Stephen Emick:


25 Years of Service Member of PNC remembers calling associate pastor


BY DAVE LONG HAPpY bIrthDaY to YOU! HAPpY bIrthDaY to YOU!


If you’ve never had the distinct honor of having Stephen Emick call you on your birthday, you have indeed missed out on a life-changing experience. I am not saying it is a good or a bad change, but truly life-changing.


When I moved to the Allentown area as a new teacher at Southern Lehigh High School in fall 1992, I joined First Presbyterian Church of Allentown. After about a year, in the summer of 1993, I began working with our youth group. Within several months, our youth minister left FPCA and I was asked to be on the Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) to find a new Associate Pastor for Youth and Young Adults.


Again, if you’ve never sat on a PNC, it is quite an experience. After working with the committee to fill out the necessary forms identifying what we needed and who we were, we sifted through the applications and settled on two or three candidates, including Stephen Emick. After a phone interview, we decided we wanted to meet him in person, along with his then-expecting wife, Barbara.


What always stuck out to me in our interviews with Stephen was the passion he had, and still has, for the value and importance of youth in our church. As a high school teacher, I am surrounded daily by teenagers in many of their best and worst times. I see the future that they yearn for and hope, in my own way, I am enabling them to create it. Someone who has a passion for working with youth is an incredibly valuable asset to any program focused on that population.


Over the past 25 years, Stephen has shepherded and guided the youth program here at FPCA and expanded his impact with faith formation on all levels. Tere is not a group at church unaffected by Stephen and his guidance and care. So many aspects of our church have come from or been significantly touched by Stephen’s hand.


For example, work camps, which are a staple of all youth groups, were enhanced by the creation of summertime weekly local mission activities we call Mission Mornings. Te importance of serving others but remembering your own community is taught to our youth every year.


In Confirmation Class, sponsorship by an adult member of the church was refined and crafted to enable the development of a true caring relationship between a young person finding their faith and relationship with God, and an adult who is still on that same journey. Te deliberateness of this relationship has enhanced the lives of so many confirmands and their sponsors.


Tis article could go on and on with how much Stephen Emick has changed and molded FPCA, because we all—new member or “old-timer”—have our own personal stories. And his family—Barbara, Allison, and Emily—also touched all of us by their presence, energy, and devotion to our community of faith.


In the end, I would be honored to say for all of us: Tank you, Stephen, for all your devotion, insight, and faith for these last 25 years. God bless you.


RECEPTION PLANNED FOR MAY 31


Stephen Emick, now First Presbyterian’s Associate Pastor for Pastoral Care, as well as Moderator of Lehigh Presbytery, officially marked 25 years with FPCA on January 15.


Fittingly, a reception celebrating “STE” and his many years of energetic, personable, dedicated, caring, thoughtful, theologically grounded, and downright funny ministry will take place on Pentecost—the day on which the entire church marks the descent of the Holy Spirit and subsequent transformation and empowerment of Christ’s disciples.


Mark your calendar for Sunday, May 31, at 11:30 a.m., following services, when it’s planned that FPCA members and friends will gather outside under tents.


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