PENDLETON – Don Fuller and his wife, Ethel, arrived in Pendleton in time to conduct worship services at the First Baptist Church on the first Sunday in August.

Fuller, who grew up in the Yakima Valley, said he feels like he has “come home” to Pendleton. He left the Yakima Valley in 1950 to attend college in Idaho and then in Portland. From Portland, he moved to Cheyenne, Wyo., in 1980. He attended Colorado Christian University in Denver, Northwest Nazarene College and Denver Seminary among other colleges and universities. Although he is ordained in the American Baptist Church, he said he prefers not to be known for the initials behind his name.

“I like to be a friend,” he said, “not an acquaintance. Ministry – pastoring – is fun. Although I’m old enough to retire, retire is not in the Bible. I’m having too much fun doing what I do.”

He lists fishing and hunting among his hobbies, but said he has been fishing only once in the last five years and that people don’t really like to go hunting with him because he has been known to sit in a lawn chair and drink coffee and talk to hunters who walk through without ever actually going out hunting.

Fuller said he also loves to read and keep up on current events as well as contemporary religious issues. His favorite authors are C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton.

“I do not take myself seriously,” he said. “What I do, I take very seriously.”

Fuller most recently served the Smoky Home Baptist Church in Aurora, Colo. Prior to that, he was in Jackson and Cheyenne, Wyo., and in Denver. He and his wife have three grown sons in Portland and a grown daughter in Houston.

Fuller said he’s enjoying working in a church smaller than others he has pastored.

“This church has great potential with its group of very caring and loving people,” he said. “I think pastoring this church will be an awesome and wonderful experience.”

Among his goals for the First Baptist Church are becoming an effective witness for Christ in the community. He was reluctant to list a specific plan for achieving that goal because, he said, he wants to learn more about the area and fit the activities to the community.

“We need to grow a little to carry out some ministries,” he said. “The congregation needs a song director, choir leader and someone to work with youth.”

Fuller plans to be here to help the parish work through a three- to five-year re-start program, he said.

“I’m ecumenical in thinking, but conservative in theology,” he said. “We will work with other American Baptist churches in the area.”

Sunday morning worship services at 11 will remain fairly traditional and open to everyone with the possibility of a contemporary service at a different time or day.

“I find that the Lord gets his work done in spite of, not because of me,” Fuller said.

For more information, contact the church office at 265-2551, or 3202 S.W. Nye.

Contact Community Editor Sandy Holtz at 1-800-522-0255 (ext. 1-225 after hours) or e-mail: sholtz@eastoregonian.com.