Coming home again has been good for Mark Boyd and his family. Mark grew up in Barboursville in the Baptist Church. While in seminary, he discovered that he was not Baptist and had never really been Baptist. He found that he most closely aligned with the Reformed tradition and the Presbyterian Church.
While in seminary at Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Mark served a Presbyterian church in Midia, PA, as director of youth and children’s programs. After ordination, he served as solo pastor of the Park Presbyterian Church in Beaver, PA. He has served on the executive board of Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PFMEP) and as a member-at-large of the PCUSA’s Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA). He also served on his Presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry and Committee on Ministry.
In addition to his time in Pennsylvania, Mark worked as an Assistant General Manager at Wawa in Tampa and Miami, FL. Concerned about the number of moves that his children had to go through, as well as feeling a call to chaplaincy, Mark moved back to Cabell County, where he was accepted into a chaplaincy residency program at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Huntington. Joining him in the move were his wife, Jamie, and their three younger children; their oldest child, Makenzie, is living in Altamonte Springs, FL, where she and her husband are both ICU nurses.
Mark did not anticipate returning to parish ministry. He thought that his calling was to chaplaincy. However, God had a different idea.
Mark was in the on-call room at St. Mary’s when he did his first Zoom call with the Pastor Nominating Committee of the First Presbyterian Church in St. Albans. He was attracted to their care for each other and their obvious passion for mission and ministering to their community. He describes First St. Albans as a little church with a big heart and big ideas.
Rev. Mark Boyd became the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of St. Albans in January 2021. He first took the position as a half-time pastor while he was still working as a chaplain at St. Mary’s. It was understood that once he finished his chaplaincy residency in August he would become full-time at the church. That has gone according to plan.
As with every call, there have been some adjustments that Mark and the church had to make. In December 2020, when Mark did his candidating sermon for the church, the church had not been meeting in person for several months, though they did meet in person that day. But for Mark’s first service in January 2021, he was preaching to a mostly empty church. The pandemic was keeping people at home.
The church spent a considerable amount of money upgrading their technology for a better quality livestream. This has been an invaluable help in their ministry. Over the next few months, the church did start meeting again in person. They had missed the in-person worship and the fellowship of one another. The session had to deal with the frustrating issues of masking, social distancing, and how to serve communion during a pandemic. Mark also says the technology glitches were quite different and new to him. He quips, “At least Jesus didn’t have to deal with technology issues.”
Another difference between this and past calls has been the length of Mark’s commute. Having moved to Cabell County just within the last year, he did not want to have to move the family again. The church has been very understanding and supportive of the family in allowing them to remain enrolled in Cabell County schools and stay close to their grandparents. In spite of the longer commute and traffic jams on I-64, Mark has made a commitment to be at the church every day. He has been very grateful for Zoom meetings that have allowed him to be home with his family most evenings.
Mark has been very impressed with the way that the congregation has cared for him and his family, as well, as other members of the church. The Congregational Care Committee of the church goes above and beyond to provide meals, transportation, and other help to those most vulnerable in the congregation. They want their most vulnerable members to know that they are still a part of the congregation in every way.
First St. Albans has been busy living out its passion to care for others in their community and beyond. They received a grant from the Presbytery for their work as partners with St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church and their Hezekiah House, which ministers to those recovering from opioid addiction. Also, the church is continuing to serve as host for WVMAW workcamps, and they have provided a “Littles” outreach to families of young children. The church has a good playground for the kids, and church members volunteer to do story time with the kids. Although this program was not started as a means of increasing the church’s membership, there have already been parents of the young kids who have started coming to worship as a result of the Littles program. In addition, the church prepared and delivered more than 150 blessing bags, which they called ” Fuel for the Fight,” earlier this winter as an outreach to Thomas Memorial Hospital nurses working in the ED, ICU, and Respiratory Therapy. The church has also reached out to help those in low-rent apartments in the community.
Mark’s dreams for the church include a continued living out of the church in Acts, letting people know of Jesus’ love for them “in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Mark plans to take some of their youth to the Cabell-Lincoln Workcamps. He also hopes to take some people on international work and mission trips.
May God continue to bless the ministry of Rev. Mark Boyd and the First Presbyterian Church of St. Albans!