NUMC Has A New Associate Pastor

By Shannon Hicks

A casual conversation during a Christmas party has become a blessing for Newtown United Methodist Church. The Reverend Richard Yerrington has been serving as the associate pastor for the church, located on Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook, since September 11.

Mr Yerrington was at a UMC district Christmas party last year and found himself in conversation with NUMC Deacon E. Sue Klein, who mentioned that her church had an opening for an associate pastor. While it seemed at the time the kind of conversation that may not lead to anything, by last spring Mr Yerrington was formally invited by NUMC to join the church staff.

Today he is an Elder of the Church, ordained to perform all pastoral responsibilities. Last Sunday morning those duties included a very special baptism. On the same day that Mr Yerrington was celebrating his 75th birthday, he was also the officiant for the baptism of his granddaughter, Madison Isabella.

“I grew up in the church,” Mr Yerrington said recently. “Church was always the most influential thing in my life.

“I believe in the Church of Jesus Christ, and I believe that it carries the ultimate truth of God’s love,” he said last week while sitting down to talk about a career that has been full of 80-hour work weeks. “I don’t believe it has all the answers, but I believe it proclaims the ‘Good News’ of God’s love in Jesus.”

While growing up, the young Dick Yerrington was very active in “a little tiny church in Rocky Hill,” the town where he lived as a boy. While he has devoted the majority of his life to the church, Mr Yerrington spent a few years in advertising.

At the urging of his parents, Charles and Lillian, Mr Yerrington attended Pratt Institute in New York City and received a degree in 1951 in advertising. For a few years he worked for an ad agency in West Hartford.

“I think my parents thought it would be wise to make sure [becoming a pastor] what was I wanted to do. I also think they were wise to make sure I had a vocation outside the church,” Mr Yerrington said.

But something outside the business world was still pulling at him, and if he thought he was busy while working for that advertising agency, he was about to see even longer work weeks.

“If someone decides to go into the organized church, you’re looking at seven or eight years of schooling, and usually a few more years before you become fully ordained,” Mr Yerrington said. “It’s a profession that regularly requires 80 hours of your time each week.”

Mr Yerrington returned to school by the mid-1960s, this time to the University of Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history. The next six years were spent in studies at Yale Divinity School. At the same time Mr Yerrington also began his first work as a pastor. From 1954 until 1960, he served as the student pastor at South Methodist Church in Middletown. He also completed his seminary studies in 1960.

In September 1964, Dick Yerrington married Penelope White. The couple eventually had three children, Matthew, Adam, and Sarah, and are now the grandparents to four children. Earlier this fall, the couple celebrated its 40th wedding anniversary.

Pastor Yerrington’s next appointment was at Unionville United Methodist Church (now named Unionville-Avon Memorial United Methodist Church), a post that lasted 18 years.

Next he served as pastor for Golden Hill UMC in Bridgeport, where he remained for 17 years before beginning work as chaplain of The United Methodist Home in Shelton, which not only included visits to residents in the Shelton location but also Sharon and Farmington, among others.

By that time Mr Yerrington was entertaining thoughts of retirement, and that’s just what he did… temporarily. When he heard that Trumbull Congregational Church was seeking an interim pastor he offered to help and was hired for that post. That kept Mr Yerrington busy for nearly two more years.

Dick Yerrington and his wife Penny live in Beacon Falls, which means the associate pastor has a 20- to 25-minute commute to Sandy Hook. He isn’t working full-time at the church, but has become very active nevertheless.

“I’m still finding my way,” he said, “seeing how I can help relieve Reverend Terry [Pfeiffer, the church’s pastor] and Deacon Sue Klein. I’m hoping to do more with introducing new people to the congregation, and I see my role as simply expanding the ministry here.”

He participates in the worship services, which at NUMC are held on Sunday mornings at 8 and 10. He will be preaching occasionally, and will be contacting new people for the church’s membership, which currently includes more than 600 members.

In his spare time Mr Yerrington enjoys painting. He works mostly in oils, and primarily creates landscapes or buildings. He is a member of Salt Water Artists, a gallery in Pemaquid Point, Maine, and exhibits his work when he is invited to do so. The Yerringtons have a summer home in New Harbor, Maine.

He is very welcoming to those who wander into the church to talk, and seems to have been very well received already by the who have had the time to introduce themselves during the past six weeks.

His employment with Newtown United Methodist Church is open-ended. And that’s good, because the members of the charming little church near the base of Church Hill Road should have time to get to know the very cheerful man who has been sent to help them.

“I will be here until they or I decide it’s time to move on,” Mr Yerrington said. “I’m really excited about this church.”