Beloved pastor stepping down

The congregation of First Baptist Church in Glendale will bid farewell Sunday to the Rev. Frank Brougher, who is retiring after more than 40 years as a Baptist pastor, with the last 13 years of his career in Glendale.

But Brougher was hardly a newcomer when he became associate pastor of First Baptist in 1995 — it was more of a homecoming.

Brougher’s father, Dr. James Brougher Jr. was the church’s pastor for 76 years, before he died in 2003 at the age of 101.

“He always said he would like nothing more than to have me on staff with him,” Frank Brougher said. “But we were very honest, outspoken people . . . and he said with the same breath, ‘You really ought to get out on your own and develop your own approach to things.’ And I think that was very wise.”

Taking his father’s advice, Frank Brougher graduated from the seminary and became pastor at First Baptist Church in Cottage Grove, Ore., in 1966. It was there that he began to develop the heart of his ministry, ecumenicalism, a movement that espouses the importance of unity and inclusiveness of all religious denominations.

Frank Brougher was also a staunch opponent of the Vietnam War and his participation in an anti-war rally made the front page of the Oregonian newspaper, much to the chagrin of his conservative, fundamentalist congregation.

Quietly stepping down as pastor, Brougher took a self-reflective retreat, spending three days and two nights in a cabin, where he could “be with God,” he said.

“I was weighing whether to get out of the pastoral ministry, and I came back with the strong message that if you get out of the church, then you leave it to the fundamentalists and the conservatives,” he said. “But the church has to have all of us. I have always said it has never been easy to be inclusive and ecumenical and to accept all Christians.”

He accepted a position at the First Baptist Church in Bountiful, Utah, growing confident in his theology and his strengths in providing pastoral guidance to his congregation, he said. He also began to develop the belief that, perhaps even more certain than the afterlife, was the power of intimate, spiritual connections between people.

“I remained in contact more with them than any other church,” he said. “I think it’s because they grew along with me in establishing their faith. And that’s the way it should be.”

Frank Brougher went on to pastorships in Spokane, Wash., and Des Moines, Wash., before church officials back in Glendale began to reach out to him to return to First Baptist as associate pastor alongside his aging father.

“It’s been a very pleasant surprise that this is the last church of my career,” Frank Brougher said. “I really thought that I would remain as I grew up as ‘Dr. Brougher’s son.’ But that hasn’t been it. And there is a really difference in my theology and my approach.”

And Glendale congregants saw it fitting for him to be the one to guide the church as the elder Brougher neared the end of his career.

“It was very important and essential that he be the one to be here,” said congregant Darcie Goyer, a member of the church for more than 40 years. “He had great knowledge and background and great familiarity with this church. He was the necessary one to come in and step in when he did.”

Frank Brougher will leave the church in the hands of Senior Pastor Charles Updike, who came to the church from Maryland in August 2007.

Frank Brougher will spend his retirement in a family home in Seaside Oregon.

“We are going to miss him a lot,” Brougher’s older sister Betty Dieudonne said. “But I am very happy for him also. If he has as many good feelings about his retirement as I have about mine, I will be very, very happy for him.”