A Historian’s Guide to Looking Ahead
Spending time with family, cultivating hobbies and interests, and serving God in new ways: this was how Rev. Jim Pyatt visualized spending his retirement, and he was determined that financial worries wouldn’t cloud this vision. Thanks to his decision to start saving for retirement early, his ideal retirement has become his reality. But what steps led him there?
Like Grandfather, Like Father, Like Son - Eventually
Although Rev. Pyatt grew up a pastor’s son and grandson, it didn’t look like he would follow their footsteps in ministry. His struggle between a call to ministry and a love of history would be best illustrated by the items on his desk during his senior year in college.
“I had several applications to seminary along with my applications to graduate programs in music history,” he remembered.
Rev. Pyatt eventually chose graduate school in the field of music history but found himself seeking solace and a sense of fulfillment through active involvement in the church. “And I said, ‘Lord, I’ll be active in the Church—just don’t ask me to get up and preach every Sunday morning’,” he said.
But the nagging feeling that he was called to doing ministry in the local church persisted, and he eventually answered the call. Many people in his church community assumed or hoped he would succeed his father, and when he finally did, it seemed everything had fallen into place. “I am third-generation clergy, not because of my choosing, but because of God’s,” he said. After 38 years of full-time ministry in the Western North Carolina Conference, God’s plan brought Rev. Pyatt to retirement.
A Family History Embedded in the Church
Rev. Jim Pyatt’s interest in local church history is likely due to his family’s involvement in the Western North Carolina Conference and him being a third-generation pastor. He noted that between him, his father and grandfather, one of them had likely served in almost any place in the conference. One of his father’s appointments was at Rev. Pyatt’s mother’s home church, where his uncle was chair of the Council of Ministries, the organist was Rev. Pyatt’s cousin, and the choir director was a long-time friend of Rev. Pyatt’s mother.
“My last appointment... the sanctuary we were in was built in 1930 when my great uncle was pastor there, whom I never knew because he died two years before I was born. But he was married to one of my paternal grandmother's younger sisters. And as we celebrated the 90th anniversary of the building, there were only two people who were part of the church who were related to the building committee at that point. The chair of the building committee's grandson is still a member of the church and continues the family business. And then me as the great nephew of the pastor who was there when the sanctuary was built, which was kind of neat. And nobody was aware of that connection until I was there and I looked at the list of former ministers and saw Uncle Joe served here.”
