by Doug Hickerson
Pastor Tom Stroup will be retiring from Brockport Free Methodist Church on January 1, 2014 after 36 years as lead pastor. “God hard wired me for ministry before I was ever born,” Pastor Tom Stroup said. “When I gave my life to him in 1970, he called me and set me on a course of ministry.” For Stroup, 64, that ministry started in Wilmore, Kentucky. In 1978 he came to the Brockport Free Methodist Church as lead pastor, and has served for 36 years – an unusual tenure for Protestant ministers. He will retire as lead pastor on September 1.
Staying power
Besides seeing his career divinely predestined, Stroup attributes his staying power to his father’s work ethic and tenacity on the job. Following his father’s example, he worked hard at various jobs as a youth. And, “I am not a quitter,” he said. “Obviously over the years I have faced difficult times in the ministry, but I don’t quit. I try to address what’s there.”
“And, the biggest staying factor is that I never felt God calling me any place else,” Stroup said. Citing various opportunities for “what might be called significant advancements,” he said, “The vision has always been for here.”
Church growth
When Stroup came in 1978, the church building at 6787 Fourth Section Road, Brockport, was about 10,000 square feet and about 150 people attended Sunday worship. In 1990 a new sanctuary and atrium (large café) were added. In 2000 the church expanded with an administrative wing, adult ministry wing, new restrooms and renovated kitchen. The facility now totals 27,000 square feet and about 400 people attend Sunday worship. Also, the church purchased 44 acres of surrounding land several years ago.
Stroup said that attendance at Christmas Eve services is a kind of “litmus test” for measuring growth and community outreach. Attendance was over 800 at last year’s Christmas service. “That (attendance) says something about the penetration of the ministry into the community,” he said.
A ministry team developed from within
Stroup works closely with a ministry team. As lead pastor, Stroup “casts a vision” for the team and the whole church, based on Christ’s great commandment to “go into the world and make disciples of all people.” The team manifests the vision in specific programs and activities of the church. Each team member is considered a minister, with or without seminary training. Team members start as church members who have shown interest and abilities in certain areas of church life. Stroup mentors them into the appropriate ministry role. “I don’t live my dreams through them,” Stroup said. “I let them have their dreams in their area of the ministry.”
The eleven team members’ responsibilities show the extent of the BFMC ministry. Four associate pastors cover administrative areas, assimilation, growth/discipleship, and ministry volunteers. Directors from the team run the pre-school, worship arts, “Adventure Zone,” and early childhood ministries. There is also a student ministries pastor. Only two are full time staff; the others range from three quarter time to volunteer.
The ministry team has adhered to the church’s mission over 36 years, even guiding it over troubled waters in a few periods of internal dissention, Stroup said. “By staying on task with the mission of Christ, we never dropped the ball in terms of the mission, even though we were hurting.”
During Stroup’s 36-year tenure, most ministers have been hired from inside the church, which is uncommon among Protestant churches. “When you work with people from within, you see them serve, you know their personalities and abilities; they understand the heart and the vision of the ministry,” Stroup said. “These people know everything about the church and you know them. When you bring someone in, it’s just based on an interview and a résumé.”
“Time to shuffle things up a bit”
In the last three years, Stroup was mentoring Associate Pastor Ray Hammond, who, by mutual agreement, would take over as lead pastor when Stroup retired. But Hammond gradually felt a growing call to church “planting” (starting a new church), Stroup said. On July 1, he left to help start the Epic Church in Williamsville as associate pastor and worship leader. “I was somewhat disappointed,” Stroup said, “but if God was calling him to do that, I told Ray he needed to follow the call.”
After more than three decades of guiding the church’s laymen into ministry, “It’s time to shake things up a bit,” Stroup heard God say. He understood the revelation to mean “to bring someone else in from the outside, someone who will shed new vision and who is not stayed in things the way they are.”
Stroup had said to Hammond, “If God is calling you to do that (plant a church), God’s got something else really good for us here.” The prediction came true when Andy Sass phoned Stroup about hearing God’s call to a ministry in Brockport. Sass is lead pastor at North Gate Free Methodist Church in Batavia, a much larger church of 1,100. He and Stroup had been friends over many years, and Stroup counseled him to heed God’s call. Knowing Sass so well, he was a clear exception to Stroup’s long-held resistance to hiring from outside the church. Sass will be starting at Brockport Free Methodist Church as lead pastor on September 1.
Past and future fulfillment
Stroup was asked what the most fulfilling achievement was in his long tenure. “Unequivocally, the changed lives of people who have come to Christ, found the Savior for themselves, and found forgiveness for their past. They discovered that they have a purpose and mission in this life, travelling the rest of this journey with Christ, and looking to the home in Heaven that God has for them. Nothing compares to that!”
Stroup will serve as “transition pastor” until December 31, helping Sass to settle in as the lead pastor. On January 1, Stroup becomes a regular church member at Brockport Free Methodist, staying in the community where he has a large family. In the past he had looked ahead to how he might “model a good layman embedded in a church family, being supportive of the pastor and his vision ….” When Sass asked Stroup what role in the church would be most fulfilling to him as he becomes a church member, Stroup’s answer was, “To do whatever I am capable of doing to help you wherever you need it, and advance the work of Christ in the church.”
