Pastor

On April 10, 2007, PASTOR ANNA (Love). Friends may call at the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue on Sunday after 3 P.M. The family will receive friends on Tuesday at the New Mt. Hebron Baptist Church, 2016 W. North Avenue at 10:30 A.M. Funeral services will follow at 11 A.M.

The Rev. Marvis P. May walked the streets near Lafayette Square, delivering a message of hope and encouragement throughout some of West Baltimore's toughest streets. Pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church for nearly two decades, he died Saturday at Union Memorial Hospital of undetermined causes, church officials said. He was 47. "He was born to preach and, in my estimation, was one of the most gifted preachers I've ever known," said the Rev. A.C.D. Vaughn, pastor of Sharon Baptist Church.

The Rev. Molester Jack Hunter Sr., who was pastor of New Hope Christian Baptist Church for more than three decades and was a foster parent to more than 100 children, died of heart failure April 21 at a hospital in Atlanta. He was 86 and lived in Reisterstown. Mr. Hunter had been visiting a daughter in Atlanta when he became ill. He had lived on Presbury Street for 40 years before moving to Reisterstown in 1982. The son of sharecroppers, he was born and raised in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. During World War II, he enlisted in the Army and served in the Pacific.

The woman initially didn't want to believe her teenage son's allegations that the pastor she considered a father figure had molested him. "I asked him over and over, `Are you sure?'" she told a Baltimore County judge yesterday, "hoping he would say something that would let me escape this." Yesterday, as Gerald Fitroy Griffith pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse, the woman talked of the pain that came with betrayal. Still, some members of the Redemption Christian Fellowship Church in Woodlawn sat behind Griffith during his court hearing -- and waved to him. Circuit Judge Robert N. Dugan said there could no longer be any doubt about Griffith's guilt.

FAITH AND dedication are building blocks of a church -- but when a congregation outgrows its space, it can also become a matter of money, bricks and construction delays.The 26-year-old Anchor Baptist Church on West Pasadena Road in Millersville has come through such a test. The proof: its new octagonal sanctuary."A lot of thought was put into the design," says the Rev. Andy Counterman, Anchor's religious leader for nearly seven years -- a period that also saw building of a fellowship hall.

The pastor of a Hampden church that was nearly destroyed in a fire Wednesday vowed yesterday to rebuild, though it was not clear whether the 89-year-old stone building could be saved."

The Rev. Frank M. Reid III, the pastor of Baltimore's largest black church, announced his support yesterday for mayoral hopeful Martin O'Malley, strengthening the candidate's fight for bi-racial support.Reid, pastor of the 14,000-member Bethel African Methodist Episcopal in West Baltimore, said he believes O'Malley is the candidate to pull the city's resources together to lower crime, improve schools and redevelop city neighborhoods."This election is about leadership, not about race, not about gender," Reid said during a ceremony outside the church.

When he came to Columbia in 1970, the Rev. Gerald H. Goethe didn't expect to stay long.Then he became an executive at the Columbia Cooperative Ministry and helped start the famed interfaith centers in the Howard County town.He was pastor of the church that Columbia founder James W. Rouse attended and got swept up in the idealism that fueled the founding of the planned community.The farm boy turned peace and civil-rights activist never did go back to his native Midwest and never did become a veterinarian as his father, a dairy farmer, had hoped.

SALISBURY -- In the beginning, there were no speaking parts. There was no star on a pulley above the manger, no chariot for the Roman soldiers, no sound system playing Pachelbel's Canon in D when the angels appear.There was, instead, a town in Maryland and its annual Christmas parade. There were marching bands, beauty queens and a Santa Claus, of course, and there was a flat-bed trailer covered with straw and crowded with living things: a Mary, a Joseph, a donkey, a cow, a few shepherds, a few sheep, and a manger.

The Rev. Darrell Baker dreams of one day building a mega-church in Howard County that will attract people from far and wide and convince even the nonreligious to give their lives to Christ.First, though, he has to face another challenge: building a church to house the 400-or-so congregants of Covenant Baptist Church, where he is senior associate pastor. That has proved harder than he thought. His efforts to develop the church's land off Centennial Lane in Ellicott City have landed him in the middle of a nasty dispute and caused neighbors to question his intentions, integrity and character.

On September 19, 2009, PASTOR ZACHARY C. JEFFERS, Family will receive friends at the family owned WYLIE FUNERAL HOME P.A. OF BALTIMORE COUNTY, 9200 Liberty Road Thursday from 5 to 8 PM. Services Friday at Mt. Pleasant Ministries 6000 Radecke Avenue, 10:00 am wake 11:00am funeral. Internment following. Inquires at www.wyliefh.com

Robert Stanley Bower, the pastor of Harundale Presbyterian Church for more than three decades who enjoyed flying Piper Cubs, died of heart failure Sept. 11 at the Glen Burnie Rehabilitation Center. He was 89. Mr. Bower, the son of Irish immigrant parents, was born and raised in Niles, Ohio. After graduating from Niles High School in 1939, he enrolled, with the financial backing of his Sunday school teacher, at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa. He dropped out of college and enlisted in the Army Air Forces during World War II. He learned to fly from a student of the Wright brothers, family members said.

The Rev. Montague J. Brackett, who pastored West Baltimore's Central Baptist Church for nearly 50 years, died from pneumonia Tuesday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 94. Dr. Brackett was born in Manakan, Va., the son of farmers. When he was in his teens, he moved to Baltimore, and graduated in 1933 from Frederick Douglass High School. He earned bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in theology from what became Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg, and is now Virginia University of Lynchburg.

The Rev. Nathaniel Higgs, a community activist who also had pastored the Southern Baptist Church in East Baltimore for nearly four decades, died from complications after prostate surgery June 5 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Towson resident was 78. Dr. Higgs was born in Palmyra, N.C., and spent his early years on his grandfather's farm. He later moved to Baltimore and graduated in 1949 from Dunbar High School. After serving for several years in the Army, Dr. Higgs worked at Fort Meade and drove a taxicab.

The Rev. Wilburn S. Watson, whose career as pastor of Olivet Baptist Church spanned nearly 50 years, died Feb. 24 of complications from diabetes at Northwest Hospital Center. He was 80. Mr. Watson was born and raised in Baltimore and graduated in 1943 from Douglass High School. He earned his divinity degree from Morris College in Sumter, S.C. Mr. Watson was 17 when he began preaching. A self-taught pianist, he began incorporating piano and singing into his sermons at Canaan Baptist Church in Baltimore.

Parishioners at St. Leo's Catholic Church in Little Italy were informed at weekend Masses that their former pastor - who was removed suddenly more than a year ago - molested a 13-year-old boy in the late 1970s at a New York church. Michael Salerno, better known as "Father Mike," was a brother at All Saints Church in Brooklyn when the alleged abuse occurred. When the allegation surfaced last November, Salerno left his post at St. Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church. Parishioners immediately protested, demanding answers.

As members of the Cherry Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church began learning yesterday of the overnight fire that destroyed their center of worship, the church's pastor vowed to hold regular services this Saturday and to work to rebuild. The Rev. T. DuWayne Privette was visiting family this week in Ohio when he got word about 4 a.m. yesterday that his church had burned to the ground. He booked a flight back to Baltimore yesterday afternoon and started dealing with the insurance company that covered the church property, in the 2800 block of Joplea Ave. in South Baltimore.

On December 10, 2008, PASTOR PAUL JAMES LEWIS; loving and devoted husband of Gertrude Lewis. On Tuesday, friends may call Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Services (East), 4905 York Road, where the family will receive friends from 3 to 8 P.M. On Wednesday, services will be held at Genesis Bible Fellowship Church, 6010 Reisterstown Road, where the family will receive friends 6 to 7 P.M with services to follow. Inquiries to (410) 433-7500.

On Tuesday, September 9, 2008, DR. RONALD FENWICK of Upper, Marlboro, MD. (Pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church) Beloved husband of Kay Fenwick. Dear son of Edna and the late Russell Fenwick. Loving father of Becky (Jim) Heberle, Ron (Stacey) and Tom Fenwick. He also will be missed by his yellow lab Rocky. Cherished grandfather of Jimmy and Lydia. Loving Pastor to many. Relatives and friends may call at Woodlawn Baptist Church, 5001 Church Road, bowie, MD, on Friday, September 12, 2008 from 6 to 9 P.M., where funeral services will be held on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 11 A.M. Interment following at Trinity Memorial Gardens, Waldorf, MD. Memorial contributions may be made to Woodlawn Baptist Church, Bowie, MD.

One by one, the people at the meeting stood and spoke, voices sharp with indignation. Their concerns, directed at the pastor onstage, were based on a single imperative: Keep your megachurch out of our neighborhood. The gathering a few days ago in Timonium, convened at the invitation of the Rev. Daniel K. O'Brien of Grace Fellowship Church, had been intended to assuage residents' concerns about his plans to build a 2,500-seat church on the site of the 30-acre Padonia Park Club, whose owner has agreed to sell the property.