Reverend attends son’s fifth anniversary as pastor in Orange

Photo by Chris Sykes
The Rev. Bill Rutherford Jr., left, of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Orange stands with his father, the Rev. William Rutherford Sr., the pastor of Greater New Point Baptist Church in Irvington, right, on Sunday, June 4, following his fifth annual pastoral celebration.

ORANGE, NJ — The Rev. William Rutherford Jr. of Greater New Point Baptist Church on Paine Avenue has a very simple leadership philosophy, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why he has always been so ready to open the doors of his church to those who needed somewhere to hold community-oriented events, such as the monthly Irvington NAACP meetings.

“Leadership means providing direction for those who are seeking direction,” said Rutherford Jr. on Sunday, June 4, at a celebration for his son, the Rev. H. William Rutherford III’s fifth anniversary as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Orange. “And especially as a means of giving back to the community, because of what others have done for you in laying the foundation, so that you can be where you are today.”

Rutherford III echoed that sentiment.

“We are servant leaders,” said Rutherford III on Sunday, June 4. “We don’t necessarily lead from behind, although sometimes we do. Sometimes you’ve got to push the people. Sometimes you’ve got to pull them. But we are servant leaders, so where there’s something that needs to be done, I’ve seen him do it and so I take that same mode. Whatever needs to be done, a leader is responsible for making sure it gets done.”

Marilyn Rutherford, the wife of the Rev. William Jr. and the mother of Rev. Bill Rutherford III, said this shared approach to leadership is a family trait that helped the former serve as a preacher and pastor for 45 years and the latter to pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Orange for the last five years. That’s also why, she said, family members went to her son’s church to celebrate his fifth pastoral anniversary.

“I’m proud of both of them,” Marilyn Rutherford said Sunday, June 4. “It’s been a journey. Rutherford Jr. and I have been married for 46 years. I did not marry a preacher and I told him that when he accepted the calling, but I told him then, as long as he conducted himself as I thought a preacher should, then he would have the full support of myself and his family. And for four years he’s done that and we’ve done that.”

Marilyn Rutherford said the situation was somewhat different when their son, Rutherford III, came to them and announced that he had also received “the calling” to preach the word of God, as his father had before him. She also said her reaction to his announcement was very different from what had occurred previously with her husband.

“I was so proud of him,” said Marilyn Rutherford. “I was a little surprised, but I was so proud of him that he acknowledged the calling, because he had been running from it. He has a heart of gold and he is a people’s person and I knew that he would excel at being a pastor and I knew he would do God’s will.”

She said service runs in the Rutherford family and serving God and their respective communities is very important to both the father and their son. She said, “Even as a young fella, he’s always tried to help someone,” so even though she was surprised Bill III chose to become a preacher, she wasn’t that surprised.

“In life, his mission was to help someone else,” Marilyn Rutherford said. “When he was growing up as a child, he would shovel the neighbor’s’ walks, he would go to the store, he would do whatever he could to help and he didn’t do it for monetary reasons and I knew then that he was very special. So I count it all joy at this stage. I’m so proud of him. I’m proud of his wife and his family and I just thank God daily for them and for the impact that they are having on this church and this community.”

She also said it’s “a blessing” that her son has been pastoring at Ebenezer Baptist Church for the last five years, with more on the horizon. Meanwhile, Rutherford III’s parishioners said they are grateful he decided to come to Orange.

“We’ve been here for five years; when pastor first became a part of the church, he hired me as his minister of music, so I’ve been here for five years, too,” Winston Nelson, the minister of music at Ebenezer Baptist Church, said Sunday, June 4. “He’s a great man of God. Him and his family, his lovely wife, are a great family. We love him, appreciate his leadership and we definitely aspire to be great like that one day.”

Nelson said he travels from Elizabeth to Orange on Sundays for church services. He said they’re “just grateful for everything that he’s done for us and for this community as well,” and his wife, Shante, echoed his sentiments.

“We love the pastor, we love the ‘first lady’ and their children,” said Shante Nelson on Sunday, June 4. “They’re great to us and they’re great to the church and we love them and we appreciate them for all that they’re doing for the work of God and the work for the kingdom. Happy five years and many more.”

Leonard Busby and his wife, Florine, reside in Irvington and are members of Rutherford Jr.’s congregation at Greater New Point Baptist Church in that town. They said they came out to Ebenezer Baptist Church on Sunday, June 4, to celebrate their pastor’s son’s fifth anniversary as the spiritual leader of the Orange church and were glad they did.

“We were there at Greater New Point in Irvington worshipping this morning,” said Leonard Busby on Sunday, June 4. “We had the dad in the morning and the son in the afternoon and it was beautiful. It was great. You couldn’t ask for anything more.”

He also said they came to hear Rutherford III preach in person at his own church and realized something important about the father and the son.

“They say the apple don’t fall far from the tree so therefore that tells you pretty much what’s happening there,”Leonard Busby, a member of Rutherford Jr.’s congregation at Greater New Point Baptist in Irvington for 10 years, said. “Our pastor is a great preacher and speaker and he knows how to showcase people and worship and praise God to the highest degree. And now his son is doing the same thing in Orange.”

The Rutherfords, father and son, both said “it’s all in service to God” and all in the family, too, even though the father said he never thought his son would become a pastor.

“I was surprised when God called him and he acknowledged the call,” Rutherford Jr. said Sunday, June 4. “I felt good when he was called. I was proud that he acknowledged the call. He said: ‘I’ve been called to preach,’ and I said: ‘That’s great.’ I tutored him along the way. I have 45 years of preaching experience and I tutored him along the way and God did the rest. Both of us went to theological school at Drew University Seminary in Madison.”

Rutherford III said he also inherited his activist spirit as a preacher and pastor from both his parents and is glad and proud to be putting it to work, serving his congregation and the larger Orange community.

“It was a rough road there for a little while, but that goes to show you what God can do,” said Rutherford III on Sunday, June 4. “I get my activist spirit from my dad and my mom. He’s only in New Jersey because he was run out of Georgia. He had to leave because he was registering people to vote and white folks didn’t like that. He only left because the threats weren’t just against him; they were against his family and their entire community, too. After he left, the threats stopped. We still in the grind. We still in the struggle.”

The struggle today is the same as it has always been, Rutherford III said, but it now includes strengthening the church, in order to better serve the Orange community. And anyone who sees Ebenezer Baptist Church on the corner of Park and Williams streets will notice the positive changes in the building’s physical appearance since Rutherford III came.

But according to Rutherford III, there’s a reason he made improving the church’s physical facilities a priority when he took over as pastor five years ago.

“Now we’re coming on the inside; you’ve got to strengthen the shell and make sure that we have a solid structure and then we can fix the inside, so we have work to do,” said Rutherford III. “We don’t do it just to do it. We don’t do it for cosmetics or aesthetics. We do it because it makes us more efficient.

“We can’t serve this community if our building is falling down. We can’t feed the people if we don’t have a kitchen. We can’t clothe the people if we don’t have a way for them to come and get it; a place to store it, a place to clean it. So we do this with an eye toward how do we serve this community? We do whatever we can to help. If there’s something that needs to be done and we can do it, we certainly will. And I learned all of this from my dad and my mother.”