ORANGE — The retiring Rev. Jeffrey Black has spent 43 years in congregational ministry and now looks forward to his third triathlon. And he says his son, Jerry, led him down both paths.
Black was a married father of two working toward a doctorate in literature when he was moved by the beautiful image of sunshine bouncing off his 3-year-old son’s hair and he imagined the boy growing up to be like the family’s favorite pastor.
“And suddenly I thought, ‘Wait a minute. I can’t lay that on those little shoulders. And, really, that’s what I want,’” Black, 71, says, explaining how his wife, Barbara, called his mother after he said he wanted to go to seminary. “And (my mother) said, ‘I always thought he would.’”
Black, the part-time pastor of the evangelical Mission Covenant Church at 53 Pleasant St. in Orange, was ordained in 1975. He plans to retire by early December and return to his native upstate New York, where he will have more time for triathlons. Jerry, now 47, got his father interested in the races that combine cycling, swimming and running, and Black celebrated his 70th birthday by completing the Massachusetts State Triathlon in Winchendon last year.
Black and his wife have purchased a fixer-upper in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
The two arrived in Orange in January 2010, after years in Austin, Texas. Black had previously spent time as pastor in Wichita, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo., after graduating from the now-defunct Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Illinois. He had previously worked as a university instructor (with aspirations of being a Renaissance literature professor) in Bloomington, Ind., when he got his calling at age 27.
In 2010, the Blacks wanted to move to the New Hampshire area so Barbara could care for her elderly mother. A man in charge of stationing evangelical pastors told the Rev. Black about Orange.
“He said, ‘You’ll find that the people have a lot of grit,’” Black says, sitting in his church. “And he was right — they really, really do. They don’t go down easy, these folks, let me tell you.
“Everyone who’s here is very committed to Orange. We don’t have people who are wanting to get out of here,” he continues. “It’s been a lot of fun and the people have been very great.”
Black says he was able to survive on a part-time pastor’s salary due to Social Security benefits. This, he says, freed up a lot of money for the church. The building got a new Yamaha Clavinova organ and, within roughly 18 months of Black’s arrival, swapped out uncomfortable metal chairs for 78 new upholstered purple ones that cost $45 apiece. Black says many parishioners chipped in to buy chairs for themselves and other members of the church.
A wooden cross anchors the front of the church’s second floor. Twelve stained glass windows adorn the room and a pull-down projection screen (used during services and for movie nights) hangs from the right side of the roof. Black says this floor was built in 1889 and cranked up around 1902 to make space for another floor. The church is handicap-accessible.
Black says weekly service attendance has grown to roughly 60 people since he started.
One of those parishioners is Black’s neighbor, David White, who has attended Mission Covenant Church with his family for three years.
“It’s been really tremendous. He very directly has led me to God though his quiet ministry in the neighborhood,” White says “He’s been a great friend and neighbor. We share a lot of good conversations.”
White said he has traveled to Saranac Lake to help the Blacks work on their fixer-upper.
“His sermons are terrific,” White says. “He just has a world of experience.”
Parishioner George Hunt said Black has embedded himself in the community and the presence of Mission Covenant Church, which he described as being off the beaten path, is now much more known.
Black also says the church has a men’s group that meets for monthly breakfasts. The group’s roughly 15 members of the group, Black says, get together to complete building projects for people in the community.
“It’s small, but it’s powerful. They go around and really help people. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where a church has been, but around here you see it,” Black says. “We’ve tackled totally abandoned houses that had become eyesores in the neighborhood.”
Black says his parishioners, like most others, have a genuine appreciation for hearing the Scripture in an exciting way.
“That’s true in the Catholic Church, that’s true in the Protestant church, that’s true in the Mormon church,” he says. “It’s just true.”
A retirement party for Rev. Black is planned for Saturday, Nov. 26.