Rev. Allan MacLellan retiring for the second time.
Reverend retiring from pulpit for second time
Rev. Allan MacLellan will be retiring from the pulpit of the Baptist and Presbyterian church for the second time in his 34-year career at the end of the month.
Currently presiding over St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on Brookside St. in Glace Bay, MacLellan’s wife, Nancy MacLellan, is also retiring from her position as pianist and choir director.
Both are 64 and with MacLellan’s 65th birthday coming up in October, the couple felt it was time to really retire. But Allan admits he feels weird to be retiring especially with his son, James MacLellan, starting school to become a pastor.
“I feel guilty saying we are retiring. Technically we are but we always hope to be involved in the church and we’ll do whatever we can to help our son get established in ministry,” said MacLellan, who is originally from Reserve Mines but now lives in Sydney.
“As long as we have the mental ability and the physical ability, we always hope to fill in and help churches … As long as we can and we’re able to, we will help as many churches as we can. We don’t just plan to sit at home, drink tea and wait to die.”
In 1981, MacLellan was 27 and felt drawn to the church and away from his career as an engineer at Seaboard Power Plant. Starting school that year to become a pastor, MacLellan graduated in 1984 and since then has presided over six churches in Nova Scotia and Ontario.
The first was Glace Bay United Baptist Church, where his son has recently been asked to preside over. After that he spent four years at Digby Baptist Church before being a part of the church planning committee in Porter’s Lake for seven years.
Then he and his family moved to Ottawa for six years, where MacLellan was pastor at Pleasant Park Baptist Church. Then he came home to preside over United Baptist Church in Sydney until 2010 when he decided to retire.
Although MacLellan had retired from the church, he went back to work as an engineer to earn some extra money as he was heading into full-time retirement. Then in 2012, members of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church asked him to work half-time at their church. Since his wife was already working there as music director, he said yes.
“It’s been great, really great working with people (over the years) and seeing people dedicate their lives to Christ and seeing how it has changed them,” he said.
Many things stand out for Allan when he thinks of his years in the church, including building youth groups as big as 70 children per week, getting the land to build the church in Porter’s Lake and adding a Korean Church (with a Korean pastor) to St. Paul’s.
“It was a traditional church but of course greatly influenced cross culturally when we had the Koreans and Chinese people come in,” he said.
“Last year it was 18-20 of them, from foreign countries, who became members of the church. That was a real highlight.”
While the MacLellans plan to stay active in the church, they are also planning to travel more. First, they want to visit two of their daughters and their families in Halifax and Alberta. Then they hope to travel down south and start marking things off their bucket list.
“We’re especially trying to escape some of our Cape Breton winters. That’s always been our dream,” Allan said with a laugh.
A special service is happening for the MacLellans on Sept. 26 at St. Paul’s Church. The Evening of Recognition goes from 7-9p.m. and everyone is welcome to attend.