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To Chassahowitzka - from Germany

A pastor comes from a Southern Baptist church in Munich that served 32 nationalities. His congregants there were too liberal, he says, but those here are a little too complacent.

By GAIL HOLLENBECK
Published July 15, 2006

CHASSAHOWITZKA - Peter Duncan has had several cultural changes in his life. Coming to Citrus County to become the pastor of First Baptist Church of Chassahowitzka is one of them.

"I would say it's a slower pace here," Duncan said. "Coming from Munich, where I've been for 3 years, it's like being in New York or San Francisco. It's very fast paced and very cosmopolitan there. Florida is more laid back."

Duncan, 67, was born in Germany and began his seminary training there and in Switzerland. He emigrated to Canada in 1963 to attend college, completing a three-year course in one year.

He continued his education while serving in Baptist churches and earned doctorates in divinity and philosophy. Before coming to Florida in 1982, he served churches in London, Toronto, Edmonton and Chicago.

In Florida, Duncan ministered in Pasco County before accepting the call to a Southern Baptist church in Germany.

"We were an American church in Munich," Duncan said. "We had 32 different nationalities and had services in English and French. It was very interesting. I learned so much."

One-third of Duncan's congregants were Africans.

"When they participate in the service, they wear their native dress and they dance and sing," he said. "We can have a choir but there are 20 people in the choir all going in different directions and singing and acting out what they are singing. This was very, very interesting and very natural and very wholesome. It was also very well received."

Duncan said he will miss the festive celebrations at the Munich church.

"When the festive seasons came around, like Christmas, they would all bring their food and their customs and show their love and appreciation. It was just indescribable, very beautiful."

Duncan said there are not many Baptists in Germany.

"And the Baptists that are in Germany are very liberal," he said. "I'm saying this very unhappily. We had many visitors who said, no, this is too homespun, this is too closely knit, we don't like this.

"In European eyes from an ecclesiastical point of view, we are much too conservative. The European mentality is much more intellectual, much more historical, geopolitical and philosophical."

Duncan said Europeans look at Americans as being "not quite with it."

"(They think) we have lost our edge here in North America. Because I speak fluent German, they had a little more respect for me, but most foreigners speak German poorly, and if you don't speak French, German and English well in Europe, you are not taken seriously."

Duncan speaks several European languages fluently. He has also studied Greek and Hebrew.

Because he studied theology in Europe, he is familiar with the writings of liberal theologians. His own views, though, are very different.

"My point of view is a conservative theology," he said, "the literal interpretation of the Bible, the coming again of Christ, that Jesus was born of a virgin, the blood atonement, all of these things. In Germany, they don't appreciate my point of view, although I understand their point of view and I understand their anxiety and I know what they want, but I disagree."

Duncan said going to church is not high on the priority list in Germany.

"Europe in general and Germany in particular is almost anticlerical. It is not the thing to go to church. You go to church when you get married, when Grandpa dies and for confirmation, and that is really it. The Bible is not all that important. That kind of radical liberalism is not in the United States, and happily so."

Had it not been for administration problems with the German government, Duncan and his wife, Hilda, would have stayed longer in Munich.

"They are really clamping down on immigration," he said. "So I decided it was time to retire."

With retirement in mind, becoming the pastor of another church was not what Duncan had planned when he left Munich.

"The Lord wanted it differently," he said. "There was an open door and there was the desire on my part to minister, so the two met."

On Mother's Day, he began his new ministry to the church in Chassahowitzka.

Duncan said the Lord has guided him in his ministerial appointments.

"I sensed a real leading of the Lord, the spirit of God, in September 2002 to leave for Europe and minister there. It was not without fear and trepidation. One is always mindful of the fact that one is serving the Lord. But things worked out well and things will work out well here, too."

Coming here was also God's idea, he said.

"It was very definite because I did not make any attempt to send out resumes or anything like that. My friends in the ministry came to me and said I was too vigorous to retire and asked me if I had heard of Chassahowitzka.

"I said no. I didn't know where that was. I'm (living) only 38 miles south of there (in Holiday). Then things developed. Sometimes things sort of come your way."

Duncan said this area of Florida is even more "laid back" than what he previously experienced.

"I think it is a little too relaxed here," he said. "Where I've recently come from (in Munich), people are very enthusiastic and very energetic and have great demands upon their pastors and other professionals.

"So it's a little bit of an adjustment, but I'm enjoying the ministry here. It's a beautiful little congregation. They have had a very good pastor. They are preaching the Gospel."

Having given up his own retirement plans, Duncan plans to urge his new congregation to keep working as well.

"I don't think Christians have any business being laid back," he said. "That kind of mentality, I think we have to gradually, and I underline gradually, change.

"Not today and tomorrow, but maybe after Labor Day weekend we will have to make some changes. It will be work. We will be doing visitation. We'll have some social outreach. Nothing will be accomplished here unless we are doing it."

Meanwhile, plans are under way for a dinner and program July 30 that will be open to the community.

"My goal is primarily to have a younger church membership," Duncan said, noting that the average age in the church is 71.

"There are new communities springing up all around us and we must get into those communities with the Gospel, with our presence, with our social services, with everything we have."

[Last modified July 14, 2006, 19:48:37]