Priscilla Richardson

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When your church finds itself without a pastor, how do you find someone to fill in? Well, if you're Fincastle Presbyterian, you simply look around town and get creative.

The church found not one but three preachers living in Fincastle and able to help out: the Rev. Edgar C. Mayse, the Rev. Charles Hargis and Donald L. Wetherington. Mayse takes every first and third Sunday; Hargis the second, and also the fifth when there is a fifth; and Wetherington the fourth. Now, this is not a permanent arrangement, as the church has fielded a pastor-nominating committee to find one full-time minister. But until they find that one, this unusual plan works for them.

Mayse, who officially retired in January 1998, was "not really at leisure," he said. "I had several interims" at churches in the area since then. His job now roughly compares to that of senior pastor, as he presides over the session, or the governing body every Presbyterian church has.

Before now, Mayse had worked at Fincastle Presbyterian as an installed pastor twice. "I served this church, was ordained in this church in 1960," he said. "I left at the end of 1966, then 21 years later in June of '87, came back here, and served as called installed pastor until April of '91."

Mayse, whose doctorate is in church history, is researching this church's early history from 1770 until 1820. "I hope to write a book on it," he said. "In 1813, the Virginia General Assembly granted whatever [structure] was on this spot to the Presbyterian congregation, because the Episcopalians could no longer support it. The present building is largely an 1849 remodeling and a 1943 restoration." As you might expect, Historic Fincastle has obtained his services as a town tour leader.

Not only do Mayse and Hargis live and serve in the same community, but they both earned their doctoral degrees at the same place, Union Theological Seminary in Richmond. For each, the doctorate came some years after his basic post-college seminary degree.

Hargis, an ordained Presbyterian minister, served several Virginia churches before the Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pa., asked him to come teach there. He retired from that school after 26 years. He now keeps his teaching hand in by leading an adult Sunday school class every week in addition to his preaching slot.

Wetherington has done all the study to become a Presbyterian lay pastor. The late "Harold Eads, my good friend and buddy," Wetherington said, "called me out of the blue and said, without any warmup at all, 'Don, I think you should go to these lay pastor classes.' So he and I chatted, and I chatted with the people in charge" of the classes. "I was not sure why and couldn't think of a good reason why not," he said, so he completed the course work.

Because he passed everything, Wetherington could become a commissioned lay pastor. But he prefers to continue to practice law full time and preach occasionally, rather than take on one church as its pastor. "My pleasure is to visit any number of churches and become acquainted with any number of congregations," he noted. However, he does go "fairly routinely" to fill a pulpit in Patrick County. So maybe Eads was on to something.

How did this Florida piney woods native who attended the University of Virginia for his undergraduate diploma, and then the University of Georgia for his law degree, get here? "I went to Atlanta for a few years and discovered I was not a city person. I had a love affair with Virginia and was missing it," he explained. "I was looking for a town and city rolled into one, and in 1973 that was Roanoke.

"I bought a farmhouse and moved to Botetourt 11 years ago, and continued to practice in Roanoke. In 2004, I thought, why not come to Fincastle and be closer to home and be among people I love. My clients followed me to Fincastle." He does have one international link: His son serves as an Army captain in Iraq.

Three pastors sharing one job. Maybe they're making church history themselves? Mayse, take note.