
On June 16, 2024, we said goodbye to our pastor of 23 years, Paul Simpson Duke, now our Pastor Emeritus. He, along with his wife and co-pastor, Stacey Simpson Duke, led the church through a period of growth and renewal in focus and values and purpose in the community. We are so grateful to have had the gift of their co-pastorate. In our final service with Paul, performed a Litany of Separation that Calls Us to New Life, and everyone in attendance received a bulb for Stacey’s favorite flower, the Stargazer Lily, as an enduring connection and a reminder of how separation can lead to new life and possibility.
Watch our last service with Pastor Paul here.
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In the service on May 19, Paula Burton, the leader of the Interim Transition Team, announced the selection of Rev. Dr. Randle Mixon as interim pastor, starting on October 6, 2024. Here is the text of her announcement.
As you no doubt know by now, after some 23 years of outstanding pastoral leadership here at First Baptist Church, Pastor Paul will retire next month. That means we are in for a transition. Yes, another transition.
In his book, Transitions, William Bridges writes that there are three stages to any change: There is the ending, which has perhaps been coming for quite some time but is not yet final. There is the new beginning, that is somewhat envisioned but is not yet here and not at all clear. But in between there is the transition, and that is the most challenging stage of all. The transition stage is about living through the change from a familiar and perhaps beloved reality to a new and still unknown one. How well one lives through the transition usually has a lot to do with how one adapts to and even thrives within the change. And, what is true for individuals is also often true for groups and organizations, like churches.
With that in mind, friends, we have some exciting news to share, though it may – if you are at all like me – also elicit strong emotions.
Because of the outstanding work of our Interim Transition Team, Kat Becker, Bill Foster, Sue Ellen Glover, Xan Morgan, Robbie Stapleton and David Suell, starting in October we will welcome Interim Pastor, Rick Mixon. The Rev. Dr. Randle Mixon, although he goes by “Rick”, is an ordained American Baptist minister with over 50 years of experience in pastoral ministry, church leadership, and social justice advocacy. He has served as Interim Minister for three congregations over his career – Dolores Street Baptist Church, San Francisco, CA; First Baptist (now United) Church of Granville, OH; and Fairview Community Church, Costa Mesa, CA and is currently serving as Interim Sr Minister of Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Massachusetts. He is a long-time member of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, in Oakland, CA, the church that ordained him in 1996 as the first openly LGBTQIA+ Baptist to be ordained.
He has also been involved in various regional and national organizations, and continues to serve as Affiliate Professor of Pastoral Care at Berkeley School of Theology, and emeritus board member of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists.
Rick brings to First Baptist Church a passion for preaching the gospel of love, grace, and liberation, a commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive community of faith, and a vision for engaging in prophetic witness and service in the world. He believes in and I quote “an inclusive Christian community in the American Baptist Tradition that seeks to offer God’s radical hospitality to everyone, answering God’s call to hold fast to love and justice for the earth and all its peoples, striving to follow the example of Jesus and to work, through active nonviolence, for social, racial, economic and ecological justice and for peace.”
Building on many years as a congregational pastor, Rick has for some time now specialized as an Intentional Interim pastor. That means that he is NOT a candidate for the permanent role of new pastor. He is instead a pastor who brings an expertise in guiding churches like ours through the transition from one pastor to another. Rick comes well recommended by our former interim pastor and former church member, Heather Entrekin, and he brings impressive credentials with him. Having just officially met him through a recent Zoom meeting with the team, we’re excited for you to meet him, too, and a great opportunity to do so is coming soon!
Speaking of Heather –we are pleased to announce that she will serve as our interim pastor for the month of September, serving as a familiar bridge for all of us as we begin our transition from Paul’s pastoral leadership to Rick’s. During the summer months we will have some familiar and perhaps new-to-you preachers leading us in worship as we prepare for the fall and beyond.
We can never replace Paul, just as we know that we can never replace Stacey, and that reality certainly pulls at my heart! I suppose there is no good way to welcome in the new beginning without continuing to find ways to say goodbye to that which is ending. For many of us saying goodbye to Paul is a happy and sad experience at the same time.
Whatever comes, I know we will walk together as a community of faith through a time of transition, and that brings me great hope and enthusiasm for the future of First Baptist Church. I hope it does for you, too.
Note: the title, Transformed by Pastoral Transition, is taken from Marcia B. Bailey’s book by the same title. We are grateful for the guidance her book has given us during this time.