n e w c h u r c h l i f e : m ay / j u n e 2 0 1 5
from San Diego Bay is almost the same view as standing at Durban harbor and
looking back toward the Berea. I cannot see myself making another pastoral
move – although the Lord may have other plans for me. I fully intend to fill my
remaining years as a minister serving the New Church in Southern California.”
Among the highlights of his career he says: “Certainly the construction
of Morning Star Chapel while I was pastor in Atlanta is something I am both
proud and grateful to have been a part of. Working with the likes of Jack
Martin, Roger Echols, Tom Leeper and Henry Dunlap was interesting to say the
least. However, at the end of the day, we got past our many differences and we
(the entire congregation) achieved something huge for a small congregation.”
He notes that volunteering for the 1996 Olympics and spending nearly six
weeks in the Olympic Village in downtown Atlanta “was an experience I will
treasure for the rest of my life. If any one of you reading this has a chance to
volunteer for the Olympic Games, do it!”
At the end of the Games, he was offered a paid staff position for the Sydney
Games. “It was a tipping point for me – become part of a future Olympics,
or remain a pastor in the New Church? I would like to say that it was the
doctrines of the New Church that kept me in ministry, but that would not be
true. It was my planned engagement to Anna Hyatt that prevented me taking
off for Sydney and a completely different life.” Their eldest son, Sean, was born
on September 20, 2001 – just nine days after 9/11.
Mark says his hopes and goals today are pretty much what they have
always been: TO LOVE PEOPLE.
As for hobbies and interests, he confesses: “I have always been into
sports. I have a huge ego and a minor aggressive streak (admittedly not
pastoral qualities). When I arrived in Bryn Athyn from South Africa I could
not skate. But watching just a few minutes of ice hockey, I knew that sport was
for me. That first winter I taught myself to skate with some help from the kids,
and the following winter I was playing hockey for my college. Since we needed
a goalie – and I knew I was the worst skater on the team – I volunteered for the
position. Fun times.
“I scuba dive and have dived with sharks off the African coast. I have
always loved snakes and had a huge python in Atlanta. I have been bitten by a
rattlesnake!
“I got into running after volunteering for the Olympics. In 1997 I finished
my first full marathon under the Olympic Rings in Atlanta in under 3.5
hours. I would run many more marathons, but never again in less than threeand-a-half hours.”
Among his favorite books “would have to be the Wilbur Smith novels. I
think I have read them all. The gripping tales of people interwoven with
the history of Africa and Europe had me turning pages. Non-fiction works
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