United Methodist Minister Will Leave A Legacy Of Caring And Spiritual Enrichment

By Nancy K. Crevier

On Sunday, June 29, the Reverend Terry Pfeiffer will step up to the pulpit at Newtown United Methodist Church on Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook to deliver his final sermon as pastor of that congregation. After 43 years in the ministry, the last 16 of which have been spent serving NUMC, Rev Pfeiffer will retire from full membership in the New York Annual Conference of UMC.

He has a good idea already of what he will say. “I’m going to remind them of all the things we’ve done to help other people, and what good people they are. I’m going to cry, and give them my blessing,” said Rev Pfeiffer.

Raised in the Methodist faith in Marion, Ind., Rev Pfeiffer’s spiritual journey began under the tutelage of his parents. “One of the biggest gifts my mother ever gave me was the introduction into the church,” he said. Born on Christmas Day in 1940, he was just 18 years old when he decided that he would become an ordained minister.

“I never told you, but on the day you were born, I wrote down, ‘I hope he will become a clergyman,’” his mother responded when he told her of his decision.

A family friend introduced the young man to the president of DePauw University, and due to this intervention and his good grades, he received a full Rector Scholarship to the school.

“I just loved it,” recalled Rev Pfeiffer of his undergraduate years. Three of his professors at DePauw were Yale Divinity School scholars.

“I asked them if they thought I could get in to the program at Yale, and they looked at my school records and encouraged me to apply. Imagine, a little guy like me from Indiana getting into Yale. It was a big deal,” he said. “I was just thrilled when I was accepted.”

At Yale Divinity School, he was awarded a Master of Divinity and a Master of Sacred Theology, which is in the field of pastoral care. In 1965 he was ordained a Deacon, and in 1967, Rev Pfeiffer was ordained an Elder. He served first at churches in Niantic and Pound Ridge, N.Y., then Greenwich, Fairfield, Danbury, and New Haven before coming to Newtown.

“This church was looking for spiritual leadership and wanted a sense of a caring community, is what they told me,” Rev Pfeiffer said of his mission upon taking the reins at NUMC. “Spiritual leadership is guidance in living in the presence of God, and I feel that I have provided both that leadership and instilled a sense of caring,” he said.

He has guided the membership into a variety of programs that he feels helps them to better connect with God and reach out to the world around.

“We support FAITH Food Pantry, and in 2006 gave money to Nothing But Nets, a national UMC program with the NBA, the United Nations, Sports Illustrated, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to provide nets to families in Africa to protect them from mosquitoes. Just $10 buys a net that a family can sleep under, and at our church alone, we raised $6,500,” said Rev Pfeiffer.

Twice in the past ten years the Newtown congregation has filled two Heifer Project “arks” at the cost of $5,000 each to help impoverished families in Third World countries become self-sufficient. He has encouraged the Volunteers in Mission, church members who have traveled to Bolivia to help “bug-proof” homes in Bolivia, to Biloxi and the Gulf Coast towns after Hurricane Katrina, and other parts of the world where hands-on help is needed. The Connecticut District UMC built a clinic in Haiti that serves 15,000 people who would not otherwise have medical care, he said, and NUMC donates regularly to support a doctor there.

“We will miss Terry quite a bit,” said the Reverend Dick Yerrington, NUMC’s associate pastor and a retired ordained minister himself. “It has been a pleasure to have him with us.”

Deacon Sue Klein said that under Rev Pfeiffer’s leadership, the church has seen a growth in membership, as well. “I believe we had just over 200 members when Terry started here, and we are over 600 members now. We have been happy to ‘put up’ with him. He has been very good to us,” said Ms Klein.

“I have seen tremendous growth in outreach over 16 years,” said Rev Pfeiffer. “It is important to help people to see God in day-to-day life. We are blessed here in Newtown, and I believe that God tells us to pass some of these good things on to others. I feel very strongly that you need to take care of your own needs in the church, but also care for other people, too, in the community and the world. We can do both,” he said.

By providing leadership and pointing out opportunities that identify needs, he has guided the membership to looking beyond the four walls of the church. “The people of this church are very generous. They always respond. If it makes sense to them, they will support it,” he said.

His decision to retire was not one made lightly, said Rev Pfeiffer.

“You have to retire from the Annual Conference at age 70, and I’m 67 years old. I prayed a lot and God helped me to see this was a good time to step out and retire. I thought long and hard about it. My wife, Margie, and I have a lot of friends here and it has been wonderful serving in Newtown. Margie was also very involved. She chaired the Outreach and Mission Committee,” he said.

His experience at NUMC has been very positive in so many ways, said Rev Pfeiffer, but on May 16 he experienced what he called “one of the highlights of my whole life.”

More than 210 members of the church, family members, community clergymen, and community members feted him at a farewell party held at The Stone Barn in Monroe.

“It was moving for me,” said Rev Pfeiffer. “All of the people who are important in our lives were in the same place, at the same time, and that was so amazing to me. I laughed and cried through the whole evening. It touched my heart that they loved me so much.”

Even though he is retiring from the full membership, Rev Pfeiffer will continue to be a fully ordained minister and could be placed at another church in the conference by the Bishop. But he plans to take some time off from working for awhile. Retirement to Beaufort, S.C., will mean time to paint, ride his bicycle — “It’s nice and flat there,” he said — practice aerobics and weight lifting at the local YMCA, canoe, and fish. “Number eleven in Fish and Game magazine is Beaufort, S.C. They have the best salt and freshwater fishing,” he said.

Of the four children that they have — Douglas and David in Brooklyn, Michael in Amherst, Mass., and Karen — the Pfeiffers are pleased that Karen, her husband and their two children will also be moving to Beaufort from Mississippi, giving them some family close by.

He and his wife have been sorting, discarding, and packing up their home for the move. “I’ve gathered tons of things in 16 years,” he chuckled. “I think we packed about 200 to 250 boxes of just books.” What he will not have to squeeze into the moving van are the many cherished memories he takes from his pastorship at Newtown United Methodist Church.

“I’ll miss being a clergyman and the dear, dear people here in Newtown,” he said.