Breaking new ground
‘A pastor’s heart’
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Logan's Valley Baptist Church is breaking with tradition and celebrating a few firsts.
Situated on Bellwood's Main Street, it was established as one of the first houses of worship in a community where religious life has been a vital part of its growth.
Hoping to continue that rich heritage is the Rev. Funteller H. Jackson, who made history along with the congregation in July when she became the first female licensed and ordained minister to serve there.
It was also the first time in the church's 140-year history that it had held an installation service for one of its pastors.
"At the installation, the pastor and congregation become one," Jackson said, explaining the significance of the event that included well wishes and blessings from pastors, family and friends.
She is also the church's first African-American minister, and the first to start her full-time pastorate at age 72.
Ironically, the Rev. Jackson never saw herself leading a flock in central Pennsylvania. When she married and moved to the Altoona area 17 years ago, she and her husband, Jackie, had no intentions of settling here.
If you ask Jackson about why she stayed, she will tell you that it is God's doing.
She and Jackie were both raised in major cities -- she in Detroit and he in Atlanta. They had hoped to move to North Carolina after retirement.
Looking back over her life, Jackson can see where God has guided her life and called her to serve others and share the gospel even at a young age.
"I led my father to Christ when I was 12," she said.
When she was an adult, she was the announcement clerk at her church in Detroit. She would welcome the visitors and tell them: "If you don't know Jesus in the pardon for your sins, I recommend Jesus." Then she would add, "When the invitation is extended, you should come."
In central Pennsylvania, she is a preaching volunteer at State Correctional Institution, Smithfield, in Huntingdon County, where she was named volunteer of the year in 2016. She is also a volunteer minister for Presbyterian Village at Hollidaysburg and Maybrook Hills Health and Rehabilitation Center, Altoona.
"I have always had a pastor's heart," she said about her desire to serve others. Perhaps, it is partly because her family led by example. "I grew up in a home of strong women who were faithful in missionary work," she said of her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother.
During Jackson's adolescence, difficult circumstances occurred that made those women even stronger.
"My dad died when I was 14 of a heart attack. He was 33 years old. That same year, my grandfather died and then my uncle died. He was my mom's only brother. Every adult man in our immediate family was gone in less than a year," she said.
"At age 14, I had to grow up. I was the oldest of five children." Years later, Jackson said it was her daughter, whom she calls another strong woman, who encouraged her mother to earn a college degree and a master of divinity degree. In a way, it seemed like a natural course of events.
"There are over 25 preachers in my family over three generations," the Rev. Jackson said. Among those preachers are her daughter and two sons. The Rev. Dr. Felicia Y. Thomas of Baltimore serves on the ministry team of Northside Baptist Church and is an assistant professor of history at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Her sons, the Rev. Frank K. Thomas and the Rev. Lester E. Thomas serve at Mount Zion Baptist Church of High Point in North Carolina and Third New Hope Baptist Church, Northwest Campus, Detroit, respectively.
She lost her son, Arva Anthony "Tony" Thomas, when he died at age 17 about 30 years ago.
At the time, Jackson was a senior payroll clerk in Detroit where she worked for two more years before attending Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in religion in 1994.
After graduation, she worked at Smith College and later moved to Princeton, N.J., to help Felicia, who had become the first female pastor of First Baptist Church there.
Felicia encouraged her to apply to Princeton Theological Seminary where the Rev. Jackson attended for a brief time.
"I had a plan, but God had another plan," the Rev. Jackson said.
A friend from Mount Holyoke also happened to be Jackie Jackson's daughter-in-law. She introduced the Rev. Jackson to her future husband through a telephone conversation. He had moved to Altoona, where he was transferred by Norfolk Southern after the railroad shop where he worked in Atlanta closed. The Rev. Jackson was in New Jersey, attending classes at Princeton Theological Seminary.
They struck up a friendship through that initial call and after weeks of telephone conversations, they met at Thanksgiving in 1999 and were married in June in 2000. During the early years of their marriage, the Rev. Jackson put her theological education on hold. Jackie had promised her that once he retired, he would make certain that she got the opportunity to finish seminary.
"Jackie kept his word, and several years later, I entered Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Va. God gave me a Georgia peach and an angel in Jackie Leonard Jackson. Every week for three years, -- he missed one week -- he drove me to VUU for classes, and I received my Master of Divinity in May 2008."
At the time, her goal was to be an interim pastor, where she would work with churches preparing to call their next leader. She would learn later that no church inquired about her serving as an interim because an essay to complete her profile with the American Baptist Church was missing. Looking back, the Rev. Jackson believes it was God's way of keeping her in the Altoona area where she lived an active lifestyle.
After her marriage, she worked four years for Family Services in Altoona and contributed to needs in her previous church, Mount Zion Baptist Church in Altoona. There, she served as chair of the deacons, was an associate minister, working with youth, and as music director. In 2006, she was licensed to preach at Mount Zion and in 2010, she was ordained to the work of the gospel ministry. She was also the first woman to be licensed and ordained in Mount Zion's 135-year history.
Beyond her church work, she served the community. She has served as a board member of the Ecumenical Conference of Altoona, Altoona Area Christian Coalition, the Prison Ministry of Blair County and the Mount Holyoke College Annual Fund. She is a lifetime member of the NAACP and the 2006 NAACP Woman of the Year recipient.
She has also traveled throughout North America, Europe and Africa, where she taught, preached, sang and got to know the people in Germany, Italy, Scotland, Spain, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean.
"When we follow God, we never know where it is going to lead us," she said.
Her journey to Logan's Valley Baptist Church began with a simple request. The church needed someone to deliver the sermon one Sunday more than a year ago when its pastor was unavailable.
Around Easter of 2016, Logan's Valley called on her to help again.
"They needed someone who was ordained to serve Communion, and I came back," she said. After that, she filled the pulpit a few more times.
"In November 2016, they asked me if I would consider being their interim pastor, and I accepted," she said. "A few months later, they offered me the position of pastor.
"On March 26, 2017, by an unanimous vote, I became their pastor. That's how I got here."
Deacon Lanny Burgoon served on the Pulpit Search Committee, which first considered her for the role.
He said asking Jackson to serve Logan's Valley "just felt right."
"Her sermons are strictly from the Bible and she has a way of bringing things out that people should be doing without stepping on toes. She is our leader -- our shepherd."
Ashley O'Neil, chair of the deacons, said Rev. Jackson is "very energetic and very enthusiastic" when she's in the pulpit.
"She brings good ideas and new thoughts to the church," O'Neil said, adding that attendance has increased. A few more people have joined the church and a new membership class has started.
Burgoon said he also appreciates that Jackson is committed to the church, and he has found a friend in her husband.
"I like to have fun and her husband, Jackie, he's my brother. He likes to have fun, too," he said.
Most of all, Burgoon said the pulpit committee prayed and prayed that "God would send us someone who loves us as much as we love them."
He believes God has answered their prayers.