When Rev. Steve West began thinking about retirement, he wasn’t sure what the next chapter of his life would hold. After 36 years of serving churches across North Alabama, he admits, “I wasn’t quite ready for retirement, but because of my dad living here and him needing me, and our daughter living in Irondale… we were feeling the need to move here.”
A three-day prayer retreat brought him clarity. “I was struggling with the question, 'what am I going to do if I retire early?' I was not ready for that kind of thing, and I went on a prayer retreat for three days at a monastery and prayed through this. I’ve never heard God talk verbally, but the message I kept getting from God was, ‘Steve, I’ve got this. I’ve got something for you.’”
That “something” turned out to be Fair Haven—though not in a way Steve could have predicted. On his way home from the retreat, he decided to stop by Fair Haven to see his father, Pete. It was about ice cream social time so he went to get his dad some ice cream and ran into the Life Enrichment Director at Fair Haven. “I saw Anna Warner and she said, and I quote, ‘Are you a senior minister or are you a music director?’ I said, ‘I’m a pastor’. Her eyes got big and she said, ‘Before you leave this building I want you to go see Earnestine in the front office and tell her that you’re a United Methodist pastor.’”
Indeed, Steve walked downstairs and poked his head in the door of the residential administrator’s office and said, ‘Hey, I’m Steve West, Pete West is my Dad, but Anna told me to drop by and tell you that I’m a United Methodist pastor.’ She said, ‘Come here and sit down.’” Earnestine Thompson didn’t offer him the job on the spot, but that was the beginning of the conversation. “I really took that as a calling, and I was able to work it out as an appointment.”
Steve works Sunday through Wednesday, and was able defer his official retirement, find time to do some writing, plus he and his wife Sandy get the extra time they wanted to be with their young grandbaby. “That’s basically how it happened. As soon as I talked to Earnestine I knew that I wanted to do it. I knew it was the right thing.”
Steve is no stranger to Fair Haven. He grew up in Bluff Park and attended Birmingham-Southern College. He had an aunt that lived at Fair Haven for a time. And as a pastor serving in several area churches– Chelsea, Vestavia Hills and Hoover – he would occasionally make visits to Fair Haven. But now, Steve has a chance to combine his experience with preaching with his deep love for music.
Music has been woven throughout Steve’s life and ministry, and it continues to shape his chaplaincy at Fair Haven. “I was a music director before I went into pastoral ministry. In college I studied music and voice and piano and organ, and I thought I was going into music ministry. But half way through college felt called more to the pastoral side. I’ve always been a minister musician. I have a little portable fold-up keyboard with a full 88 keys. Dad bought me that for my birthday because he knew I would need it... I visit all the households and neighborhoods at Fair Haven, and we have a worship time, almost every week…You know there’s just a part in your soul for music, and it’s lodged in there.”
Steve also shared some wisdom passed down recently from his father. “I had this funny conversation with my dad. I asked him one day, ‘What do you think people are really looking for in a Chaplain’s sermon?’ And he said, ‘Talk loud, and repeat yourself.’” Steve laughs. “Now I was expecting something about their spiritual needs or something, but I got to thinking about that and that is kind of a baseline. And what I discovered is instead of a three-point sermon it’s a one-point sermon, but I just say it 3 times. I make a key phrase, something they can remember, and I get them to repeat it with me…That’s what I’ve done since I’ve been here.”
For Steve, serving as Chaplain at Fair Haven is more than preaching—it’s about presence. He not only makes himself available to the residents, but also to their families, as well as Fair Haven staff members. “It’s not so much that there’s some magic thing that we’re going to say. In some ways it’s more just what I represent. I represent their faith.”
That presence now extends through technology as well. “I hope that there’s more than one way that that’s helpful in building community. The whole goal of live streaming worship is to help build a sense of community. The word ‘Chapel’ means ‘little home’. The word ‘Sanctuary’ means ‘place of refuge or safety’. Nobody grew up here at Fair Haven. None of them would say this is their home church. But it’s a little home away from home. The Chapel ministries becomes about building Christian community with a bunch of people that aren’t from the same place that you’re from.”
Steve said her learned a lot about technology in ministry during his previous appointment at First United Methodist in Jacksonville, Alabama, where he was serving when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. He sees the live streaming and video uploads as meeting multiple needs, and discussed the various ways technology will help foster community at Fair Haven. “One of them is when people who are a part of the worship community have to miss because they’re not feeling well, they can catch up or feel like they can join in. Another one is that we have residents here in assisted and independent living who still drive to their local church on Sunday mornings. They can catch up with it later and feel like they’ve been a part of Chapel.”
“Then you’ve got a third group of people who are not ambulatory enough to get to the Chapel. They might want to watch it in their room, or their caregiver or sitter might put it on for them. The fourth is that there may be entire Fair Haven households that might want to watch it in the main living room on the Smart TV together. The fifth audience is family members of residents who are interested in the Christian community at Fair Haven.”
Families, friends, residents, and anyone who is interested, are invited to join and share in worship with Rev. West and the Fair Haven community. Chapel worship services are live streamed on Facebook each Sunday around 10:40 a.m. at https://www.facebook.com/FairHavenBirmingham and then uploaded to YouTube by 1 pm that same afternoon at https://www.youtube.com/@TheGoodShepherdChapelFH.
NOTE: Shortly after posting this interview, Rev. Pete West, Steve's father, passed away. Our deepest sympathies to the West family.
