‘This is how we’ overcome With its former pastor accused of theft, Bangor congregation charts a new course

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Patrick Gordon admits that he’s a quiet guy. Since the 28-year-old Bangor resident began attending Abundant Life Church on outer Broadway about 3 1/2 years ago, he has had a hard time finding the words to express how God and the church have changed his life.

But Gordon’s faith bursts out of his arms, legs and chest when he dances during services at the church.

“I can’t explain it,” he said after a worship service Tuesday night. “It’s how I express myself to God. I just get to a place in worship and it happens.”

He and about 150 other worshippers were gathered at the church for its major weeknight service. Gordon, dressed casually in bluejeans and T-shirt, danced as churchgoers lifted their arms and loudly sang over and over again, “This is how we overcome.”

What the congregation is trying to overcome is the loss of its founding pastor, the Rev. Ron Durham. He left in November 2003 and now lives in Savannah, Ga.

Durham, 59, was indicted Monday by the Penobscot County grand jury for allegedly stealing more than $100,000 from the Bangor church.

Durham is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 27 in Penobscot County Superior Court.

If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and could be fined up to $20,000. He could be ordered to make restitution to his former congregation.

Worshippers on Tuesday night were focusing on something else, however, including their new senior minister. The Rev. Darren Farmer, 33, arrived in June from his native England with his wife and co-senior minister, the Rev. Rachel Farmer, 37, and their two daughters.

Darren Farmer has spent his first months with his flock helping members imagine their future.

Last Sunday, the congregation adopted a plan that includes a mission statement, values and strategic goals for the next 15 months.

Farmer’s words Tuesday night, titled “Dream God’s Dream,” focused on that plan.

“God has put this dream in my heart,” Farmer said as he paced in front of the congregation, delivering his message and occasionally waving the four-page plan over his head. “I believe God is about to give us big dreams. He wants us to dream his dream.”

That dream includes increasing attendance and membership at Abundant Life, which drew 500 to 600 people to its services in the late 1990s, making it one of the Bangor area’s largest congregations at the time.

The dream also involves planting churches and establishing missions.

In naming its values, the congregation included the words “teamwork,” “transparency” and “accountability.”

Farmer said after Tuesday’s service that while the leadership style of some pastors is to function as a one-man ministry, he is committed to team-led ministry.

“My heart is dedicated to activating all members to do what God wants them to do, giving them a sense of purpose and equipping them to carry it out,” he said.

A native of Birmingham, England, Farmer was reared by “God-fearing parents who didn’t attend church.” He was 15 when he had a conversion experience and decided to be a minister. After completing his education, Farmer went to Bristol, England, where in three years his congregation grew from three to 300.

He met Durham and members of Abundant Life about six years ago when he visited Southwest Harbor on vacation. Farmer stayed in touch over the years, preached a guest sermon a few times and offered support to the church after Durham’s departure.

Ginger Walker, worship and prayer minister, earlier this week described Farmer as “a young man who has a depth beyond his years.”

Walker, 51, also functions as music director, plays keyboard and leads the church’s band and choir.

She worked with Durham for most of the 16 years he was in Bangor. Although she and her husband, Wayne Walker, 52, who is now the chaplain for Manna Ministries Inc., considered leaving during the past two years, “we felt restrained and constrained by the Lord to stay and endure,” she said.

Farmer is vibrant, she said.

“He’s full of zeal and full of wisdom from the Lord beyond his years. He’s able to tap into the potential of people to equip us for the future.

“To walk through what we’ve walked through the past two years, he’s like injections of the Holy Ghost lifting us up” she said. “He doesn’t want to be called ‘pastor,’ but he has the heart of a pastor and the ability to bring people to new levels doing what we do, not to or for man, but unto the Lord.”

One of the congregation’s most immediate needs is to increase its membership. Attendance has fallen since Durham’s departure, Walker said.

Sunday services drew 500 to 600 in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since Farmer’s arrival, attendance has averaged between 250 and 300, but church attendance throughout Maine typically drops during the summer months.

The church’s 2005 budget, set before the new pastor arrived, is about $800,000, Farmer said after Tuesday’s service. That means that Abundant Life must take in about $15,500 each week or collect an average of $51 per worshipper if 300 people attend a Sunday service.

The church, at 1404 Broadway, was assessed at $2,351,500 in 2003, according to the city Assessor’s Office. In 1999, Durham estimated the land and building cost $2.5 million. An expansion, which included offices and a kitchen, was completed two years later for an estimated $885,000.

The church operates a day care center, food pantry and youth ministry. It also broadcasts services on the Web.

Farmer said this week that Abundant Life is “vibrant, doing well and relevant to the next generation.” He added that creating the vision with about 80 church leaders helped the congregation look outward again after mourning Durham’s loss with the help of interim pastor Linda Hickey, now the church’s pastoral care and children’s minister.

“He’s the right man in the right place at the right time with the right dream,” Dana Oakes, 58, of Orono said of the new pastor.

That dream, Farmer believes, includes “raising the bar for God” in his new congregation and community.