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Community Corner

Warren Walrath, Return of the Retired Reverend

His calling never quite seems to be done, and the congregation at First Christian Church of Chicago Heights couldn't be more grateful.

The Rev. Warren Walrath didn’t expect to spend his retirement being a temporarily shepherd to a flock at the. Walrath didn’t know he would fall in love with the people that do so much for the church. 

“This is a great bunch of people," said Walrath. "One of the understandings when you take an interim is that you are not eligible to be the called pastor. This church on paper is everything my wife and I were looking for"

But Walrath may have missed another calling. His sense of humor is good enough to be on Comedy Central.

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“I’m from Michigan. The last forty years, I was a CPA," said Walrath. "I had my own business for a quarter of a century. I was ordained several years ago, so I decided to sell my business and activate my credentials, which I did in 2001. My first calling was at a country church, after that my wife and I decided we would do this the rest of my retirement, I’m only 75! I am so old that I have less than seventeen years of ministry left.”

Patch: How long have you been in Chicago Heights? 

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Rev. Walrath: Since October 10, and I expect to be here until the Ides of March.

What has been your most important contribution ?  

My job coming to the First Christian Church of Chicago Heights is to prod, push and pry.  The congregation is in the process of looking at who they are and what they want to keep and what they would like to do in the future. We are holding visioning meetings, to bring the people in and get their views. We came up with a six-page summary. 

In September, we will sit down and seek to put on paper a vision of what this congregation they want to do and be. It’s hard to tell which direction this congregation will go.

What has been the church’s important contribution? 

For twenty years this church has had the PADS  homeless ministry in the fellowship hall every Monday night. In that 20-year history, it’s involved 15 to 20 people from First Christian Church.

They really didn’t look to do anything else in the community, because it’s needed.  I’m convinced that a church that expands itself in the community, seeks to make points of contact in the community, will stay alive and growing. If people see a ministry they want to be a part of, the money will be there for it.  Within this congregation we have a conservative end and we have a liberal end and most of us teeter in the center. I know a lot of churches that wouldn’t even think of contaminating their facility with homeless people.

Who are some of your notable members of your congregation? 

We’re good old common folks. We have a lot of social security members. We have members that are on or near the edge of welfare. We have a good spectrum. We are having our annual meeting soon.

I’m going to recognize the people that do that million dollars worth of effort. I’m going to award them with candy bars. We have three members who do a lot of volunteer work around the church. For them, they get a 3 Musketeers (candy bar). Then the treasurer, who does an enormous job, a "thank you" job, he’s going to get a Payday. Because he is a hunk of a man, I’m going to give him a king-sized one.

One of the other candy bars I’m giving out is the Big Chew. In every church there is one person who sees the need and grabs a hold of it. They will never say no and ends up with a lot on her plate. She gets the Big Chew. Her name is Patricia Paulsen. She is the church’s rep for PADS, plays the church organ and is at every church activity that goes on. She is also out in the community doing things. She is the daughter of a minister that was here in the 1930’s.

Tell us a special story about your congregation.  

We are an open church. We accept people from all walks of faith. I would suspect that almost unanimously when Christ was on the cross, he wasn’t checking the sexual orientation that he was saving. The Disciples of Christ are the only true American denomination. They split from the Presbyterian Church because of all the hair splitting on doctrine. The only creed is Christ . If you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that’s all they ask for membership.  We have weekly communion, we have baptism by immersion but will accept into membership anyone who has been baptized in any form. We see to it that we remember what our Lord did for us. Anyone is welcome to have communion. We exclude no one from the table.  The concept is that Christ is the host of the table and he doesn’t exclude anyone. This congregation may be middle of the road to liberal. We’re struggling to put scripture into meaningful Phraseology.

Final Comments.

We tend to have four stages in Christianity. We have stage one Christians, they tend to read their bible literally. Then you make it to stage three, to a wasteland where nothing is answered. Then stage four is where everything is harmonized. The preacher has to touch the people in all the stages.

Last Sunday, I was preaching level one, I titled it “In My Father's House," from John 14. Where is the coffin? Seems like there should be a coffin. For somebody who is grieving, they need reassurance. Stage two, they are looking at life and death questions. "What about those who didn’t know Jesus? What about those who deny? What about Hell?" I walked them through those questions and gave them harmony. Hell is a paraphrase. That is going to be my reaction when I meet my Lord.  That’s going to be hell. No, there is no fiery furnace. I would be disappointed if there was an eternal job of stroking a fiery furnace. I don’t like shoveling coal. I really think that God who went to all the effort of creating us, ain’t done with me. He ain’t done with anyone who doesn’t darken the doors of a church.

I’ve got two assurances: I’m sure he’s got an after-plan, and it’s going to be better than this one.

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