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Forks pastor finds community relationships key

Warren Johnson, pastor of Forks First Congregational United Church of Christ on the Olympic Peninsula, is amazed how he became a pastor in the community where he grew up.

“God took a church janitor and made him the pastor,” he said, offering the example of what God did in his life to inspire others.

Warren Johnson is with his wife Cathy at Annual Meeting.

In September, he was the first pastor ordained at the church in 122 years.

He is building the church through his relationships with people in his involvements in such community programs as the West End Business Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Food Bank and Forks Community Hospital.

Warren, who has attended the church regularly since 1985, felt called to ministry in 2008.

That year, the church was down to six members with $20,000 in the bank, in a building with a diesel furnace, plaster falling off the walls and single-paned windows. He became a lay pastor, was licensed in 2014 and was ordained in September 2024.

“Small churches need bi-vocational ministers they can afford to pay,” he said.

Warren worked in the woods industry until he was 30, cut meat until he was 40, studied and then taught computer classes at Peninsula College until he was 50. Soon after he was called to ministry, he became a corrections officer with the Corrections Department. Sixteen years later, in 2023, he retired to complete his ordination requirements and focus on the ministry.

The church was founded in 1902 and moved into its current building in 1955. The church then had 300 members but split and half left when the church voted to join the UCC, Warren said. Others joined Lutheran, Bible, Methodist and Disciples churches. The rest of the decline came from deaths.

Now the church has 35 members with 50 attending worship and 16 attend a Sunday Bible study before church in recent weeks.

“Since 2008, we have put $400,000 and a labor of love into the church, adding a heat pump, a new roof, double-paned windows and several coats of paint. This summer, volunteers helped put in a new lawn and sprinkler system,” he said. “Now it is fixed up and used every day of the week.”

Forks is a town of 3,000 people with 13 churches.

“Being across from the high school, we are the church that does the most in the community, so many see us as the community church,” he said.

The church’s outreach includes a food pantry emptied daily by families in need, homeless people, high school students who come after school and high school students who are couch surfing and take food to families they are staying with.

In late September, the food bank received a $6,150 grant from Haller Foundation to stock food. It spends about $500 a month for food, said Warren, who is president of the food bank board.

The church recently fed about 350 people for its annual Harvest Dinner, which raised $3,800 for nonprofits that meet at the church.

“In November, we filled 400 food baskets, and 374 families received them,” he said. “We usually serve 330 families a month.”

Nonprofits at the church include Grief Support Group, Soroptimist Women’s Group, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, West End Business Association, Clallam County Management, Sarge Place for veterans, Senior Lunch second Wednesdays, Volunteer Fairs, Santa’s Breakfast with Kids, free movies and more.

The building is available free for activities, groups and events.

“If an indigent person dies and there is no money for loved ones to bury him or her, we sponsor the service,” Warren continued.

“Many who do not go to church consider us their church because we welcome all, no matter where they are on their life journey,” he said.

“Many visit, come back and then attend regularly, glad that we are a liberal church or glad that we are a conservative church or glad that we focus on building a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” he said.

Warren also builds relationships ono Thursdays as hospital chaplain, praying staff at 8 a.m., visiting acute care patients at 9 a.m., Thursdays and leading a Bible study for residents at the long-term care facility at 10 a.m.

At the hospital and care facility, he often sings with people.

“Sunday is for God and God’s Word. Sermons are to lift spirits and feed people,” he said. “This is my fifth time through the lectionary. I have a file of my sermons, so I review them to keep offering fresh ideas.”

Much of Warren’s time is spent counseling people.

“People need someone to listen to them. With all the tech, they spend too much time on their phones. I meet with people face to face,” he said. “I help people deal with grief to move them from letting their loss consume them so their grief grows smaller so they can move on in life.

“Grief may be from losing a job or a traumatic event, not just death. If people do not deal with their small traumas, a big trauma can overwhelm them,” said Warren, who has had training in grief, trauma and elder abuse counseling.

“I love being a small-town pastor, but I can’t go to a store often, because someone is always coming up and asking me to pray for or with them,” Warren explained.

Now 68, he said people sometimes ask how long he will be a pastor. His response is “When the Lord done with me.”

For information, call 360-374-9382 or email wrjfork@hotmail.com.

 

Pacific Northwest Conference United Church News © December 2024

 

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