After the retirement of former Pastor Bill Good, the Fountain Hills Presbyterian Church (FHPC) tapped The Rev. Dr. Bob Simmons to take over as transitional pastor.

While the church searches for a new permanent pastor, Simmons has focused on the spiritual development of church members, mentoring the youth and filling any pressing needs before a new church leader is chosen.

“My goal is to try to get the church at a place where this time next year, they either have found someone or they’re doing a diligent search,” Simmons said, whose original contract called for one year with an option to renew for an additional year as transitional pastor.

Simmons made it clear that while he is not in a hurry to leave his post, he understands that the church needs a permanent pastor to lead them into the foreseeable future.

“Early on in my training in seminary, I’ll never forget a professor that said to me, ‘Every church needs to earn the right to be in their community.’ And how do you do that? Well, by meeting some needs,” Simmons said.

Those needs include initiatives such as providing a grief support group for those who have lost loved ones, offering tutoring classes for the youth and – given the musical emphasis of the church – possibly offering music lessons to those interested in taking on a new challenge.

Ministerial internship

A new initiative that Simmons has undertaken during FHPC’s transitionary period is in the form of a ministerial internship.

Through A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO), this year-long internship program invites qualified pastoral interns in the process of ordination into the inner workings of a church to learn, grow and lead some of the many church functions.

Joining Simmons is Pastoral Intern Lisa McFarland, who has hit the ground running since joining FHPC in January.

“One of the blessings about this particular ordination program is that you have people supporting you from the national level from the local Presbyterian level all the way down to the local church, rooting you on and helping you get through the process,” McFarland said.

As a pastoral intern, McFarland is in many ways filling the role of assistant pastor: Performing visitations, teaching Bible studies, leading worship services and meeting with parishioners regularly.

McFarland said her goal at the end of the internship is to become ordained and to pastor a church that is kind toward the marginalized.

“Anyone who has been made to feel like they don’t belong in the church, who has been on the margins, outcast, hurt by the church…these are all the things that are really dear to my heart,” she said. “My desire is to develop a church community where these people, which are many, have the opportunity to experience church differently.”

Women in clergy

McFarland completed her seminary in 2018 with a master’s degree in counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pa. For years, she was involved with churches that did not support the ordination of women before joining the Presbyterian Church. Since 1956, the Presbyterian denomination in the United States ordained its first female minister, and Simmons is eager to support McFarland in her journey.

“We Presbyterians believe that God does not call us to serve him on the basis of gender but on gift and passion,” Simmons said. “God looks beyond the gender and says, ‘You got a passion to tell the story about Jesus? Go do it.’”

The Fountain Hills Presbyterian Church is located at 13001 N. Fountain Hills Blvd. For more information, visit fhpresbyterian.info.