By Bill Reynolds
La Conner Community News
His new assignment at La Conner United Methodist Church is going swimmingly for the Rev. Terry Hall.
That’s no surprise, as the unfailingly upbeat 76-year-old pastor starts several days each week with a one-mile swim at the Hanna Aquatic Center near the Bellingham-area home he shares with his wife, Dennie Sherman.
It helps, too, that for more than 20 years Hall served his calling at primarily rural churches in the Midwest and Washington state. Better yet, earlier this year he interrupted what proved to be a short-lived retirement by filling in for a month behind the historic La Conner pulpit.
“I love it here,” Hall said on Friday. “There’s not another congregation that I’d come out of retirement to do this for. The people here are wonderful.”
The feeling is mutual. After his audition last spring, Hall was tabbed in July by the La Conner church to succeed local pastor Don Robinson, who had completed a three-month interim stint for his home congregation.
Hall, a native of Chenango Bridge, New York, a hamlet of about 900 residents just above the Pennsylvania state line, took a circuitous route to the ministry.
He served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam and Germany out of high school, then traveled cross-country to Southern California, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology at San Diego State University in 1975.
While there, he met Dennie, who would embark on a successful career in hospital social work.
“I met my wife in a psychiatric hospital,” he quipped.
The couple wed in 1977 and set out from San Diego in a Dodge van for a two-month road trip across North America. By then, Hall knew their future wasn’t in San Diego.
“It was way too much for a small town guy like me,” he explains. “We just didn’t know where we wanted to be.”
Based on their travels, they chose three places where they might relocate. Puget Sound and Canada both made the cut, so they decided on Tacoma.
Hall found work in the mental health field, then pursued a master’s degree at the University of Washington. He specialized in therapy for abused and troubled children, a challenging yet extremely rewarding career path.
“I saw improvement. I saw them healed,” Hall reflects.
In his late 40s, Hall reached a spiritual crossroads.
“We didn’t go to church when I was growing up,” he said. “My dad worked six days a week and Sunday was his one day off. But I kept feeling this nudge calling me to the ministry.”
So, Hall consulted a friend who was a chaplain at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, seeking advice on how best to join the clergy.
At age 50, Hall became a seminarian.
“I was actually one of the younger guys,” he said. “The vast majority of us had been called to do this after having had other careers.”
For three years, Hall attended a seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. One of his and Dennie’s two daughters, who were then aged 17 and 20, pointed out the unique role reversal within the family.
“She said that at this stage of life,” he recalls, “that we’re supposed to be the ones who go off to school while you stay at home.”
Hall served as a student pastor in Iowa’s farm country.
“It was fantastic training,” he says. “I learned so much.”
Specifically, Hall learned when to scuttle “pastorese” and speak the language of his congregants. He also received valuable guidance on how to officiate funerals and other ministerial roles.
With his training completed, Hall returned to the Pacific Northwest and churches on both sides of the Cascades, including First United Methodist in Mount Vernon.
While here in the north Puget Sound, he and Dennie have enjoyed their varied outdoor interests. For Hall, that has meant photographing the region’s birdlife.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he says. “Even those days when you go out and don’t see a lot of birds, it’s still great to be in a beautiful setting and be able to be around a lot of nice people.”
On Sundays, Hall’s focus turns to his flock in La Conner.
“I want to share the ways we should be appreciative of God’s presence in our lives,” he stresses. “I want to be mindful of how important it is that we care for one another, that we love one another—not to avoid a lake of fire — but because it’s the healthiest way to live.”
Bill Reynolds is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
