RSS Feed
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
MEET YOUR SPIRITUAL LEADER
In order to give appropriate recognition to the spiritual leaders Pastor Felix Busby Canarsie Community Reformed Church By Skye Holly Glancing at a framed black and white photograph in his office, Pastor Felix Busby, of the Canarsie Commu-nity Reformed Church, is taken back in his mind’s eye to his childhood. It is a familiar scene that would one day repeat itself in his own life. The photo shows his father, a preacher, sitting at a kitchen table preparing a sermon beside his wife, Busby’s mother. "I never thought that would be me," Busby reflects. "I left the church at 18. I was a big man." Originally from Curacao, West Indies, Felix Busby was a mechanical engineer by trade. His occupation allowed him many travel opportunities and because Busby was always attracted to change and new experiences, he took them. He came to the United States at 25 with his wife and family and started a new life. After many years, another opportunity presented itself when he started attending church again. One Sunday morning, the pastor asked "Do you want to read a scripture in church?" and Busby, not thinking anything of it, agreed to. "A week or two later," Busby remembers, "he asked me if I wanted to go to a seminary! I said I wasn’t bargaining for that. I was only interested in reading a scripture!" Still, opening himself up to the possibility of this new change, Busby found himself enrolling in a 2-year seminary program. He would come to obtain his Master’s of Divinity from the Eastern Baptist Theological Se-minary in PA. Interestingly enough, what attracted him to his program of study was the school’s focus on Per-sonal and Community Transforma-tion. In 1997, Felix Busby was ap-proached to put his love of change to use. Pastor Robert Robinson of the Canarsie Reformed Church was retiring and merging his congregation with the Community Reformed Church of Starrett City. Busby was the associate minister at the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church when he was of-fered the position of pastoring what would become Canarsie Community Reformed Church. He accepted the position, embarking on yet another series of changes. "Coming into someone else’s house is not always easy. Sometimes changes have to be made and when you are trying to implement change, it can be looked at in different ways. But the people here have allowed for some changes," Pastor Busby shares. Some of those changes have in-cluded the implementation of prayer meetings and interior reconstruction to the sanctuary. One of the most significant was the opening of the altar space, which had been left untouched since 1932. It was previously covered by a blocked stage and railings, but Pastor Busby suggested that it be removed to give the congregation a place to pray whenever they wanted. He also hopes to introduce programs to mentor young adults, substance abusers, and single parents in the future. "I’m not perfect. I’m far from that," Busby feels. "I am still learning. I am still growing. I know that. But I am striving to serve the Lord the best that I can," he says. At Can-arsie Community Reformed Church and in his personal life, Pastor Busby looks forward to the change he will experience that will better enable him to help people — the same way his father thought as he would prepare sermons for the community he was called to, from the kitchen table in Curacao. Change is good for the soul.
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||
)
