Retired pastor recalls career> Ronald Libby of Charleston served 47 years

CHARLESTON — The Rev. Ron Libby did not set out to be a minister. By his own admission, he wasn’t even interested in God back in 1953. He only showed up for the Sunday evening service one late August night so he could meet a girl and show off his brand-new Buick.

Judith Bennett, the young woman Libby drove home that night nearly 47 years ago, became his wife 18 months later. In 1958, Libby was ordained and began a career at the Charleston Pentecostal Church that would last 43 years and that was celebrated last month by more than 800 people at his retirement party at the Bangor Civic Center.

“When I was 9 years old, I felt God call me to the ministry,” Libby said during an interview last week at the church. “I always pretended to be the preacher when we’d play at church. But by the time I was 13 I decided that’s not what I wanted to do. I told God, `You’ve made a mistake. You called the wrong Ronnie.”‘

Libby said he that he “lived like a terror,” refusing to attend church with his family or listen to God. He dropped out of school after the eighth grade to help support his family when his father became ill. He served in the armed forces in Korea and later in Europe.

“I came back from Germany very, very troubled and very confused,” Libby said. “But, as I sat in the back of this church during that service just thinking about taking this girl home, God began to work on me. I kept coming back to see Judy, and my hardness broke up. I could hear God calling me again.”

Because of his limited education, Libby said, he “was not what you’d call qualified for the ministry” by today’s standards. He did not attend college but studied with the Rev. Eugene Kimball, who came from Portland on weekends. Kimball served the tiny church for 17 years beginning in 1946, and under his guidance the congregation grew from 18 to 150 members.

“The Reverend Kimball was my spiritual father,” recalled Libby, who was youth minister from 1958 to 1963. When Kimball retired, Libby took over. “He was a farm boy from Aroostook County, but he saw that I had the desire and he helped me. That’s how I made it.”

There is no computer or typewriter in Libby’s office. The minister sometimes struggled to write his sermon in longhand late on a Saturday night. In the early years, his wife often typed them for him on Sunday mornings. While he may not have made the leap into the computer age, Libby credits the communication age with helping Charleston Pentecostal Church reach a membership of about 400.

The church was organized in the early part of the 20th century with “cottage meetings.” By 1923, worshipers were gathering for services in a tent in a field across the road from where the church is now on Route 11A in Charleston. Originally, the church was two small schoolhouses “stuck together,” Libby said, and what is a parking lot was then a farmer’s field.

The original structure is part of Fellowship Hall. The education building was constructed in 1964, and expansion continued until 1980, when the new sanctuary was completed. It can seat 1,000 worshipers in upholstered theater-style “chairs” rather than pews.

In 1960, Libby began a live radio program, “Heaven’s Harmony Hour,” on WABI, but it was television that really helped the church grow and expand. “Soul’s Harbor” began airing in 1970. Originally shown live on Thursday nights, it now airs at 8 a.m. Sundays on Channels 7 and 8 in Maine and on cable in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Libby said that while his leadership and television program helped the church grow, he said it is “the love people sense and feel here” that makes them stay. “People tell us that they feel loved here. They feel it from me, from Michael, the new pastor, and from the congregation. They find love here, and there’s not much of that around.”

Since his retirement last month, Libby tapes the program in an empty sanctuary. In recent years, he taped his Sunday sermons for broadcast. He plans soon to continue his television program and travel as an evangelist and a mentor to other pastors. Last month, he preached in a different time zone each Sunday.

The Rev. Michael Ward, 29, was elected in January to replace Libby. Ward’s road to the ministry was similar to Libby’s. Ward attended Charleston Pentecostal Church as a youngster and felt called to the ministry at an early age. Ward also ignored that call throughout high school and college, but returned to the church in the early 1990s.

“He got a little rowdy in his late teens,” Libby said of his successor, “but, I remember the night he made his commitment to God. It was special. He has been since 1995 and I have spent a lot of time with him getting him ready for this next assignment.”

Ward called Libby “the model” for his own work in the ministry. Ward said he wants to continue Libby’s “strong leadership and consistency in being faithful to the ministry, making the church and its people my first priority. I want to reach out to people where they are and meet the needs of our community. I hope to bring relevancy to our walk with God.”