My father became the pastor of the Seattle, Wash., RPC in 1936, when I was 7 years old. The Seattle congregation therefore was my home church. In those growing years, many of the older members encouraged me, taught me, put up with me and became my friends. In addition to the home training from my parents, I was privileged to be surrounded with godly elders in the church, before whom I was terrified when they examined me for membership. I need not have been afraid; they were my friends.

I was away from the congregation for 7 school years in a row, attending Geneva College and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, but I still managed to get home every summer during those years (1946–1953).

My first pastorate was in the Portland RP congregation. After spending two summers there during my course work at the seminary, I was called to be the pastor. I was examined, ordained and installed by the Pacific Coast Presbytery in August 1953 and became a member of the presbytery. Married in 1952, my wife Dorothy joined me in the work; two of our four children were born in Portland.

In 1957, I accepted a call to become the pastor of the Central Pittsburgh (later North Hills) congregation. We stayed in that congregation until 1957. For those 21 years, the Pacific Coast Presbytery was still my church home. Through all of those years I developed many friendships. Among them are Joe and Beth Lamont. As of this writing, Joe and I have been close friends for 75 years! Beth Robb lived with our family in the summer of 1944, making that friendship a long-term friendship of 67 years. Jack and Mary Lamont are the only people still in the congregation from those early days, and we have kept in touch for many years.

I returned to the Pacific Coast Presbytery in 1973 when I accepted the call of the Los Angeles RPC. By this time, our family had grown to include four children: Doug, Ken, Tom and Becky. I served there for 21 years, but continued to live in the bounds of the presbytery for another nine years. I have been part of the presbytery for 51 of the 100 years of its existence. There are only a handful of folks who can beat that record!

I have a number of great memories. The summer conferences began years before I was in the presbytery. My first conference was at the Palisades conference grounds in 1939. My father helped organize the first conference in the Northwest in 1948—at facilities that would not be acceptable by today’s standards. But people did not complain, and it was a successful conference. The second Northwest conference was at Camp Glendawn in 1953, near Seattle; the third at Camp Crestview, along the beautiful Columbia River gorge. Each of these carries a whole set of stories and good memories.

Over the years, the annual conferences served to bind the far reaches of the presbytery together. Many families planned for vacation times and traveled long distances to get to the conferences. Friendships formed during those times have lasted. The most recent conference I attended was at the Firs in Bellingham, Wash., in 2009. What a wonderful time reuniting with friends made over the years and getting acquainted with people in the presbytery! For me, it was like coming home, even though it was my first conference without Dottie, who was taken home to be with the Lord in January 2009. It is not uncommon to reminisce at conferences: “Do you remember the conference at…?” And the stories just keep coming.

This is the place to say a few words about Dottie. Growing up in Cambridge, Mass., she joined me with an eagerness for kingdom service. In the three congregations we served, Dottie made friends within and outside the congregation, friendships she kept through the years. She was keenly interested in conferences, having been converted at the White Lake, N.Y., conference in 1948. She loved working with children and was an eager supporter of the women’s Bible studies and missionary societies. When I received the call to the Central Pittsburgh congregation (now North Hills) in 1957, my friend Mel Martin told me he would not advise me what to do in the decision, but he did tell me he would pray that the decision would become so clear that we would never have occasion to look back with regret. In our retirement years, Dottie and I often thanked the Lord that in major decisions of this kind we never looked back with regret. I am grateful for the 56.5 years we had together.

Presbytery meetings provided another way of binding us together. They were times of great fellowship and encouragement. Pastors and elders became close friends. Even when there were difficult issues to be debated, the discussions were always carried on with a good spirit and ultimate unity of purpose. They were what presbytery meetings should be like, and I am very grateful for my colleagues in the presbytery from whom I received great encouragement.

Of course, the congregants—elders, deacons, and members—in the two congregations I served were the core of pastoral work. Rev. Frank Frazer was my mentor in Portland. He had grown up in Beaver Falls, Pa. and played with Dr. Clarence MacCartney when both were young. Mr. Frazer was a brilliant theologian, astronomer, mathematician and mountain climber, having climbed all the major peaks in the Northwest. A quiet man, he taught me more than he ever knew. Mrs. Frazer helped Dottie in those early years of marriage. Miss Elizabeth Knight, who, with her sister, had come from the Evans, Colo., congregation, was the treasurer. On occasion she would give me jars of “Sunny Jim” jam, always with a big smile.

The small Portland congregation reached out in various ways in the community. The last of the adults that we ministered to in the community died a year ago. The building was small, and during the years there an addition was built on the back of the building to accommodate classroom and study space. The decision to leave for Pittsburgh was not an easy decision to make.

When we did leave in November of 1957 with two young boys (3 years and 3 months), we decided to take the southern route to Pittsburgh. Both boys contracted staphylococcus pneumonia on the way and spent a combined 60 days as patients in a children’s hospital. Friends in the Los Angeles congregation, together with many others up and down the coast, were most supportive of us. Giving a list is always dangerous, because there were so many. Paul Robb, then the pastor in L.A., went out of his way to help us, as did his housekeeper, Sue Boyd. Bob and Ruth Gross were most helpful. The names of Tom and Fern Kerr must also be included. And the friends we left behind in Portland were most gracious to us.

Years later, returning to Los Angeles, (with the “sick” boys, one of them a junior at Geneva and the other a junior in high school, along with a high school freshman and a 5th grader), we were a different family. In God’s providence, we were able to buy a house next to the home of Dr. and Mrs. Francis Buck. That home became a place where many people visited. It was fortunate that Dottie loved to entertain, and I never heard her complain when people from overseas, college friends, visitors, basketball teams, presbytery delegates, visiting pastors and others showed up.

Francis and Dorothy Buck were also busy with hospitality. Our two families had good times together. Don and Evelyn Birdsall had been friends from Seattle days, but our friendship deepened during these years.

At the time of writing, previous Los Angeles pastors include Bob Crawford, Paul Robb, Bruce Stewart and I. All four of us are living but lost our spouses within a matter of months. Ken Orr followed me as pastor, and we are now grateful for the leadership of Nathan Eshelman in such things as the recent youth conference held over the holidays. I keep reading names of people that I do not know—a most happy read as it points to new people coming into the fellowship.

The years of my pastorate in Los Angeles were years of great social change, including race riots, which spilled over into the changing community in which the church was located. ESL programs were started. The local Headstart program used the church building for several years. Worship services were translated into Spanish. Community Bible studies were held and Evangelism Explosion teams witnessed through the community. Through it all, there was a faithful core of people who persevered in their financial support, their prayers and their hard work in seeking to be faithful witnesses for Christ.

—James Carson is a retired RPCNA pastor living in Beaver Falls, Pa.