Retires After 41 Years

The Rev. Mr. Main Retires After 41 Years

By Dorothy Laskey (News Religion Editor)

The Rev. L. Burlin Main is a minister who doesn’t really like to preach.

But tomorrow he will be preaching at the First United Methodist Church where he has served as Minister of the Parish for the past 12 years. The occasion bringing him to the pulpit is his retirement after 41 years in the ministry.

Beginning Monday, Mr. Main will be a farmer as well as a minister. He and his wife will be making their home at the Main family homestead in Angola, Ind.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go to seed, or that we’re going to sit in rocking chairs all day,” said Mr. Main. He said for him his ministry will take on different forms.

The retiring minister who is now considering three or four options, said he also has some writing he would like to do.

Mr. Main said his special concerns as a minister have been the pastoral counseling aspects of the work, and church membership.

He said the reports of declining church member-- ships do not distress him. He said even though the churches may have failed in teaching the “little things” that form denominational lines, they have succeeded in getting the real goals across. Goals like world peace and racial equality and justice, Mr. Main said.

Mr. Main said working in church membership has solidified his belief that when a person is brought into a quiet, personal relationship with Christ his life can be changed.

While in Ann Arbor, Mr. Main has served as the Membership Chairman of the Washtenaw County Council of Churches; member of the Detroit Conference Board of Evangelism and Secretary of Evangelism for the Ann Arbor district.

The churchman noted that in the past 12 years 3,000 new members have come into the First Methodist congregation. He said from that number there has been a net increase of 1,000 additional members on the congregation’s membership rolls.

Mr. Main said more graduate, rather than undergraduate, students participate in the church. But he added he didn’t think that made undergraduates any less religious. He felt rather that it reflected their “anti-establishment” feeling.

The retiring minister said some forms of contemporary worship do need time getting used to, but he added he was impressed with the Peace service held last New Year’s and the week-long vigil that followed.

Having begun his ministry during the Depression, Mr. Main said his social and personal aims as a clergyman have been toward aiding the disadvantaged. He said he has always worked for world peace and in the past years has been very concerned with “healing the wounds of racial conflict.”

Emphasizing the ecumenical trends in the church community today, Mr. Main noted that a Roman Catholic nun attended the reception at which he was honored last Sunday. He said even that may not have happened five or ten years ago.

COCU (which stands for both the Church of Christ Uniting and the Council on Church Union) to Mr. Main is something that time will influence most. The churchman said he has no strong feelings—positive or negative to the plan which would unite nine Protestant denominations. He added he feels it is quality rather than size of a church that is important.

Mr. Main said the two “big moments” in his career in the ministry were serving under Bishop Bromley G. Oxnal, a former president of the World Council of Churches, and coming to Ann Arbor.

The retiring minister served in the Troy Conference from 1931 to 1958. His pastorates were in New York state and Vermont.

Mr. Main praised the fellowship shared among himself, and First Methodist’s Senior Minister, the Rev. Dr. Hoover Rupert and Youth, Minister, the Rev. Kendall W. Cowing.

The churchman added that in Ann Arbor his ministry has become “international.” He said last Saturday he performed a wedding ceremony at which 20 nations were represented among the guests. He said he has also officiated at a wedding at which the Nigerian bride and. groom wore their native dress.

Mr. Main called his relationships at First Methodist “rich and warm.” He said the large congregation is informal and friendly.

“An Endless Line of Splendor” is the topic Mr. Main has chosen to speak on at both services tomorrow. Music at the services will be provided by the Chancel Choir.

The Rev. Main Visits 1st Graders