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Rev. Dr. Richard Wolling, who has served as the senior pastor of Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon for 33 years, is set to retire on Oct. 31.
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The Next Page: Rev. Dr. Richard Wolling displays the heart of a shepherd

Rachel Rowland Photography

The Next Page: Rev. Dr. Richard Wolling displays the heart of a shepherd

Our dear friend, pas­tor and con­fi­dant, Rick Woll­ing, is hang­ing up his col­lar af­ter 43 years as a min­is­ter, the last 33 as se­nior pas­tor of the church where my fam­ily and many oth­ers in the South Hills wor­ship, Bev­erly Heights Pres­by­te­rian.

It’s the church with the dis­tinc­tive red doors on ei­ther side of its stone ex­te­rior at the south end of Mt. Leb­a­non on Wash­ing­ton Road and it’s been there since 1929. the Rev. Rich­ard George Woll­ing — Rick to all who ad­mire and love him — is the sev­enth pas­tor to lead Bev­erly Heights in its his­tory and the lon­gest ten­ured by 15 years.

The full text of Rev. Wolling’s customary benediction:
Now go out into the world in peace and be of good courage; hold fast to that which is good; render no man evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak; help the afflicted, honor all men and women; love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, rest and abide with each one of us, today, tomorrow, until Jesus comes again, and then, indeed, it shall be forevermore. And all God’s people said, Amen.

At a time when many folks are jus­ti­fi­ably ques­tion­ing the in­teg­rity of the clergy in the Chris­tian church, it’s a use­ful mo­ment to ex­am­ine a coun­ter­point and pay trib­ute to a man who em­bod­ies walk­ing with Christ. If ev­ery clergy mem­ber had pur­sued ex­cel­lence and pu­rity with the same ded­i­ca­tion as Rick Woll­ing has, the church would be on far firmer ground.

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Along with his lovely wife Mary, who di­rects the choir, they’ve been a fix­ture in our com­mu­nity for gen­er­a­tions. Be­cause of their re­mark­able lon­gev­ity and con­tri­bu­tions, their de­par­ture is a sad mo­ment. A per­son of wit, wis­dom and in­tel­li­gence, Rick has also demon­strated a leader’s cour­age and re­sil­ience. He is a gifted speaker, thinker, coun­selor and mu­si­cian who has writ­ten five hymns and thou­sands of ser­mons. I will miss his per­pet­u­ally cheer­ful de­meanor, warm smile and reg­u­lar quips, such as his self-de­scrip­tion of the se­nior pas­tor as the per­son “of­fi­cially at fault.”

But among his many gifts and good cheer, what I and oth­ers will miss most is his heart. Even though he was hos­pi­tal­ized re­cently with a heart ail­ment, and it may not beat as re­li­ably as it once did, Rick has a great heart. It is the heart of a shep­herd.

As a shep­herd, Rick knows his flock. Some­time ago, I got reg­u­lar ev­i­dence of this when I helped serve com­mu­nion. As the peo­ple rushed by, I’d fum­ble just to voice the cor­rect words. Then there’s Rick, look­ing ev­ery per­son straight in the eye and ad­dress­ing each — at least a hun­dred — by their first name. I never heard him fal­ter once or fail to miss a name. As a per­son who can stum­ble over my own chil­dren’s names, I found such re­call as­tound­ing and deeply com­fort­ing.

This is the same man who bap­tized my grand­son; who par­tic­i­pated in the mar­riages of both of my daugh­ters; who com­forted me at times of over­whelm­ing grief; who coun­seled me amid my worst mo­ments; and who was pres­ent to cel­e­brate some of the best.

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“Dur­ing the pro­cess of my father’s death, which lasted two years, Rick gave me com­fort by ex­plain­ing that he was fold­ing his earthly tent,” read one email from a mem­ber of Bev­erly Heights.

“When I hear his voice in the hall­way, I al­ways feel that sense in my heart that all is well and that what­ever is be­fore us, Rick will know what to do and take care of us,” read an­other.

This is the heart of a shep­herd.

Rick also ex­hib­ited the heart of a lion.

In his ex­cel­lent book on Moses, Chris­tian au­thor Char­les Swin­doll makes the point that a leader “must be one who … has suf­fi­cient re­sources to stand alone, even in the face of fierce op­po­si­tion. He or she must be pre­pared to have ‘no one but God.’ ”

On this score­card, Rick has pleased the Lord.

Dur­ing much of his ca­reer, he sought re­newal within the Pres­by­te­rian Church (USA), the de­nom­i­na­tion in which he was first or­dained in 1975, in the Pres­by­tery of New York City. After calls at PCUSA churches on Long Island and in Okla­homa, he came to Bev­erly Heights in 1985 when it, too, was a PCUSA church.

While hardly a mav­er­ick, Rick was con­cerned about the church’s drift away from his­toric or­tho­dox Chris­tian views. He helped form a group called the New Wine­skins which sought to re­es­tab­lish or­tho­doxy within the Pitts­burgh Pres­by­tery and be­yond. I saw first­hand the an­guish he felt when he fi­nally de­cided, af­ter 21 years in 2006, that re­newal was hope­less and that the time had come to steer Bev­erly Heights out of the PCUSA.

Sever­ing ties could have had ter­ri­ble con­se­quences for his staff and con­gre­ga­tion, the re­gional and na­tional Pres­by­te­rian bod­ies and Rick him­self. It im­me­di­ately trig­gered a thicket of fright­ful le­gal ques­tions: Would the lo­cal Pres­by­tery seize con­trol of the church prop­erty? Would wor­ship­pers be evicted? Would Rick lose his job and his pen­sion? We lis­tened to law­yers for hours as they talked about prop­erty deeds, con­vey­ances and cov­enants.

“I didn’t go to sem­i­nary to do this. It’s hard. And yet I think there’s a real strength and joy in do­ing a hard thing that we be­lieve God is call­ing us to do,” Rick told a Post-Ga­zette re­porter af­ter the con­gre­ga­tion voted over­whelm­ingly in 2007 to leave the PCUSA. The man­date of the vote – 195-to-4 – was as much en­dorse­ment of Rick and his lead­er­ship as it was more con­ser­va­tive the­ol­ogy. Many Pres­by­te­rian con­gre­ga­tions through­out our re­gion and state fol­lowed soon there­af­ter.

It took great cour­age to stand alone with no one but God, but Rick’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion was sim­ple. To para­phrase Steel­ers Coach Mike Tom­lin, the stan­dard is the stan­dard, not in the pur­suit of Su­per Bowl rings but a far more eter­nal quest (if say­ing such a thing doesn’t count as her­esy in Pitts­burgh): be­ing faith­ful to Christ.

Through his ac­tions and in­struc­tion, Rick has em­bod­ied and de­fined, with his char­ac­ter­is­tic pre­ci­sion, what it means to be a Chris­tian.

I’ll miss hear­ing him speak the same ben­e­dic­tion at the end of each ser­vice: “Now go out into the world in peace and be of good cour­age …” A hy­brid of two bib­li­cal pas­sages, it was Rick’s self-writ­ten com­mand for how we ought to be­have in the sec­u­lar world in which we were scat­tered, un­til we gath­ered in our sanc­tu­ary a week later.

And I’ll es­pe­cially miss his an­nual nar­ra­tion of the Christ­mas story, which he’d re­cite from mem­ory each Christ­mas eve. Rick would be­gin as the world be­gan, in to­tal dark­ness, and, as can­dles passed from one per­son to an­other, cul­mi­nate with the joy­ous proc­la­ma­tion of Je­sus’ birth in a fully lit sanc­tu­ary.

He has taught me more about God than I have learned from any other source save the Holy Spirit it­self. Not the de­ity I be­lieved in as a child, nor the one I wanted to imag­ine as a young adult. No, the Tri­une God of the uni­verse — the cre­ator, re­deemer and spirit whose char­ac­ter and at­trib­utes Rick has faith­fully de­scribed and cel­e­brated. A God who is ma­jes­tic, faith­ful, all know­ing, all pow­er­ful, wor­thy of ad­o­ra­tion and praise, the an­cient of days, ef­ful­gent (to cite one of his fa­vor­ite words).

Much as Rick would cringe at me call­ing him a “good man” – bad the­ol­ogy, Tom, he’d say – he is, in­deed, a very good man, to the ex­tent any hu­man be­ing can ever be called good (I was pay­ing at­ten­tion to the the­ol­ogy he taught).

I’ll end with Rick’s own words, from the emailed “e-care” mes­sages he sends out weekly to the peo­ple of Bev­erly Heights. Re­count­ing a re­cent over­night hos­pi­tal stay to get an el­e­vated heart­beat back in rhythm and nor­mal, Rick was, pre­dict­ably, fix­ated not on his health but scrip­ture.

In the e-care, he re­called that “while ly­ing on my back in the ER, an­swer­ing the rapid-fire ques­tions, my mind was fixed on Psalm 147,” in which we are told that the Lord “heals the bro­ken­hearted, and binds up their wounds.”

Good ad­vice, too, for the folks who have known Rick and Mary Woll­ing lo these many years, have had the deep plea­sure of be­ing pa­s­tored and be­friended by them and will miss them ter­ri­bly.

Rick Woll­ing re­tires as the se­nior pas­tor of Bev­erly Heights Pres­by­te­rian Church on Oct. 31. His suc­ces­sor, Nate Devlin, has served as Rick’s dep­uty for more than a de­cade.

Tom O’Boyle (to­boyle@post-ga­zette.com) is a for­mer Wall Street Jour­nal re­porter and Post-Ga­zette as­sis­tant man­ag­ing ed­i­tor who now is the PG’s se­nior man­ager of au­di­ence.

First Published: October 21, 2018, 4:00 a.m.

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Rev. Dr. Richard Wolling, who has served as the senior pastor of Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon for 33 years, is set to retire on Oct. 31.  (Rachel Rowland Photography)
Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church in Mt. Lebanon.  (Scott Westgate)
Rachel Rowland Photography
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