OCEAN CITY — After decades under the leadership of John Sheldon, First Presbyterian Church in Ocean City welcomed a new pastor in the middle of the summer.
Senior Pastor Luke Bert, installed in mid-July, sat down with the Sentinel to talk about his beliefs, his priorities, what attracted him to Ocean City and what congregants can expect from him.
Born in Ransom, a small town near Scranton, Pa., he began his career as a youth director, attended Belhaven University and Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Miss., and taught Bible at Belhaven for a year before moving his family to Quebec to serve as missionaries.
He worked as a professor at SEMBEQ, an Evangelical Baptist Seminary in Montreal, and helped plant the first Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) church in Quebec.
He and his wife Rebekah, who met at the Jersey shore at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference on Long Beach Island, have four children — Matthias, Saranna, Kara and Étienne.
A change from
missionary work
Pastor Luke, as he prefers to be called, said the primary motivation to come to Ocean City “was a desire to have my family engaged in the life of the local church. … We were missionaries before and we moved around a lot. It’s rewarding but demanding work and it takes a toll on the family.”
He said the eight years they were missionaries “was wonderful, but I could see it in my kids; they were longing to be more connected. That’s something I’ve seen about First Pres.”
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He called First Presbyterian “a connected church” because multiple generations of families make up the congregation.
“I think it’s been the most rewarding thing that we came here and we found a beautiful community and it’s just a wonderful place to serve,” Pastor Luke said. “I also have a deep passion for those who hold fast to physical fidelity in difficult situations.”
He explained under the leadership of Sheldon and other members, the church was committed to teach the Word of God while the “culture was going in a very different direction.
“I found that very admirable and felt it would be something that’d be rewarding to be a part of,” he said.
This summer, First Presbyterian broke from the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and joined the Presbyterian Church of America, a more conservative branch.
Pastor Luke explained the PCA motto, that it is a denomination “faithful to scripture, true to the Reformed Faith and committed to the Great Commission.” Those are the things, he said, “that are the most important to a vital church.”
“We are faithful to the scripture in our preaching. We don’t preach politics. I’m never going to tell somebody who to vote for, or what social agendas are best. I’m going to preach God’s Word,” he said. “Now, God’s Word does impact our life, and so there will be application that you can make in your individual life, but the message is always going to be what the message or scripture is.”
He added that the Reformed Faith is a specific branch of the church that holds to the “doctrines of grace.”
“We believe that God is in control, that He cares for His people, and that He has one plan of salvation from the very beginning to the very end. And of course, the Great Commission, that mandate to go out into the world and to preach the gospel,” the pastor said.
“There are things that the church has been doing for 130 years.”
A welcoming experience
Pastor Luke said the welcome he and his family have received has been “absolutely wonderful.”
When they first arrived this summer, his family went through a bit of a hard time with medical issues with one of his sons.
“We were just blown away by the love that the church showed to us. People showing up, people bringing meals and gift cards to restaurants,” he said. “My son has been asking me, ‘Why are so many people writing me cards?’ He’s getting cards saying, ‘we’re praying for you, we’re thinking about you.’
“I think that’s the thing that stands out of this church is that you know if you come here, you’re going to be cared for. People notice you, people want to get to know you. It’s a caring church.”
Facilitating discussion
Asked about his preaching style, Pastor Luke said he acts as a type of go-between.
“I always see myself as kind of facilitating discussion between the people and God’s Word,” he said. If congregants are reading a passage, he wants to know their questions, things that may be confusing to them so he can explain.
“I’m not much of a story guy. I do use illustrations and a bit of humor, but mostly I want to help people to read the Bible for themselves,” he said.
“I have a great passion for youth and children being engaged in the service. And so if I was a 10-year-old reading this passage, what words don’t I understand? I want to say what the text says, and then I want to say it in a way that answers the questions that people are asking.”
Pastor Luke said the first duty of any pastor is preaching God’s Word.
“That’s not just a Sunday morning kind of thing. That’s people stopping by the office and asking questions, ‘Hey, Pastor, here is a prayer request I had. And you know what, I had this question, we were wrestling with this situation. What do you think God’s Word has to say about that?’”
Preaching God’s Word, he said, “is this whole week kind of thing, whether it’s preparing for my Sunday morning service or how I’m engaging with people throughout the week.”
Another priority is an extension of daily preaching — pastoral care. He said one of his main tasks in his initial few weeks was getting to know his congregants.
“I’m trying to learn all everybody’s names. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in their lives. I want to visit people, I want to get to know them,” the pastor said. “My wife and I are very committed to hospitality, and so we try to have people into our home regularly. We had some of my son’s teachers over for lunch.”
Those are his two main aspects: preaching God’s Word and hospitality and caring.
Taking over from a
long-serving pastor
Asked how it has been taking over from Pastor Sheldon, who was at the church more than 34 years, Pastor Luke saw good things and some challenges.
He cited the established relationships, coming to a church “where people have been doing life together for decades. That’s very much a blessing.
“I don’t have to exhort everybody, ‘hey, you better start caring for each other.’ They’re already doing that. That’s definitely an advantage to coming into a church that has been going strong under good leadership for such a long time,” he said.
He noted some congregants, who are in their 60s, have told him they’ve only had three pastors in their lifetimes.
“That’s an incredible testimony to the church, that it is a church that stays together, right? A pastor comes, sticks around, does life with people, so they become integrated. We’re not a kind of church that I’m going to be here for three years until something better comes along,” Pastor Luke said.
However, he noted, “There’s definitely challenges.
“I am definitely not John Sheldon. I’ve got a very different background. I was raised Methodist and went all around different denominations. I was a missionary in Canada, a French speaker, so I’ve got lots of different kind of contexts,” he said.
“But I’ve been well received and I haven’t felt like anyone’s comparing me to Pastor John, at least not in a negative way,” Pastor Luke said.
“It’s been a good experience stepping into that connectivity while people have been patient with me and saying, ‘OK, it’s going to be a bit different.’”
He also pointed to the culture shift for his family.
“My kids are definitely French Canadian in their culture, so that’s been a bit of a shock just being in America,” he said. “I think the way that impacts me and our family and my preaching is that I’m very accustomed to engaging with people who are entirely opposed to Christianity and entirely from a very postmodern secular mindset — that’s what I’m used to.
“I spent many years where every one of my neighbors was not a Christian. And so every conversation was a conversation about why are you different than everybody else in this town?” he said. “I think the kind of the way that impacts our family is that we’re accustomed to just always being ready to explain what Christian faith is.”
An invitation: Why
come to First Pres
“I think people should come here because the church is not a social club. You can find social clubs all over the city and all over our communities, and those are wonderful things,” the pastor said. “You want to do yoga, you want to join a gym, you want to do these kind of things to have community, that’s wonderful.”
That’s not why to come to First Presbyterian.
“You join a church because you believe that there’s value in the truth of scripture and that’s something you’re going to find here. You’re going to find a group of people who are dedicated to understanding and applying God’s Word in their lives,” he said. “We’re not going to compromise in the sense that we’re going to hold to what God’s Word says.”
After being a missionary in “a very secular culture,” Pastor Luke said he’s “gotten used to presenting God’s Word in a way that that’s winsome.
“I’d hope people would feel, if you come here, that I have my convictions, they are the convictions of the Presbyterian Church in America — that faithfulness to scripture, true to the Reformed Faith. God gave the Great Commission, that’s my conviction,” he said.
“And yet I’m not going to be pushing someone to accept all of my positions as the standard for entering the community. I have people who vastly disagree with me, and I’m fine with that.
“I worked with many different churches, many different kinds of people, and I’m really comfortable with people who disagree with me,” Pastor Luke said.
“So somebody coming to the church, I want you to know that we’re going to be committed to biblical truth, but we’re going to be seeking to engage people where they are.”
First Presbyterian Church is at 701 Wesley Ave. The congregation begins each Sunday at 9 a.m. with Sunday school for all ages. Sunday morning service begins at 10:30 a.m. Pastor Luke offers a Wednesday night meal and Bible study. Call (609) 399-1833.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
