A steady chord: First Presbyterian’s retiring pastor has melded music and ministry through life’s challenges and rewards

The Rev. David Spaulding will retire after 31 years in the ministry, the last 13 spent with First Presbyterian Church in Dixon. He has been involved in the local Habitat for Humanity and with the Clinton Symphony Orchestra. The church plans to help move his extensive library to his private home. It will then have a reception in his honor 2 p.m. Sunday at its social hall.

He shared some of his thoughts on his vocation and time in Dixon in this Q&A.

Q. In what ways has your ministry in Dixon been rewarding for you and your family?

One thing that I’ve found especially rewarding have been times when members of the church became passionate about meeting a particular need in the community, and took off with it. In the early 2010s we formed a task force we called Building Bridges to Children. Over the next few years members of church served as volunteer mentors at Washington School, hosted the summer Traveling Day Camp offered by Stronghold Camp and Conference Center, provided children’s games during the Scarecrow Festival, and were involved in the beginnings of the Buddy Bags program. Later, a group of members who are avid gardeners, along with some other members of the Dixon community, founded Dixon Community Gardens. It has been a very effective stewardship of the green space adjacent to our church building, and has served many people in the community.

On the more personal side, two particular blessings come to mind. When we moved to Dixon in 2010, we brought with us our younger daughter, Christine, just as she was beginning her senior year in high school. It’s a difficult time to make a move like that, but she was welcomed with open arms by her teachers and peers at Dixon High School and had a very successful senior year. In 2016, my wife, Lorri, was diagnosed with cancer. The people of First Presbyterian Church and my pastor colleagues of the Dixon Area Christian Ministerial Association became a true family for us through Lorri’s years of treatments, hospice care, and her death at the end of 2018. They walked with me through my grief and helped me get back on my feet again.

Q. Regarding your involvement in Habitat, do you have a fond memory or two when a family received their new home?

My main role with Habitat has been on the Homeowner Selection Committee. It’s been an eye-opening experience in many ways to discover how many people in Dixon live in inadequate or unsafe conditions, and how difficult it is for many to qualify even for Habitat’s program. I’ve had the honor of participating in my role as a pastor in several joyful new home dedications. But the greatest reward has been sitting on the board and seeing our homeowners succeed in the long term, paying off their mortgages and overcoming financial struggles to thrive in their homes.

Q. Were there any particular events in your preparation for ministry or early career that prompted accepting a call in Dixon?

I think my call to Dixon came through a confluence of several things in my life and ministry experience. I grew up in a rural community in Western New York and have lived and worked in rural places most of my adult life. My background as a musician and a scholar (doctorate in New Testament studies) were a great fit with what the Dixon church was looking for. The pieces just fit together perfectly here.

Q. What are your plans after you step down? How will you continue to serve God?

My immediate plan is to take a few months off, to take a sabbatical of sorts. It’s my first really significant break from ministry in the past 30-plus years. I will continue to live in Dixon for the next several years. I’ll continue my volunteer and musical activities. As a Presbyterian, I’m a member of the Presbytery of Blackhawk, and through that body there will be opportunities to serve the churches in our Presbyterian family as a substitute preacher or in part-time interim capacities. Through my presbytery connection, I’ve been to Kenya three times on mission trips. That’s something I hope to be able to do again, too.

Q. You play the cello. Is there a symmetry or connection to ministry and music?

I’ve played the cello since I was in fourth grade, except for a gap through the 1980s when I didn’t have an instrument. As I was leaving seminary, someone advised me that it’s important for a pastor to have something in his or her life that has no connection to the church. Throughout my years as a pastor I’ve played with community groups of various kinds. Shortly after coming to Dixon, I connected with the Clinton Symphony Orchestra and have been a regular in the cello section ever since. I also play occasionally with the Muscatine Symphony in Iowa.

Church music has always been a big part of my life, too. Sometimes I play solos in church services (there’s a video on YouTube of our Jan. 22 service in which I played several pieces as the sermon for the day: https://youtu.be/aPmYOurLoAY) I also sing in the choir and accompany the congregation sometimes on guitar, and sing the occasional solo (https://youtu.be/k2-tzjGlGZw). Every now and then I just burst out in song during a sermon.

In my former community, I had a friend who was a professional violinist. She and I would talk sometimes about faith and church, although she had dropped out early in her life. She was asked to play for the funeral of one of my church members, and after the service, she commented to me that she could see a connection between leading worship and performing music. There’s an artistic aspect that connects the two. So, without giving any real conscious thought to it my musical experience has enhanced what I do in the pulpit.

Q. Delivering sermons is a big part of a local pastor’s duties. What will you miss about it?

Sometimes the weekly routine can be a bit of grind: times when I feel dry and uninspired. Despite that, my life has been structured for so long around the weekly cycle of study, preparation, and preaching that I know that I’ll miss it before long.

Early in my ministry I decided that my goal in the pulpit shouldn’t be to try to create a feast every week, but to provide a good nutritious diet from God’s word week after week. I think my strength as a preacher has been to get people thinking about familiar things in new ways. I’ve found that I can never predict what will connect with congregants on a given Sunday. Sometimes when I’ve struggled with what to say about a text and feel unsatisfied with the message, I get the most comments that something has really touched or provoked someone.

Although I have roughly 30 years of sermons in my files, I hardly ever return to the old ones. Every time I come to a text I want to come to it fresh.

If there’s anything that has become a theme through my last decade or so in ministry, it’s that there’s are a lot more gray areas in the life of faith that I thought when I was younger. There’s so much to God and God’s ways that I don’t understand! But I’ve also come to know that there is something deep and faithful about God’s love that remains constant even when I can’t see it or maybe even feel it.