Roderick Black: International man of God Cleric ministers to parishes in N.B., Houlton

HOULTON – One of the things that makes it possible for the Rev. Roderick Black to conduct four services each Sunday is the time change. Parishioners joke that he’s able to start a service in the United States before he finishes one in Canada.

Black, 48, has been an international priest – an Anglican when he serves three parishes in New Brunswick and an Episcopalian when he is at the Church of the Good Shepherd – since October. He was ordained in 1999 after a career in engineering.

“I come over on Wednesdays for meetings, visits and to conduct an evening service,” said Black after a recent Sunday service in Houlton. “I preach twice a month here and lay readers preach the other two. The schedule works out pretty well, unless there’s a death, of course.”

He works three-quarters of the time for the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton and one-quarter for the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, both of which are part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Instead of being employed directly by the diocese in the states, the minister is paid when the Houlton church pays a stipend to St. John’s in Richmond.

The priest begins each Sunday at 8:30 a.m. Atlantic time at St. Mark’s in Jackson Falls, New Brunswick, then conducts services at 10 a.m. at St. John’s in his hometown of Richmond, New Brunswick. Black crosses the border and a time zone to lead worship at Good Shepherd at 10:45 a.m. Eastern time, then heads back to Canada for a 2 p.m. service at Holy Trinity in Hartland, New Brunswick.

Black is not the first minister to serve churches on both sides of the border. Parishioners believe he is the seventh priest to serve Good Shepherd and Houlton Episcopalians over the past 130 years. The Rev. J. Dinzey came to Houlton in 1868, before the congregation had a church of its own and met in a hall usually occupied by the Methodist Society.

“The courageous efforts of this man who apparently missed no services for a year in spite of traveling by horse and buggy were undoubtedly never adequately rewarded in his life,” wrote David H. Cotton in a history of the church published in 1988 for the centennial celebration of the completion of the church. “He reported to the Diocese that 18 families plus 13 adults not included in families were members of the parish. He also indicated that there were three Sunday School teachers and 28 pupils at that time.”

The church shared a rector with churches from across the border until the 1930s when Good Shepherd was able to support a minister on its own. By the mid-1990s however, a shortage of priests, Aroostook County’s declining population and Good Shepherd’s membership loss forced the church to renew its ties with the Anglican church across the border.

It also forced the congregation to take a good hard look at itself to determine if and how it was going to continue operating without full-time clergy. With the nearest Episcopal church 25 miles north in Mars Hill and the closest Anglican church just three miles away in Richmond, New Brunswick, renewing ties across the border made the most sense, according to Harold Dickinson, church organist since 1959 and a former senior warden at Good Shepherd.

“Five years ago the congregation did a discernment of gifts to determine who could best take on the tasks that needed to be done,” he said. “In 1997, we entered into what’s called a Mutual Ministry Covenant Group to equip ourselves for our own ministries; to enable the baptismal ministry of others; to enhance our own spiritual growth; and to strengthen our knowledge and faith in our Lord.”

Traditionally, according to Dickinson, the church had depended heavily on the rector to perform ministerial work such as visiting the sick, planning and conducting services and overseeing the day-to-day operation of the church buildings. Over the past five years, members of the congregation have taken over many of those functions and received extensive training from the diocese.

“We’ve worked to create a situation described in a poem by Wesley Frensdorf as a ministering community, rather than a community surrounded by a minister,” said Dickinson. “We now have six people who are preaching, which was unheard of prior to mutual ministry. We have seven or eight lay leaders who really are the worship coordinators, and that used to be a priestly function.”

The next step, he added, would be to have a lay member of the congregation ordained a deacon to perform sacramental functions, which it now must have a priest for. A member of Good Shepherd is now in the deacon formation program.

Black praised the congregation and the work of Bishop Chilton Knudsen for their efforts to help Good Shepherd become more self-sufficient. He added that small churches on both sides of the border were going to have to undertake similar creative solutions to survive.

“This group of people at Good Shepherd are hard-working, dedicated and have a strong faith,” said Black. “They have come a great distance on their own and have been very inward-looking for a long time. Now it is time for them to look outward and become more well-known in the community.”

That work already has started, according to Dickinson. The Sunday school program has grown from less than a handful of children to about 15. He said that the church is beginning to grow because people in the community have seen the love and concern expressed for people through the church’s ministry.

Black said that he would like to see the church expand its outreach to youth in community. He said that lay leadership has helped one of his Canadian churches successfully include more youth in its programs.

Five years ago, Good Shepherd was on the brink of collapse, according to Black. Because it relied on the strength of its membership rather than its minister and looked to its past and to the east for a priest, the church is on its way to becoming known for more than its famous fiddlehead suppers held each June. And its ministry is becoming known for crossing more borders than the one that divides the United States and Canada.