Community Presbyterian Church has new head pastor

Community Presbyterian Church, Atlantic Beach, has called the Rev. Melanie Marsh Baum as its new head pastor. She will lead this church community into a new era for this well-established Beach church. Her  call comes after the retirement of Community Presbyterian’s longtime pastor, the Rev. Gabe Goodman, and a time with interim pastor, the Rev. Conley A. Zomermaand.
Baum is a native Floridian, a graduate of Florida State University and a lifelong Presbyterian. According to the regional governing body of the denomination, The Presbytery of St. Augustine, “Rev. Baum is the first African-American female to serve as head of staff in the presbytery.”
The Presbytery of St. Augustine serves 58 churches in Florida’s northeast and north central regions.
“The thing I kept coming back to during the call process,” Baum said, “is that Community Presbyterian (CPC) is a place where people love one another, and love of people and community is enough to transcend conflict and differences. In our world, there are few places where people of different beliefs can exist together in community. A place that allows that to happen should be celebrated and nurtured. The opportunity to do that is what drew me here.”
Baum grew up in this presbytery at Ft. King Presbyterian Church, Ocala, and has been active at every level of church work. She was a camp director at Camp Montgomery, active in the local and national Presbyterian Youth Council, and was only 17 when ordained a church elder. She comes back to Florida after serving The Church of the Covenant, Cleveland, Ohio, since 2015. She was associate pastor and, most recently, head of staff there.
Baum and her husband, Darrell, grew up together in Ocala. They have three children, 8-year-old Violet, 4-year-old Lena and 11-month-old James. Also close by are her parents, who are retired physicians. Her grandparents were immigrants from Jamaica. Her mother-in-law and father-in-law, a retired Presbyterian minister, are also close by.
Receiving her BFA degree in theater from FSU, Baum served as a program director for Eveoke Dance Theatre in San Diego, where she developed dance and drama programs for at-risk teens and adults. She also coordinated outreach and educational programming for the school system.
“I knew at 13 to 15 years of age that I was sensing a call to ministry. I believe that my whole journey was part of my call.”
Entering college, she said, she was deciding between a career in Christian education or the arts.
“Every step of the way,” she said, “I kept circling back through the arts to ministry.”
All of her assignments were with social services, “caring work, which felt like a clear call.”
She sees her experience in the arts as a valuable asset to her ministry.
“In that world, you have to learn to inhabit other people’s lives and stories. You learn to see the world from a perspective that’s different from your own. Ministry is working with people, even if you are world’s apart.
“Church life is learning about how to live with other people; we are on this journey together,” she said. “There is so much that unites us, even in our differences. We are called by God to love and to let God lead us in all we do in our journey of faith.”
She lists her number one goal as “making sure the church is a place where people know they are welcome – more like home. That’s the environment I want to create. We want to reach out to those who need care, a voice, inclusion in the realm of the church.
“I want people to feel a part of our congregation, even if they are never here on Sunday morning.”
One example is Community Presbyterian’s long mission, Our Father’s Housewares. This is one of the things that sealed Baum's interest in CPC.
“I want to make sure that these interactions are fruitful and that we build on these relationships. We can expand our community. Through any of our missions in the community, we want (those we serve) to see themselves as part of the CPC community.”
Her leadership, she hopes, will “help us to have a very expansive understanding of family/ community.”
“A big part of my initial period of time here is going to be spent listening to others and learning who we are as a body of faith, what is our footprint in the community? Also, I want to meet the leaders in other congregations and civic groups to see how we can encourage each other in our diverse ministries. We all have gifts we can bring to the table when we collaborate with each other.”
Community Presbyterian Church is located at 150 Sherry Drive, Atlantic Beach. For information, go to www.cpcab.org or call 249-8698.