Neighbors

Loan Delivers Both Sermons and the Mail

With two United Methodist churches in town, Pastor Steve Loan conducts two services each Sunday morning.

And when Communion Sundays come around, Loan includes in each service his own solo hymn.

Loan’s voice alone could draw worshippers—he even performed at the Last Friday Coffeehouse,  last Friday, with a secular set of folk songs.

But the regular churchgoers appreciate him for his message. He takes just a few moments after his Prospect Harbor service, at 9 a.m., to have coffee and conversation, then heads for another service, at the Gouldsboro church on Old Route 1, at 11 a.m.

Loan also is known around town as the one who delivers the mail. Between serving the two congregations on Sundays, handling funerals, weddings and counseling, and delivering mail to about 300 homes during the week, Loan has one of the more unusual perspectives on the community.

“I have to work more than one job, which is what many people in Maine do,” Loan said. “The churches are too small to afford a full-time pastor, and we also don’t have a parsonage.

“But because I have now been here for nine years, these congregations have become churches, instead of just chapels.”

Indeed, nine years of a dedicated, year-round pastor for the sister churches has allowed for some real community dynamics to develop.

Until October 2000, Loan even was pastor for a third, nearby Methodist church in North Sullivan. But that congregation got down to an elderly four, and the church folded rather than continue.

Before Loan moved Downeast from upstate New York, the two Gouldsboro churches also had dwindling congregations. They were served by various pastors taking turns out of the Bangor Theological Seminary. None of them lived locally.

Since Loan and his wife, Sharon, moved to Winter Harbor, the churches have built back to steady numbers. Prospect Harbor averages about 45 on a Sunday. Gouldsboro draws about 22.

Moreover, the churches today provide many programs besides Sunday services. Loan leads Bible study and youth group meetings, both once a week and drawing from both churches.

The Gouldsboro church, he said, has a membership mostly of local people. And the Prospect Harbor church has mostly those who are from away.

There are 14 or 15 students who come to the youth group each Sunday evening. Notably, Loan says, only about half of the teens are from families that belong to the churches.

“Kids that age have a lot of questions. They are still kids, you know. They are looking for answers in their lives, and they may find some of those in youth group.

“We always end in a prayer circle. And while some kids pray that they get good grades or the team wins, there are also prayers for someone’s aunt’s cancer.”

Loan, who turned 60 two weeks ago, didn’t start in the ministry until age 47. He was a pastor for four years in New York before coming to Maine for the Bangor Theological Seminary.

 Today, in addition to delivering both sermons and the mail, he serves on the Winter Harbor School Committee. He is starting on his fourth year in that position.

Getting involved and living locally, Loan said, has made all the difference in the churches’ developments.

“And now that I have been here for nine years, the churches have become more steady in peoples’ lives.

 “Both churches are growing, and the goal is for both to become full-time churches. We are beginning to look for ways to reach out to the community, to go outside the doors.”

The addition of a community room to the Prospect Harbor church six years ago has made that church a regular meeting place for other groups.

Up on Old Route 1, the Gouldsboro church expanded three years ago with a kitchen. Now that membership can host eight or 10 bean suppers a year.

And, do the people turn out! The last dinner at the Old Route 1 church fed 150 people, the most ever. The last turnout in Prospect Harbor was 120.

“These church suppers are as much a meeting place as they are a meal,” Loan said. “People come to sit, talk and visit.”

Not surprisingly, Loan puts on an apron to help every time there’s a dinner in town.

“These dinners are absolutely necessary in summer to raise the funds for the church the rest of the year,” he said.

“They are a lot of work, and it would be nice if we didn’t have to do so many. But that’s life in a small church.”

Or two.