by Geoff Fox
This coming Sunday, as families attend service at Hancock Presbyterian Church, one long-time familiar face will not be there to greet them, as Pastor Terry Martin-Minnich’s last service was last Sunday, February 1.
Minnich retired after 44 years of being ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church USA. She has been pastor in Hancock since 2013.
Minnich and her family grew up in Mercersburg and in the United Methodist Church.
Her family had been part of the church, singing in the choir and teaching Sunday School.
In college, she met a young man who was going to seminary, fell in love and eloped with him. Ron and Terry have been together since.
Ron got his degree at seminary, Terry got a PhT, or a “putting hubby through.”
Terry Minnich said her husband got an interview at a Presbyterian church in Alexandria, Va., as a student pastor to do field work and get an income.
At the time, Sunday School teachers were paid $25 per Sunday and Minnich was offered to be a paid junior high while her husband taught senior high students.
“We jumped at that because we were newlyweds and had no money, so this was grand,” Minnich said.
This led her to fall madly in love with the church and its people and kids.
Minnich decided to take night classes to stay ahead of the kids she was teaching and said that is when God spoke to her, telling her that’s what she was supposed to do.
“There was something different about the calling to go to seminary and I was good at it,” she said.
Minnich said she got her master’s in religious education, then her Master of Divinity, and finally a doctorate of ministry.
The Minnichs officially joined the Presbyterian Church in 1976, she said, except Terry had been baptized in the church as a child.
“It was just a labor of love,” she said.
Ron’s first church was in Baltimore while Terry was licensed to preach through the National Capital Presbytery in Washington, D.C. and got her first church at Roland Park in Baltimore.
Terry Minnich was the fourth woman to be ordained in the Presbytery of Baltimore.
Minnich said the folks at Roland Park definitely knew she was a woman as she was expecting her first child when she was ordained.
“It took four elders and a crane to get me back off my knees,” she said, adding it was hot and there was no air conditioning. It wouldn’t be until after the birth of her second child that the church got air conditioning.
Minnich was at Roland Park for 24 years and loved it. She said the people are salt of the earth, and still are.
“They taught me how to be a minister,” she said.
After Roland Park, Minnich went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis as a civilian Chaplin from 2006 to 2013.
At the time she was in Annapolis, Minnich’s husband was a Chaplin in the Army and except for one weekend in December — the annual Navy/Army football game — the two got along.
Minnich said she didn’t work with the Midshipmen during her time in Annapolis, but she ministered to those who came to the chapel such as retired Navy, friends of the Navy, and staff.
When Ron retired, the family wanted to move back to Mercersburg.
After moving back to Mercersburg, Hancock Presbyterian Church announced they had an opening. The Executive Presbyter asked if Minnich would be interested.
She said she connected with the church and has been at Hancock Presbyterian for 12 “beautiful years.”
In those 12 years, Minnich said the changes she’s made at Hancock Presbyterian have been church changes, where through her witnessing in Jesus Christ, she’s molded an outreach church that follows the Gospel and does what God, through Jesus Christ, is calling them to do and to be.
“So that means that we have an active worship service; we have active people,” she said.
Before Minnich came to Hancock, the ladies of the church established a soup and sandwich outreach, now called the fellowship lunch, for everyone in the community.
There’s no cost for the meal, but there’s a local charity supported by donations from those at the meal.
“One of the things about Hancock Presbyterian Church is that its members, its church family, are very generous. Very generous,” she said.
Minnich said one thing she did when coming to Hancock was the smell test — noting she doesn’t like churches that smell musty.
She looked at all the rooms and if a room or closet smelled musty, they did something about it.
During the COVID shutdown in 2020, there were some renovations with washing walls and putting down new carpet, she said.
Over the 12 years of being at Hancock Presbyterian, Minnich said she has made some wonderful memories.
In cleaning out her desk last week, she said she recalled great memories of colleagues on the Greater Hancock Council of Churches and those with the regional group Maryland Mountain Ministry.
There have been wonderful memories with the church as well.
Minnich said one of the youth brought his entire family into the church and created an outside chapel in the church yard for an Eagle Scout project.
The choir has also been a memory for Minnich during her time in Hancock.
“We have the most gifted singers in this church and they’re wonderful,” she said.
Minnich noted they had Gospel group Solid Ground perform one Sunday morning.
Now that Minnich is retired, there are a few plans coming up for her to enjoy.
There were a few moments of sheer fear, but then it dawned on Minnich that God has been leading her by the hand her whole life and she said there’s no reason to think He isn’t going to be leading her on this part of her life.
For the first time in her life, Minnich won’t have a congregation to support her or love her, nor one for her to love.
Minnich doesn’t say “good-bye,” but “until we meet again.”
“And I might wear purple,” she said.
Minnich said until the new pastor is named, which could be up to a year away, she isn’t allowed to attend Hancock Presbyterian after her retirement.
The new pastor isn’t appointed, they are called. The congregation votes on who the new pastor for the church will be.
“They all voted on me,” Minnich said. “They could have said, ‘We don’t want her’,” but they voted for her.
Minnich said Clerk of Session Nancy Younker is setting up for ministers to come to Hancock and preach and possibly arrange for an interim pastor until the new pastor is named.
Minnich said she wanted to thank her congregations with great gratitude, they’ve been a blessing, and she loved each and everyone of them.
She said she ends each service with the same Celtic blessing she has used since she was ordained:
“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. The rains fall soft upon your fields. May you have fair winds a following seas. And may God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”
