Va., when Robertson received his call during a church service.

His pastor was actually talking to high school seniors that day, challenging them to give their life to Christian service.

But Robertson was no teenager.

He was a 27-year-old World War II veteran who had a family and his own business.

``I always said my wife had more faith than I did.''

They stored their furniture, left the sale of the business to relatives and moved to Springfield, Mo., so Robertson could attend Baptist Bible College.

The fundamental Baptist college was fairly new then and there was an emphasis on starting new churches, Robertson said.

After two years as a pastor of a church in Arkansas, Robertson headed for Virginia. After his new church met under a tent for a couple of weeks, the church rented a storefront next to a tavern on George Washington Highway.

A year later they purchased the old Congregational Christian Church in Prentis Park. Within three years they had close to 350 members.

Members worked at it, knocking on doors and reaching out to people all over the city, Robertson said. ``We've always promised, if you visit us on Sunday, we visit you on Monday.''

In 1965, they began building on Hodges Ferry Road.

And building. And building.

Robertson has never had a desire or calling to go anywhere else, he said.

``I don't think you can build a good strong church by changing every so often,'' he said. ``I think you have to get settled down in an area where people know you and your character speaks for itself.''

While Robertson is retiring from his role as pastor of Central Baptist, he isn't stepping away from his ministry.

He will be visiting churches on the East Coast as a representative for the Atlantic Baptist College and the Atlantic Educational Foundation, which provides scholarships for young people interested in Christian service.

``Really we consider you never retire from the ministry,'' he said.

``There's a lot of administrative work in building and maintaining a church and a lot of details and that's what I'm getting out from under.''

And that's the work that the church has called his son to now.

``This past year I had bypass surgery and they saw his capability because he had to step in and take charge of everything,'' Robertson said.

Rev. Timothy Robertson, a 39-year-old father of two, graduated from Manor High School in 1976 and then graduated from the same college that got his father started.

The younger Robertson decided as a teenager during a summer youth camp that he would be involved in church work.

He took a break from school after earning his bachelor's degree and worked at Central Baptist for four years, coaching and teaching in the school and heading the church's Sunday School ministry.

Then he went to Tennessee Temple Seminary in Chattanooga. The church called him to be co-pastor three years ago.

``I've always known I was going to be in church work some place,'' he said.

But he didn't know it would be the church that watched him grow up.

``I never took it for granted this would happen,'' he said. ``We always said if this is what God wants this for us it will happen naturally.''

Tim Robertson takes a lot of his father's lessons into his new role as church leader. Most of his father's advice revolves around placing faith in God's timing and protection of his church, he said.

But he also credits his father with just plain commonsense wisdom.

``I know one time he told me that there's some times in your life that you have to tie a knot and hang on.''

Like his father, Tim Robertson's vision for the future of the church is about reaching out to people.

``One of my goals is for us to make contact with 25,000 people a year, either by phone, mail or personal contact.''

The church has had a bus ministry for years now, but has had to cut back on the number of buses because of the cost of maintaining them.

``But the idea is that children are out here who have never been able to come to Sunday School if it had not been for these buses,'' he said.

He credits the bus ministry with helping to break down the church's racial barriers in the 1960s. Several black children attended the church and one little girl wanted to join and be baptized, he said.

``That was a big issue back then,'' he remembered.

He remembers his father's message to members.

``He told the church at the time how could we not accept what God loves and. . . how can we reject what Jesus died for.

``Since then God's blessed us. We have many black members, members that are deacon's officers and Sunday School teachers.''

And Tim Robertson still runs into adults who tell him they remember climbing aboard the red and white bus as children.

Now the church serves five bus routes through several neighborhoods from Cradock to Western Branch.

Just recently they brought in more than 142 people that way, including 40 adults who were visiting the church for the first time. Every child that came with a parent received a church T-shirt and a Bible.

They gave out 75 Bibles that day.

``I had one teenager tell me after she got her Bible, `you know this is the first Bible that is totally mine. I don't have to share it with anybody.'

``That is strange here in America.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]

Robertson & Son

Staff photo/Mark Mitchell

Staff photo (right) MARK MITCHELL

Above, shows Robertson with his family in 1968, including Tim, then

11. Other family members (current names), l to r, are Vicki

Williams; Betty Jo Robertson wife; Krista Ryan; and Dana Callaghan.

At right, father and son today.

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