On the last Sunday of May, Bill Tuck was extended warm farewells as he concluded a 20-month interim pastorate at the First Baptist Church of Raleigh, N.C. The congregation formed a long line to give handshakes and hugs to Bill and his wife, Emily. At the conclusion of the worship service, the congregation presented two separate resolutions of appreciation, one for each of the Tucks. It was a gracious conclusion to the interim as the church anticipates its new pastor, Chris Chapman, who arrives this coming Sunday. For the people of Raleigh, for Chris and Dana Chapman and for the Tucks, it is a time of transitions. (Virginia Baptists will recall that Chapman served as pastor of Ginter Park Baptist Church, Richmond, from 1992-98. He comes to Raleigh from the pastorate of Knollwood Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C.)
Bill and Emily Tuck
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For those 20 months, Bill Tuck often traveled I-85 between his home in Richmond and his temporary apartment and office in Raleigh. It was almost like déjà vu for Tuck, who in the late 1950s was commuting weekly from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary near Raleigh to his student pastorate at Good Hope Baptist Church in Central Virginia. Now he was doing the same journey backwards and on a busy interstate.
For Emily Tuck, her husband’s Raleigh interim was also like a time-out-of-joint. She experienced a reconnection with the memories and places of her young womanhood. She graduated in 1960 from Meredith College, the North Carolina Baptist school for women; and during her college years, she attended First Baptist Church. On that final Sunday, she told the congregation: “Seldom does a person at my age get to come back to a place of their youth and renew relationships. What a gift to come back to this church after all these years and see that you are still a place of stability and security and still putting a foundation under people as you did for me.”
She also shared that when she graduated and moved away somehow her church letter had remained at the Raleigh church. “Finally, someone in the church office called me about my whereabouts,” she laughed. “I now feel that it was a sign that I was either not meant to have ever left or meant to come back!”
Bill and Emily Tuck were high school sweethearts in Lynchburg, where both grew up in the youth department of West Lynchburg Baptist Church. Ahead were college experiences. Bill was encouraged to attend Bluefield College and the University of Richmond, two of the Baptist schools in Virginia. Emily enrolled in Meredith and soon discovered that the women’s school was committed to high academic standards for their students.
The couple married in June 1960 and began a life which took them to numerous places, including his graduate studies at Emory University in Atlanta and doctoral pursuits at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. They returned to their native Virginia in 1966 when he accepted the pastorate of Harrisonburg Baptist Church. In 1969, they moved to Bristol, where he was pastor of First Baptist Church. In 1978, they moved to Louisville where he taught preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and became pastor in 1983 of St. Matthews Baptist Church. From 1993 until his retirement in 2000, he was pastor of the First Baptist Church, Lumberton, N.C.
When the couple retired to Richmond, it was not long before the calls began to come for interim pastorates. Bill Tuck is trained in the skills and approaches needed for what has become known as “intentional interims.” He served Hampton Baptist Church and Walnut Hills Baptist Church, Williamsburg. In both churches, he followed pastors who had long and highly-regarded pastorates.
For a little while, Bill Tuck may be without an interim pastorate. For a season at least, he can transition to being a berry picker, looking for strawberries, blueberries and blackberries at area berry farms. He can enjoy his daily swims and fitness exercise. He can spend time in the handsome and well-stocked library at his home. He can begin work on a new book for which he has been commissioned by the Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies at his alma mater, the University of Richmond. The book is to examine modern shapers of Baptist thought.
For Emily Tuck, the transition will not be so severe. She will continue doing those things which she has been doing all along since the couple moved to Richmond in 2000. She will enjoy her three grandchildren and activities at their church, River Road Church, Baptist, where she often can be found teaching a Sunday school class or passing the offering plate or the communion elements as a deacon. In the early years of pastorates, she often was the one who guided the young marrieds in the church. And she may see her husband a little more often during the course of a typical week.
For nearly 50 years, William Powell Tuck and Emily Campbell Tuck have been in a marriage which has been characterized by constant love and firm stability despite professional and career transitions. In his last sermon in Raleigh, Tuck offered a long list of laypersons who touched their lives across the years, beginning with Mr. Martin in West Lynchburg, who was his Sunday school teacher. Although the teacher could not read, he would get someone else to read the Scripture and then would teach from his life’s experiences. He remembered Billy Wood, the Training Union director, who took him aside one day and said: “Billy, we want you to be our Youth Week pastor and preach the sermon.” “He encouraged me,” said Tuck. It was the beginning of many encouragers and many opportunities.
Bill Tuck is a natural pastor and he was even selected in 1997 for the Parish Pastor of the Year Award by the Academy of Parish Clergy. He also has made a lasting contribution to Baptist life through his writings. He has written about the practical aspects of ministry and handling life’s problems. He also masterfully captured Baptist distinctives in his book, Our Baptist Tradition. He is no stranger to life’s transitions and he will move gently into the next episode whatever it may offer.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.