Pastor Rusty Davis
People’s United Methodist Church
By Kathleen Downey
Pastor Rusty Davis
Divine intervention brought Pastor Rusty Davis back home. Or at least, to Salisbury. The Byfield native had been presiding over three small churches in Maine, but he was still making the frequent trek back to the Newburyport area to visit family. It was during a return trek to Maine that he received a call on his cell phone from his district superintendent. “I pulled my car into the parking lot of East Parish United Methodist Church in Salisbury to take the call,” Davis recalls. “My superintendent asked me if I would be interested in relocating to a church closer to home.” That church turned out to be the East Parish. “I’m in the parking lot right now!” Davis answered. Six years later, Davis remains the pastor at East Parish. But of late, he’s also been hop scotching over to the Port. Since this past July, Davis has been pastor at the People’s United Methodist Church in the city’s South End.
“We are two separate churches, each with its own worship,” explains Davis, “but we work together in a shared ministry.” Davis has assumed the People’s pulpit of Pastor Pam Maden, his friend. “I knew there was a fear in the community of the People’s closing its doors once Pastor Maden retired,” says Davis. “So I spoke with my district superintendent and suggested that, whereas much of East Parish’s ministry takes place in the city of Newburyport—at Anna Jaques and in the city’s nursing homes, for example—that forming a shared ministry between the two churches would be a sound idea.” Davis’s superintendent agreed.
Pastor Davis smiles at the innocent misconception that his role is solely behind the pulpit. “Oh, ministry is much more than Sunday service,” he affirms. His days are filled with community service and outreach. He gives the previous Saturday as an example. Davis recalls, “In the morning, I performed a funeral service, then I traveled to the Middleton House of Correction where I visited with prisoners, and after that I drove to the Lawrence Correctional Alternative Center and ministered to prisoners there.” Without dismissing prisoners’ infractions against society, Davis’s humanitarian advocacy, in part, focuses on adequate housing for prisoners’ detention. And he is also there to listen and maybe help turn around a life.
“One of the most rewarding things about ministering is reaching out to people and being able to help them in one way or another,” Davis says. He enjoys ministering to the young as well as the elderly. It gives him great pleasure, he says, to meet individuals whom he counseled as teenagers who are now in their 30s “living a good life.” And he is there to listen to seniors who are going through trying life trials, such as caring for a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease.
“People are hurting today,” says Davis. “My job is to reach out to them in their sorrow and offer comfort.” He makes himself available to individuals who wish to talk and unburden themselves of their troubles. “Listening is key,” Pastor Davis says. He explains, “Whatever it is that a person is telling me in a moment, I let them know that this [topic] is the most important thing I’ve listened to. There is nothing too foolish for me to hear.” Davis pauses and adds, “I sincerely care.”
Caring for community on a larger scale is also within Davis’s scope of ministry. In a self-deprecating manner, Davis reveals that he serves on the Board of Directors for the Women in Transition Center, the Link House, the Pettengill House, and the Salisbury Council on Aging. He also serves as chaplain for the Byfield Fire Department, a post he’s held for the last 15 years.
Pastor Rusty Davis
Davis received “the calling” later in life, while working at the post office in Byfield. “One of my coworkers suggested that I would make a good Sunday school teacher. I thought he was crazy,” Davis laughs. Nevertheless, Davis ended up teaching Sunday school at the Community United Methodist Church of Byfield. Soon, people in the community were asking Davis if he had ever considered becoming a minister. He hadn’t. But his compassion for others, willingness to be there for people through difficult times, and his teaching abilities had not gone unnoticed.
One Sunday a visiting pastor, from Jamaica, Davis remembers, complimented Davis on his innate gifts for the ministry. During the service, pastor asked all those present who had ever felt a calling to the ministry to come forward. Davis remembers, “I didn’t want to get up, but it was as if the Spirit picked me up and pushed me forward. The next thing I knew, I was standing before the pastor.”
An early retirement from the U.S. Postal Service followed, and Davis entered seminary school. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I must be crazy to be hitting the books again at my age!’ But I was relieved to discover that I wasn’t the oldest student at seminary.”
Today, as the pastor of a shared ministry, Davis says, “The challenges are great. But if we focus on what’s going on in the world, we can get an idea of what people need and what we need to do to adapt and help people . . . and grow our congregations.” He uses the analogy of scripture. “My challenge each week is to preach from the pulpit a message that is relevant to today’s world by applying the scripture to this day and age.”
“I’m passionate about preaching,” Pastor Davis says. “But I preach to the congregation on their level. I let people know that whatever message I am delivering to them applies to me, too.” He lightly jabs his thumb to his chest, emphasizing this point. Pastor Davis adds that he is not a “hell and brimstone” preacher. Rather, he says that his ministry is based on love and a merciful God.
Davis’s passions outside the ministry are many. He collects lighthouses. “I like the beacon of light” message, the pastor says. The self-described “life-long bachelor” enjoys cooking (though less these days, he says, as he is not fond of cleaning up the mess). Music brings him great joy. “I’ve seen Bob Dylan at least 20 times,” Davis shares. He is also a huge fan of the Beatles and Neil Young. And Pastor Davis is a huge Boston sports fan. With that last revelation, it is the appropriate time—kickoff for the New England Patriots home opener—to end our interview.
Kathleen Downey is the Features Editor for Newburyport Today. If you are a townie or a citizen who would like to be profiled (or to suggest someone to profile), please email: Kathleen@Newburyport-Today.com.
