Opinion - Columns - Bill Morem

Saturday, Jun. 13, 2009

Bill Morem: Morro Bay pastor will be missed

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Following a nine-year run as the pastor for the Estero Bay United Methodist Church, the Rev. Steve Islander is leaving to be the new minister for a Methodist church in Ramona, a community east of San Diego. If his congregation had its druthers, he wouldn’t be going.

During his tenure in Morro Bay, the 62-year-old Islander has racked up an impressive list of progressive programs. He helped start the city’s first community garden — a 30-plot space on the church’s property — a daily after-school youth group (which wife Diane has overseen for the past nine years) and an emergency food program for those who may be stranded in Morro Bay.

When you throw in his passion for peace, as evidenced by the planting of a peace pole in front of the church and being on the founding team of the Central Coast Clergy and Laity for Justice, it’s not difficult to see why his Morro Bay flock will miss his outreach and socioeconomic reform message.

“All of these programs have downstream ramifications,” he said before his last sermon June 7. “The community garden and youth group have brought a lot of people together. You never know where you change the trajectory of a life toward the better.”

Born in Michigan in 1946, Islander’s family moved to Southern California in 1955; he graduated from Torrance High and went on to study animal science at Cal Poly in 1964. He took a break from school and entered the Navy and served in Vietnam.

“Like everyone who goes to Poly, you fall in love with this place. SoI moved back after the Navy and got my degree. Did lots of things, anything but the ministry,”Islander said.

Indeed his curriculum vitae includes commercial fisherman, cowboy, small business owner, manager of transportation and distribution for a major grocery chain, and vice president of a cosmetics company in L.A., a job he quit because he “couldn’t identify with the product.”

Bearded, with a shock of white hair and a hearty laugh that rumbles on regular intervals, he says he was living in Templeton when he got the call and entered the Claremont School of Theology for a master’s in divinity.

Looking back, he says events of his life had been calling him all along.

“I’d been resisting going into the ministry since I was 6 years old. I thought the teachings in Sunday school were insipid. I thought they should be doing more. Then I heard a very distinct voice of God calling me into the ministry; it wasn’t an option.”

And what does the voice of God sound like?

“It comes in the way you choose to receive it. It’s a voice that comes through over the noise of the world. For me it was a series of experiences, both loud and quiet; it’s something that breaks through the ordinary.”

After pastoring a Methodist congregation in San Pedro, he was sent to Morro Bay — a natural move in light of the fact that wife Diane is a graduate of Morro Bay High School. To say he’s loved his tenure in the bayside community would be an understatement.

Islander said a town the size of Morro Bay “allows us to work on issues that you can’t get in a big city. People have a little bit more to say, a little more input, and that’s what I like about small-city life. You can’t get away from accountability with neighbors.

“Of all the things I’ve done, the most satisfying may be the community garden. (The gardeners) now have their own outreach. They create fundraisers for helping others beyond the garden. When that happens, you know it’s got its own life. It’s about life-affirming events.”

With a Morro Bay congregation of about 125 to 130 people, with perhaps half of those as members, “We’re in the same position as most churches: declining membership and a shift away from organized religion. World War II veterans had been the (church-going) base; the Korean War generation has been the lost generation, and the emerging generations are finding their place. Baby boomers don’t know where they’re going to land. Generations X and Y show promise; they’ll reform the church in some way. The emerging church isn’t about the building, it’s about how you relate to people, that’s exciting.”

Islander will remain with his Morro Bay church as pastor-in-charge until the end of June when the Rev. Paula Hewitt takes his place.

“She’s coming from a West L.A. Methodist church and will be able to build on the base that’s here. She comes from the same progressive background I do, Islander said.

“My management style is one of being an initiator, builder and developer. After it’s created, it’s time to move on. At some point you need to turn things you’ve created over to someone to tend to it. On my worst days, I’ve always looked forward to going to work.”

Regardless of where he ministers, Islander stays true to what he believes: “I sum up every Sunday the good news of Jesus: God loves you, God forgives you, frees you and gives you the chance to begin again. It’s never too late to change and do good; you’re free to do that.”