Tim Sitterley

For a couple years Tim Sitterley, senior pastor of GCI churches in Eugene and Salem, Oregon, spent as much time in a kilt as in jeans. No, he wasn’t living in Scotland; he was playing bagpipes with the MacCallum Highlanders, a group attached to the 127th National Guard in Ohio. Tim grew up in WCG. “My father was a member before I was born, but I was five when my mother and I started attending.” Tim spent the first 9 years of his life on a farm in Pennsylvania. “Then my family moved to a small town (Hubbard) just outside Youngstown, OH.” Tim claims his teen years were “rather colorful.” “I was voted ‘Most likely to be dead by age 30’ in high school, and I’m the only person I know who has been forcefully deported by a foreign country—but that’s a story for another time.”

After high school, Tim went to Ambassador College in Pasadena. Soon afterward his parents also moved to Pasadena so Tim never made it back to Ohio. It was in college Tim met his wife Linda and they married in 1979. “Our daughter Danielle and son Michael are both married and live near us. We have four grandchildren (two to each child), Logan, Ian, Noah and Asia. My daughter attends and is active in my Eugene congregation, and my son and his wife are on pastoral staff at Crossfire World Outreach in Springfield, Oregon.”

“After the college closed in ‘79 I was hired by the church; originally in the mail processing center, and later as a writer in the Personal Correspondence Department.” During a time Tim calls “insanity at HQ” in the early ‘80s, he and Linda decided to move to Eugene, Oregon.

“When we moved to Eugene in 1985, I was thoroughly burned out, and avoided any church-related responsibilities for a number of years. However, by the late ‘80’s I was back on the weekly speaking schedule, and when our senior pastor retired in ’95, I was part of the pastoral team in Eugene until another senior pastor could step in. After a couple of years as assistant pastor, I was offered the senior pastor position when our senior pastor retired. A year later Eugene and Salem were joined in a church circuit.”

Tim jokingly suggests that his favorite part of being a pastor is the ability to sleep in on most weekday mornings. But then he got a bit more serious and said: “I grew up an only child in a family that had little connection. With the exception of my mother’s funeral eight years ago, I haven’t seen any of my blood relatives in well over two decades. But as a pastor, you get to be a part of many families. Sometimes that means getting caught up in the drama. But other times it means getting to share in the joys and triumphs. I’ve stood bedside families as a loved one took their final breath…I’ve joined couples in marriage…I’ve blessed newborn children—all in the same week.

“Yes, when you are that intimate with so many people there can be a good deal of pain involved. But it is the pain that comes from loving and caring—the kind of pain that families share—and I wouldn’t trade it for the safe, distanced relationships that I see so many people living.”

When asked what Tim might like others to know about him, he said, “They already know too much. I get a fair amount of criticism for being too transparent. My congregations already know the details of my health and diet, what Tequila I drink and my favorite brand of cigar. They know I’ve gone through anger management classes and struggle with occasional depression. They know I’m a theistic evolutionist. And they know that I hate cats. There is not much left to reveal.”

Tim calls himself a Bible Geek. “Even during my misspent youth I was constantly in the library reading commentaries and books on early church history. When I was 15 I wrote a letter to a prominent WCG pastor telling him that what I was reading in Galatians regarding grace and the law didn’t seem to line up with what he was writing in WCG literature. I was asked not to attend services for several weeks until I came to see the error of my ways.”

Among his most memorable moments as a pastor, Tim shares this: “A few years back I attended one of the largest counter-culture festivals in the country, and while sitting in a wood-heated sauna I got caught up in a conversation comparing the teachings of Jesus with the writings of the Dali Lama. Later in the day I was walking through the craft market and I heard one of the gentlemen from the sauna yell, “Hey, it’s the preacher dude!” For the next hour or two I found myself surrounded by hippies (and hippy wannabes) who had questions about Jesus and the Bible. For that brief period, I knew what Paul must have felt when he preached in the markets of Athens and Corinth.”

Like many pastors, Tim feels the strongest presence of God when he is preaching. “The speaking part is no big deal. When I worked in the public sector one of my jobs was to speak before large crowds. But when I’m unpacking Scripture, or trying to address a current need of a congregation, I never feel alone on stage. I may joke about many of the aspects of this job, but the moment I feel the sermon is now all about me, and not about allowing God to speak through me—that is the moment I look for another line of work.”