Pastor Deborah Beloved Church, center, with her team on her last day at White Rock Presbyterian Church, from left, Joyce Haven, Rod McCabe, Jennifer Holmes, Church, Jean Callaghan, Bob Reinovsky and Selma Reinovsky. Courtesy photo
Pastor Nicole’ Raddu Ferry, right, of Bethlehem Lutheran Church with Pastor Deborah Beloved Church on her last day at White Rock Presbyterian Church. Courtesy photo
By BERNADETTE LAURITZEN
Los Alamos
Once a pastor, always a pastor. Way back in July, the Reverend Deborah Beloved Church announced her plan to retire from the White Rock Presbyterian Church. She had been there more than five years and in the local community for 25 years, and now was called to a new chapter in life.
During the month of September her final sermon took place and while she may have retired, she continues to embody many of the words used to define pastoral care, and her giving nature has already found her returning to the Navajo Nation to help repair a roof.
It is important to reflect on time well spent while also looking ahead, especially when someone so important to so many decides it is time to make a change. The final service included so many friends of faith, emotions and humor. What did it mean personally to Church?
“It was so special having family, old and new friends, community members, and some of our Navajo partners there alongside the WRPC folks that morning,” she said. “What an honor to worship God together with so many people who have meant so much to me throughout my time in the White Rock/Los Alamos community.”
Church was touched by the presence of Pastor Fred Thomas and his wife and ministry partner Lorraine. The pair had come up that morning from Bread Springs, NM, on the Navajo Nation, to be with Church and her conversation.
“WRPC and their church, the House of Fellowship, have had a partnership for close to 20 years, working and worshiping together; and my heart rejoiced when I looked up that morning and saw them there,” Church said.
She has said it was her profound honor to serve as the pastor of White Rock Presbyterian Church. She wants to thank the faithful people of WRPC for sticking with her and feels she came alongside them in their worship of God and service to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She spent her five years working to be faithful to that gospel and had many words to share as she leaves the community.
“Now and always, my prayer for them – and for all people – is that they, we all, might live more and more fully into our fundamental identity as Beloved, wholly known in all of our beautiful, terrible, messy, pure, wounded, and precious humanity, and yet relentlessly and fiercely and wholly loved – so that we might bear witness to that Holy Love in the world around us,” Church said. “Because that Love, I believe, can transform us; that Love, I believe, can transform the world. Amen, and amen.”
Since her retirement, Church has been spending time traveling and enjoying time with her friends on the Navajo Reservation.
Pastor Fred Thomas and Ministry partner and wife Lorraine traveled from Bread Springs, NM to bid a fond farewell to Pastor Deborah Beloved Church on her last day at White Rock Presbyterian Church. Courtesy photo
