HOCKINSON — Preachers for the Church of Christ tend to move from job to job every few years. Four or five years is a good, long tenure, according to Ron Higgins, and then most are ready to explore new options and accept better offers.
How then does Higgins explain his 38 years at the helm of the Hockinson Church of Christ?
As with all Churches of Christ, Higgins said, this group is independent-minded and makes its own decisions. “Not answerable to any headquarters in this world,” he said. In his case, the Hockinson congregation bucked the trend and went for long-term loyalty.
That fit Higgins just fine. When he came aboard in 1972, he had a young family and a troubled past full of bad decisions and personal demons. As a child, his family had followed his carpenter father’s jobs around California. NHe and his wife, Nancy — a preacher’s daughter who was also tired of an itinerant life — were ready for stability.
“Money was no object,” he said. What they wanted was a chance to build a life. Higgins appreciated the intimacy and friendliness of the tiny church group then meeting at the Hazel Dell Grange.
“I saw opportunities everywhere,” Higgins said. Clark County “was wide open, not as developed as it is now.”
Scott Higgins was 3 months old when his father moved his family from the Bay Area of San Francisco to Camas. As a young man, he wanted nothing more than to get away from his hometown. He attended Florida College, earned a general studies degree and basically goofed around — until he met his future wife during a visit back to Clark County. Like his dad, Scott decided it was the right place to settle down and raise a family.
Now, at age 38, Scott Higgins is a thrice-elected Camas City Councilman and just starting his second job as a preacher — taking up exactly where his father left off, in the pulpit of the Hockinson Church of Christ. Easter Sunday was his first sermon as preacher there, with dozens of visitors from Camas in attendance.
“A lot of people who know me in a completely different role were curious to see another side of me,” he said.
At the same time he got the church’s job offer, Scott Higgins also was invited to run for the seat being vacated by state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Camas, who is pursuing a run for Congress. He said it was easy to decide in favor of a future in the church and against trying to rise higher in the divisive world of politics.
Church elder Steve Mallory said the church congregation was aware of taking an unusual step — yet another one — when it hired the son to replace the father.
“We did consider others but several things appealed,” Mallory said. “We trained Scott. We had a younger preachers program and he was in that. After it was over, he remained here. From time to time, he got to preach.”
Scott Higgins eventually got a job with a church in Tualatin, Ore. But after three years, he felt he wanted to be closer to home and family — his wife, Allison, an OB-GYN doctor at Southwest Washington Medical Center, and daughters Rachel, 8, and Chloe, 2.
“We watched him and saw what a wonderful job he was doing (in Tualatin),” Mallory said. “He was instrumental in helping grow their church. Our purpose is to grow, and we felt he could do a good job with that.”
Combine that with Scott Higgins’ roots in the congregation, Mallory said, and it was hard not to conclude that the preacher’s son was the best possible fit — even though the church wanted to avoid any appearance of “pastoral inheritance.”
“We wanted to avoid that illusion,” he said. “We gave him the same chance as anybody. We went on his qualifications, not his father’s.”
“He is coming in with more tools than I had,” Ron Higgins said.
If you’re not plugged in as a child, Ron Higgins mused during an interview the week after Easter, it’s pretty hard to plug in as a 72-year-old.
“Right click?” he remembers repeating in puzzlement during a Power Point class he took. “What’s right click?”
He managed to tame Power Point and put it to use during sermons, but his son is far more fluent working with information-age realities such as Web sites, podcasts and e-mail, not to mention artful Power Point presentations.
But Ron’s own handiwork is on display most impressively in the Hockinson Church of Christ building itself. The journeyman carpenter managed the entire construction project and saw it built — entirely with volunteer labor, including his own — for under $1 million. Doors opened in 2006.
“Nobody got killed,” Ron Higgins laughed with relief. The soaring open space is serene, crowned with exposed roof beams and has great acoustics, he said.
“The singing is awesome,” he said. “You feel like you’re in heaven.”
While Ron Higgins has stepped down as preacher, he said he’ll continue as a church elder.
“Retirement?” he said with a chuckle. “The elders put a list of things to do on my desk.”
