(Photos courtesy West Side Presbyterian Church)

West Side Presbyterian Church is announcing the retirement of its senior pastor – who will be preaching just a few more Sundays – and inviting the community to a celebration:

June 12th will mark the end of 45 years of service and vocational ministry for Dr. Paul R. Smith of West Seattle. He has been the senior pastor at West Side Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) since 1981, when he moved with his family from Pennsylvania to Seattle.

In the 35 years since arriving in the NW, he has served as the senior pastor of West Side Presbyterian Church. A recent tally showed he had officiated 180 wedding ceremonies, led 256 memorial services, and baptized more than 430 children and adults. He has also been active in renewal ministries with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and has served the church both locally and nationally in promoting and equipping churches for evangelism. 

Born November 25, 1945, Paul is the son of a banker and one of six children. He grew up in a small ranching town in Western South Dakota near Badlands National Park. He graduated with honors from Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL, before marrying his wife, Carreen Armerding and earning an MDiv from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston, MA,

For the first ten years of his ministry, Dr. Smith served as Assistant Pastor and then Senior Pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in McKeesport, PA.

He completed his Doctorate of Ministry from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School shortly after arriving in Seattle. And in the years since, he’s written four books: Jesus, Meet him again for the First Time; Close Encounters: Knowing the Savior; Enjoying God Forever; God’s Plan for our Good. He has also traveled extensively throughout Israel and Jordan and has co-led a half-dozen tours, in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Greece.

Paul and his wife, Carreen are the parents of four children: Lucian, Taleigh, Lindsay, and Miriam, and grandparents of seven.

Following retirement, and a long-awaited trip to Africa, the Smiths will return to Seattle, where Paul plans to continue his writing and looks forward to spending more time with his family and grandchildren.
 
A retirement celebration for Dr. Paul Smith will be held:

June 12, Open House 1:00-4:00
(Special program begins at 2:00)
West Side Presbyterian Church
3601 California Avenue SW


The public is welcome.

More information about the celebration is on the WSPC website.

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

So far this election year, you probably haven’t heard much about anything beyond the top of the ticket – where our country will be electing a new president.

But many other key, if not necessarily glamorous, offices will be on the ticket too, and that’s what dominated last night’s endorsement meeting for our area’s largest political group, the 34th District Democrats.

Some of the candidates were there to make their pitches, starting with Lieutenant Governor:

That’s State Sen. Cyrus Habib, who won the 34th Dems’ endorsement on a second ballot, after getting 57 percent on the first ballot, with the rest split between Sen. Karen Fraser and Rep. Jim Moeller. The group’s rules require 60 percent for an endorsement. Sen. Fraser spoke first, describing herself as a “loyal trouper Democrat.” Sen. Habib then spoke, saying he thinks the Lieutenant Governor should be “more than fair and responsible … should be a force for progressive change.” He also said he hopes to be the first Middle Eastern-American anywhere in the country elected to state office. He received 62 percent on the second ballot. Rep. Moeller was not present.

STATE AUDITOR: This race also went to a second ballot.

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For the second consecutive evening, a lighting ceremony in The Junction. Tonight, it was in celebration of the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, as Rabbi Zari Weiss and members from West Seattle synagogue Kol HaNeshamah sang songs and blessings and lit the menorah’s first candle.

Passers-by were invited to join the festivities, with song sheets handed out:

Hanukkah traditions were on display too – the spinning tops called dreidels, and gelt, gold-foil-wrapped chocolate coins:

Kol HaNeshamah has even-bigger Hanukkah celebrations coming up at their place of worship, which is co-housed with Alki UCC at 6115 SW Hinds – candlelighting on Tuesday and a party on Saturday (more info on the KHN website), followed by an event you might already have seen in our West Seattle Holiday Guide – a “FRED Talk” at 8 pm with storyteller Merna Hecht.

After the early rush of about 300 people, turkeys and bags of groceries are still available, with no line, outside Eastridge Church as its pre-Thanksgiving giveaway continues at 39th SW & SW Oregon. This year, warm clothing is being offered too:

The church does this every year at both of its campuses (the other one is in Issaquah), 13th year in all. We also found Girl Scout Troop 42553 volunteering:

No proof of need is required at the Eastridge event, which is happening this morning only, while supplies last.

From St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church‘s new priest-in-charge Rev. Michael Carroccino:

One week later, Prayers for Mother Emanuel

Saint John the Baptist Episcopal Church invites you to join them for Evening Prayer and Communion this Wednesday night as they remember in prayer the victims of the shootings in Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, and their families. Offerings will be designated for the Lowcountry Ministries – Evelyn Pinckney Fund. 6:30 PM Wednesday, June 24, at Saint John the Baptist Episcopal Church, 3050 California Ave SW.

Thanks to the Holy Rosary parishioner who forwarded us the announcement made by the Archdiocese: A new pastor has been chosen to succeed Father John Madigan, who is departing after a decade. Father Matthew Oakland will come to Holy Rosary from St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Camas and Our Lady Star of the Sea Mission in Stevenson, both east of Vancouver, Washington. He is scheduled to start here on July 1st (here’s how he told his parishioners of his departure). Holy Rosary plans a farewell party for Father Madigan in its school gym on Sunday, June 28th, starting after 10:30 am Mass and continuing until 3:30 pm.

We’re welcoming First Lutheran Church of West Seattle as a new WSB sponsor. Here’s what they would like you to know about who they are and what they do:

We are a Lutheran church that has been on the corner of California Ave. SW & SW Dakota St. for close to a hundred years – established in 1918. We don’t go in for gimmicks or the newly popular ways of modern Christianity. Our church is a historical Lutheran congregation which holds to the glorious Christian heritage that has been handed down through the centuries in our worship, theology, and rich tradition in church music.

We are also big champions of our community. We regularly give food and money to the West Seattle Food Bank. Our pastor has been on the board since 1996. He has recently written a history of the food bank for its 30th anniversary. We also are a big supporter of the West Seattle Helpline – which our congregation helped establish back in 1989. Each December we host the St. Nicholas Faire, which raises money for both the West Seattle Food Bank and Helpline. Helping our neighbors in need means a lot to us.

We are also a house of studies – working on the Biblical message every week in classes; reading regularly from Martin Luther’s vast body of writings from the sixteenth century; studying the Qur’an of Islam in order to better understand our geo-political situation; and taking up other discussions involving contemporary social issues.

At the center of our life together is worship on Sundays. This is our time to praise God for the gift of his Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in the Holy Bible and preserved in the liturgies of the historical Christian Church. Everyone is always welcome to join us and we look forward to seeing you and getting acquainted. If you have any questions, check out our website or give us a call – 206-935-6530.

We thank First Lutheran Church of West Seattle for sponsoring independent, community-collaborative neighborhood news via WSB; find our current sponsor team listed in directory format here, and find info on joining the team by going here.

Admiral Congregational Church is formally introducing its new pastor, who is already leading worship services there, though his ordination is set for just after New Year’s and his formal installation in the spring. Here’s the announcement the church is sharing with the community:

The oldest church in West Seattle has recently called Andrew Conley-Holcom as its new pastor. Admiral Congregational United Church of Christ, located in North Admiral, was founded in 1899 as the West Seattle Congregational Church. Pastor Andrew, in his early thirties and a recent graduate of Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA, is the youngest pastor that Admiral has ever called.

The congregation voted to accept its Search Committee’s unanimous recommendation to call Andrew in mid-October, and he has been leading worship services since October 19th. He will be ordained on January 3, 2015 at his home church, First Congregational Church of Bellingham, and will be formally installed as Admiral’s pastor in the spring.

Andrew and his wife, Leann (church-provided photo, above right), are originally from the Tacoma area and currently reside in the Ravenna neighborhood. Leann is active as a professional singer, directs the Concert Choir of the Tacoma Youth Chorus, and is a doctoral candidate in choral conducting at the University of Washington.

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For the first time since the latest round of controversy started roiling Mars Hill Church, its West Seattle site‘s future is in question. Today Mars Hill leadership announced online that it’s disbanding and that individual remaining churches will be able to either go independent, or will be sold:

…the board of Mars Hill has concluded that rather than remaining a centralized multi-site church with video-led teaching distributed to multiple locations, the best future for each of our existing local churches is for them to become autonomous self-governed entities. This means that each of our locations has an opportunity to become a new church, rooted in the best of what Mars Hill has been in the past, and independently led and run by its own local elder teams. …

The West Seattle Mars Hill building at 35th/Ida in Gatewood was previously Doxa Church, whose members joined forces with Mars Hill in 2006. That’s when Mars Hill bought the church for $180,000, according to county records, which show its appraised value at almost $3 million. Today’s announcement says, “All of Mars Hill’s existing church properties will either be sold, or the loans on the individual properties will be assumed by the independent churches, subject to approval by the lender …”

The online message about Mars Hill’s future is signed by Pastor Dave Bruskas, who has spoken for the church since its founder and Senior Pastor Mark Driscoll resigned earlier this month. He writes that Mars Hill is on a fast timeline for the reorganization plan – to be complete by the first of the year.

ADDED 8:50 PM: One more note on the Mars Hill purchase of the West Seattle church in 2006: As noted in the comment discussion below, we have found one more document, indicating that the purchase price was the “underlying debt” that remained on the property, while the equity beyond that was “a gift” from the seller. Even back in 2006, the county valued the property at almost $1.8 million.

Back in 2009, we reported on Lettuce Pray – local faith communities collecting food donations, particularly fresh-grown produce, for local food banks. It’s been going strong ever since, and just wrapped up another season. Jane Taylor shares this update:

I wanted to pass along the success of this summer’s Lettuce Pray collection. Kristen Parsons and I were unable to carry on these weekly collections of food from the churches, so Becky Boberg from WestSide Universalist Unitarian Church took it over for us.

As you can see, she collected about 1500 pounds of food, of which 1150 were fresh produce, grown by West Seattleites and taken to church on Sunday, where Becky picked it all up and deposited it directly into cold storage at the West Seattle and White Center Food Banks.Besides OLG and WWUU, participating churches included Alki UCC, St. John the Baptist Episcopal, Tibbetts United Methodist, Holy Rosary, and St. Bernadette’s.

In its six years, Lettuce Pray has collected over 5,000 pounds of fresh produce and an equal amount of canned goods and non perishables. Our thanks to the generous souls (and gardeners) of West Seattle – and to Becky Boberg! We’ll be back next summer!

Jane also forwarded the photos – noting that’s Becky’s hand, holding those beautiful tomatoes!

A joyful moment for Rev. Peg Boyle Morgan and her Westside Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Gatewood before this morning’s service: Four years after they moved into the former Gatewood Baptist Church at California/Othello, they have installed a commemorative plaque in the church entryway – right next to the one the Baptists placed there 64 years ago:

WSUU had intended all along for the original plaque to stay; it was even mentioned in this WSB feature published shortly after they got the keys to the building in April 2010. Adding their own is also a nod to the WSUU past, present, and future, as the church celebrates its golden anniversary – 50 years – this year.

ADDED: Video of the dedication, above.