Kendall Park church finally chooses pastor
Michael Brown appointed after four-year vacancy
BY CHRIS MURINO Staff Writer

The Rev. Michael Brown

SOUTH BRUNSWICK - For four years, the members of the Kendall Park Baptist Church went without a pastor. Now, they finally have one of their own in the Rev. Michael Brown, who performed his first service on July 6.

If you told Brown 30 years ago that he would be a pastor, he never would have believed you. This is the third senior pastor job that he has held in the past 18 years.

Brown was raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and although he was a religious person, he did not expect to make a career out of it. He was happily working in the electrical field for Amtrak as a load dispatcher. However, around 1979 he began to change his views on religion.

"I first experienced the need to be born again, to be saved," Brown said. "We had four children at that point, and we were raising them in the church."

There were many reasons why Brown had a change in how he viewed religion, but there was one more significant one.

"I began to read the Bible," Brown said. "I really was searching for truth - are all religions the same? I was reading these things and it just raised questions. I had a desire to know the truth."

Brown spent time with a group of Mennonites, whom he compared to the Amish, although he said they have many differences.

"They live a very plain lifestyle," Brown said. "They don't have a lot of the trinkets many of us have. They love the Lord, they live for the Lord and they were a great influence in our life."

A few years after he began reading the Bible, he began serving as a deacon at the Bible Baptist Church in West Chester, Pa. He also served as an outreach coordinator, a Sunday School teacher and a youth program leader.

From 1986 through 1989, while still attending to his duties at the church, he enrolled in to Bible Baptist School of Theology, which was led by Dean Thomas Wolfe, who had served as the pastor of Kendall Park Baptist Church from 1980 until 1984. Brown completed the three-yearprogram, which was the equivalent of a Master of Divinity, even though the school has never applied for accreditation. Pastor Brown, after graduation, decided to become a full-time pastoral minister.

First, Brown went to Conewango Baptist Church near Jamestown, N.Y., where he was the pastor from 1990 until 1998. From there, he moved on to central Pennsylvania, at Emmanuel Baptist Church. He served there from 1998 until 2008. Then, after

a call from interim pastor Richard Harris, he arrived in Kendall Park.

Brown said he loves being a pastor.

"I love to see people respond to the word of God," he said. "That is the payday for a pastor. You can't put that into dollars and cents."

There's a flipside to this, however.

"When people just ignore the word of God,

it's disheartening," Brown said. "That's not fun. But, we don't give up on anybody. Sometimes you minister long and hard for someone and it's not until years later when people respond."

Kendall Park is a pretty diverse town and this is one thing Brown really likes about working there.

"I really see a real picture of heaven because of the multicultural background," Brown said. "People come from all over the world. It's a melting pot, which is, I think, a real picture of what heaven's going to be like."

However, there are some negatives about the area he is in now.

"It's transitory," Brown said. "People are not here forever."

Yet Brown really feels like this Kendall Park job fell into his lap.

"We were happy and content there in Pennsylvania," he said. "I talked with [interim pastor Harris.] I had not sent him my resume, there was none of that."

Brown feels that God simply led him here. In February, he came to meet the congregation. In May, the congregation voted unanimously to call Brown their pastor and he accepted their invitation. The congregation even made him a plaque with all of the "yes" votes scattered throughout it, signifying what a unanimous choice he was.

His first service went smoothly. He has a style that he would say is spirited and excited. He mentions the saying "There's no fire in the pew, because there's no fire in the pulpit." Brown uses notes but tries to speak from his heart for the most part.

"We have to be convinced of it," Brown said. "If you get up there and try to preach on something that you're not living, it won't work. I get excited because it's something to get excited about."

It has been a great start for Brown and he hopes nothing changes.

"It was a very, very special day for us here at Kendall Park Baptist Church," he said. "I'm ecstatic about it, and the people seem to be very happy as well. I hope the honeymoon can go on forever."