Welcome To MacArthur Metro

  Home | Other Issues | Search:

Pastor Monte McClain blessing animals at Fruitvale Presbyterian Church in 2007. Photo by Allan Ball. Click to enlarge.

After seven years serving as pastor of the Fruitvale Presbyterian Church, Monte McClain and his family are leaving for France for his new pastoral position there. He told me over the phone that he will serve for five years as pastor of a French Reformed Church in the town of Poissy (in French: Église Réformée de Poissy). Poissy, like Oakland, is an ethnically diverse city and has a congregation of about 60 people.

Monte told me that he and his wife Kristy lived in France from 1997-2001 where he attended seminary and earned his Master of Divinity at the Institute Protestant de Théologie in France. They have many friends there, but he and his wife are torn about leaving Oakland. Kristy teaches French in Berkeley, both of them love Oakland and have presided over the growth and change of their congregation as more families and children have joined the church. But the move to France is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him and his family as few such pastoral invitations are offered to Americans, and his little girls, Sophie, who is seven, and Elodie, who is four, will be able to grow up fluent in their parents' second language.

Parishioners Marge and Gordon Laverty expressed the view of many in the congregation when they said that Monte is a special pastor, energetic and dynamic. Gordon said Monte has an ability to welcome and integrate newcomers into the congregation.

'I went to the Sunday, May 17 service, entitled "Overcoming Evil with Good: Are You Up For It?" Monte said that his mother in-law gave him a book about a small village in France of some 150 people whose minister preached about one subject: the commandment of Jesus that his followers were to "love one another as I have loved you." Over the years this small congregation took the message to heart. During World War II, some Jews fleeing the German Gestapo found their way to the village and were taken in, hidden, and sheltered by families in the village. Word got out about the village, more fleeing Jewish people arrived, and by the end of the war, 4,000 Jews had been saved by the concrete actions of 150 villagers. Monte asked us to do the math and to imagine how Oakland could change if each one of us felt obliged to look out for one another. How many lives could be changed—or spared?

Monte had begun the service by offering percussion instruments to the children and playing the guitar while they accompanied him. He spoke to his parishioners from the center of the aisle rather than the pulpit. His readings from the Bible and his message throughout the service were geared to reminding his fellow church members of the individual heart's capacity to change and of our ability as individuals to do better and to live better. He urged us to stay alert and reminded us that each day offers us a new chance to change our lives. Each one of us and the world can be made better only by reaching out, sharing our lives with others, and learning to love one another. He reminded us also that if we want change, we need as citizens to vote.

Monte said his new church in Poissy is a Presbyterian Reformed Church set in an ethnically diverse community with a large Muslim population. The congregation contains quite a number of Africans from former French colonies. He says he wants to learn how his faith and church can evolve to be more relevant to their lives and to their culture. He looks forward to applying what he learns there to work on his Doctorate of Divinity. He also looks forward to returning to his home in Oakland in five years.

In case you want see for yourselves why his church believes he will be hard to replace, or just to wish him and his family well, the Reverend McClain's last service is July 19.